Agenda

On 15 July 2020, the Chief Executive took a decision under Emergency Urgency Powers to ‘waive’ the payment of the contract fee to the Council and agree to underwrite costs to facilitate the reopening of K2 Crawley, The Bewbush Centre and The Broadfield 3G pitch.

With the current distancing and public health requirements in place, the guidance under Procurement Policy Note 02/20 continues to apply and as such the Leader of the Council, in consultation with the Head of Corporate Finance and the Chief Executive, took the decision on 8 October 2020 to extend the contract variation whereby the contract fee would not be paid and the Council would meet the operational cost up to an agreed capped level of £72,000 for October 2020.  It is anticipated that approval for an extension of this agreement (covering the period November 2020 to March 2021) will be requested as part of a report to the Full Council on 21 October 2020.

It was considered that this decision was urgent and it was impractical to convene a quorate meeting of the Council to consider this decision, and as such it was taken under Rule C.8 of the Financial and Budget Procedure Rules (Urgent Decisions Outside the Budget).  In accordance with Rule C.8, the Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Commission agreed that the decision was urgent and could not reasonably be deferred.

On 8 October 2020, the Chief Executive took a significant operational decision to approve the Crawley Borough Council Discretionary Track and Trace Isolation Payment Scheme.  Details of the Scheme are as follows:

As an authority we want to ensure that financial hardship does not prevent people within our community, who may not be in receipt of benefit, from self-isolating when they have been told to by the track and trace service as a result of testing positive or being a close contact of someone who has tested positive for coronavirus.

We have designed a scheme (attached) that will allow us to make payments (funds permitting) to those who will suffer financial hardship as a result of self-isolating.

Applicants will still have to meet the other conditions of the main scheme including having a track and trace number, being employed, being unable to work from home and losing income as a result of being told to self-isolate.

We will take a number of things in to consideration and will prioritise payments to

·         those with little or no savings,

·         who work in a sector where they will have a lot of social interaction such as hospitality or food preparation,

·         those with children,

·         large amount of debt and outgoings such as child maintenance,

·         those who may fear for their jobs after returning from a long period of reduced income due to being furloughed and

·         those with no recourse to public funds who cannot make an application for any benefit.

Our experienced benefit staff who make discretionary awards on a daily basis will be used to assess the discretionary applications and award where appropriate under the guidelines of the scheme.