But shortfall could still be huge
Devon councils are getting a further £33 million from central government to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.
It's the second tranche after £36 million came in March, which went mainly to top tier authorities, with £35m of the £36.7m handed to Devon, Torbay and Plymouth councils. In this second round, eight district council get a larger slice totalling nearly £8m.
Devon’s district councils said that the first round was not enough and that the coronavirus crisis and lockdown measures leave them facing significant and catastrophic financial pressures. While the extra funds in second round of funding has been welcomed, Mid Devon District Council’s chief executive Stephen Walford claims that "it doesn’t solve the problem".
He says: "We welcome this second tranche of emergency funding to support councils and are grateful that the Ministry seems to have more clearly recognised the pressures on districts in the short-term. However, this takes the total funding announced nationally to £3.2 billion, when the current estimates of the total cost to councils are around £10 billion."
The announcement builds on other government measures, including allowing councils to defer the payment of business rates to central government and providing them with a combined £850million in up-front social care grants that will help with cashflow.
Karime Hassan, Chief Executive and Growth Director of Exeter City Council, says the amount Exeter received is roughly the amount of income it has lost to date because of the lockdown.
A spokesman for Devon County Council added: “We have received £36.7 million from the government so far to support our work with coronavirus and obviously our estimates on extra spending and loss of income differ from day to day, but this will cover a substantial part of our expenditure on coronavirus to date. Our major spending so far has been on preparations for the virus, on increasing the number of adult care beds, on PPE and compensating our care staff.”
| First round | Second round | Total | |
| Devon | £ 22,516,153.00 | £ 14,195,595.00 | £ 36,711,748.00 |
| East Devon | £ 46,976.00 | £ 1,467,105.00 | £ 1,514,081.00 |
| Exeter | £ 72,737.00 | £ 1,306,278.00 | £ 1,379,015.00 |
| Mid Devon | £ 38,976.00 | £ 825,286.00 | £ 864,262.00 |
| North Devon | £ 52,672.00 | £ 965,336.00 | £ 1,018,008.00 |
| Plymouth | £ 8,464,484.00 | £ 7,236,310.00 | £ 15,700,794.00 |
| South Hams | £ 33,962.00 | £ 866,545.00 | £ 900,507.00 |
| Teignbridge | £ 59,771.00 | £ 1,342,148.00 | £ 1,401,919.00 |
| Torbay | £ 5,371,954.00 | £ 3,764,926.00 | £ 9,136,880.00 |
| Torridge | £ 41,925.00 | £ 685,208.00 | £ 727,133.00 |
| West Devon | £ 29,023.00 | £ 555,735.00 | £ 584,758.00 |
| TOTAL | £ 36,728,633.00 | £ 33,210,472.00 | £ 69,939,105.00 |
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