A coronavirus 10 point plan has been announced by Hull City Council leader Stephen Brady.
The Covid 19 Response 10 Point Plan was revealed during a meeting of Full Council at the Guildhall today.
It includes targeting support for the most vulnerable, supporting residents and offering help to businesses.
Cllr Brady told the meeting in a speech that plans are in place to respond to the challenges of coronavirus during “unprecedented times”.
Here is the plan in full, as revealed by Cllr Brady.
Hull City Council’s Covid 19 Response 10 Point Plan
1. Delivering statutory Public Health responsibilities: “To do everything that we can, within our ability and available resources, to protect the health and wellbeing of our residents, working with the NHS Hull CCG, the Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Humber LRF and our other partners and providers.”
2. Targeting efforts on those who need our help and support most: “This includes the most at risk groups in our city, such as the elderly and those with long term pre-existing medical conditions, fulfilling our responsibility as a corporate parent to support vulnerable children and families and by directing, and redeploying existing resources where we can, and working with the NHS Hull CCG, our hospital, our schools, our social care providers and through the establishment of a dedicated Social Care Hub.”
3. Targeting support on other key vulnerable groups: “We are expecting to see an increase in safeguarding and vulnerability concerns because of the recent national self-isolation policies and also anticipate challenges in the health and wellbeing of other vulnerable groups, such as those facing poverty, those using foodbanks, those at risk from domestic abuse and the homeless. We are working closely with providers and voluntary organisations on this.”
4. Supporting residents and co-ordinating a community response: “We will shortly be establishing an on-line Helping Hull volunteering hub to help us to coordinate and safely manage the many wonderful offers of help and support from within our community. This will also work with council staff who will be redeployed from non-key services and with voluntary and community organisations across the city. We are also issuing a Council Home Guarantee meaning none of our social housing tenants will lose their home as the result of the coronavirus.”
5. Supporting businesses: “We have already established a dedicated Business Support Team to advise our local businesses on business rate relief, Government grants and business loans. We are also paying all of our invoices for services provided to the council on a priority basis so that we can help with business cash-flow, keep businesses operating and keep local people employed.”
The Guildhall Chambers.
6. Supporting the workforce: “We have already implemented our plans to allow home working for as many staff as we can through the rapid expansion of our WorkSmart programme. Not all of our staff can work from home, particularly those providing our vital front line services and those in certain key roles, and we are prioritising staff in vulnerable groups or situations where we can. We will also work with our schools to maintain the provision of child care arrangements for key workers across the city.”
7. Reviewing and maintaining democratic governance, decision making and community leadership: “We are suspending many of our non-essential meetings, such as most Scrutiny Commissions, whilst maintaining democratic oversight. We expect guidance from the Government shortly, and an imminent change in legislation to remove the requirement for face to face meetings in some areas such as licencing and planning, and the leader will be working with his cabinet, the chief executive and his team on business critical decisions. Our staff will work with our elected members to support their work with their communities and we will work with our opposition groups to maintain the essential role of our elected members from all parties.”
8. Monitoring and responding to any community and neighbourhood issues and tensions: “Our staff will be working in partnership with Humberside Police and the voluntary sector to support our communities.”
9. Overseeing and reconciling the financial and organisational impact: “We will be capturing the financial impact of the many additional burdens being placed on the council, and the loss of income from services, such as Hull Culture and Leisure, to reduce organisational risk, and ensure we lobby Government for much more additional financial support to cover these costs so they are not borne in the long run by our local residents and businesses.”
10. Communicate: “We will use all our channels to issue regular updates on the situation and the various aspects of this plan.”
