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Support for Liverpool’s vulnerable residents at risk as coronavirus funding falls short, warns mayor
Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson has warned that the city’s council will run out of money to support the homeless and those in social care settings if it does not receive additional funding from the government.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has allocated the city a total of £34m in funding, but Mr Anderson warned the cost to the council already stands at £78m.
He has now instructed Liverpool City Council’s chief finance officer to call an emergency budget meeting, to address the £44m shortfall.
Mr Anderson said: “The simple question now is: do we have the money to protect the most vulnerable, the thousands of families on the poverty line, the thousands more who have been pushed below it, and those on our streets and in our care homes?”
He added that using population size to determine the funding necessary for councils to handle the pandemic is a “woefully simplistic approach and leaves cities like ours on a huge cliff edge – whilst smaller, leafier places receive relatively huge sums”.
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The government’s formula for its first tranche of funding, in which Liverpool received £20.2m, recognised the pressures individual areas were facing and was not simply based on population, the mayor said.
However, MHCLG allocated Liverpool £13.7m in its second round of coronavirus funding – a fall of 32%. By comparison, Birmingham City Council received £31.6m, Kent County Council £27.8m, Essex County Council £26.2m and Hampshire County Council £24.3m.
Liverpool’s planned £30m cut to its budget has been “left in tatters”, the mayor said, as he warned the fallout from COVID-19 will last longer than that of austerity, with the council’s poor financial position leading to more deaths.
Since the onset of the pandemic, the council has set up food hubs and 50 school hubs, ordered new batches of PPE, provided thousands of meal vouchers, and housed the city’s rough sleepers.
An MHCLG spokesperson said: “The government is providing a significant package of support for councils across the Liverpool city region, including over £102m to deal with the pressures of coronavirus, and their core spending power rose by over £92m this financial year, even before this additional funding was announced.
“In total, we are providing councils with over £3.2bn, which responds to the range of pressures councils have told us they are facing.”
