|
Welcome to the NAG and SOPO newsletter for 22 May 2020. Feel free to circulate to your colleagues.
This newsletter is now delivered through our corporate service that handles all our various e-bulletins.
Manage or create a subscription.
Personal Protective Equipment
A letter from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has been circulated to councils providing information and guidance on PPE for personal assistants who are employed through a personal budget.
Personal assistants often deliver services with a clinical need for PPE. Guidance is frequently updated and a resource is being developed to specifically include personal assistants that will be published on the PPE Hub.
If a personal assistant lives in the same accommodation as the person they are supporting, they will only need additional PPE if the person is in the shielded group or has symptoms of COVID-19.
Schools
The Department for Education has issued guidance on safe working in education, childcare and children’s social care settings, including the use of PPE. This includes information on where PPE is required, effective infection protection and control, testing and guidance for specific settings.
The planning guide for primary schools issued by DfE last Friday is to help school leaders prepare to open their schools for more pupils. We have produced a workforce summary on the guidance to support you as it covers a whole range of topics, from preparing the school site and reviewing staffing plans, to practical steps to reducing risk and managing pupil and staff wellbeing and mental health. The guidance references the need for councils to sign off plans and to be party to the decisions. There clearly is room for local decision making in this guidance and talking the logistics through is a vital part of this process. We are continuing to encourage councils and schools to maintain local engagement with their recognised trade unions.
DfE also published an update to the 'schools Q&A' document: 'Actions for schools during the coronavirus outbreak' which includes new and updated Q&A's on a range of issues including schools re-opening, May bank holiday and half term, disciplinary processes and school trips.
Council workforce
The National Joint Council for local government services has today issued a further circular containing updates on issues related to COVID-19; the government’s recovery guidance; abuse of employees; working at home tax relief; and annual leave.
Returning to Work - Water supply safety
As our local economies start to open again it’s vital that we take the necessary health and safety precautions to ensure they are safe. Businesses are being urged to carry out vital safety checks to their water systems to avoid increasing the risk of Legionnaires’ disease.
The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) has published new guidance on Legionella for businesses reopening. The guidance highlights key risk factors, legal requirements, and sets out advice to businesses on ensuring their water supply is safe and ready to use – please pass this on to businesses looking to re-open in the coming weeks.
Care home support and resilience plans
Further to the announcement last week of £600m in ringfenced support for care homes’ infection control, the government has released the allocations for each local authority area. These are allocated on a per place basis, including self-funder places. The list is available here.
Councils and their partners can access support from CHIP to develop their resilience plans including to facilitate the local conversations needed to gather information or agree needs and next steps. Contact your regional CHIA or ADASS lead, or email adass.lga.covid@local.gov.uk.
ADASS Provider Support Survey
ADASS conducted a rapid survey of members to see how councils are using this additional funding to support local providers to deal with short-term cash flow issues. This rapid survey of ADASS members ran for just three days, with 89% of local authorities across England responding. Some of the key findings are below and the full report is available.
Ensuring payments in advance
- 95% of respondents stated that they are using different types of payments in advance to protect providers locally. Mechanisms include:
- Immediate payments (within seven days),
- Guaranteed payments including day service providers who are unable to run services and home care providers who are unable to deliver all care packages
- Block purchases of beds to support provider cashflow and sustainability.
Covering Provider temporary cost pressures
Based on those local authorities that stated that they had taken action to address temporary cost pressures being experienced by providers:
- 97% have provided financial support to providers to help them deal with immediate, temporary cost pressures. Actions taken include:
- Establishing emergency funds for providers to claim back excess cost
- Providing 5%-10% temporary uplifts in fees
- Providing lump sums upfront to guarantee care provision
- The remaining 3% are providing support for cost pressures but their approaches require further clarification that could not be sought and secured in the short time period that the survey was open for.
Care Home Support Implementation Status Template
The template for local authority care home support implementation has now been published, along with the letter from the Minister and the Support Package document that were published last week.
High streets and town centres
Over the coming weeks the LGA will be working again with the People and Places Partnership to update our own guidance on revitalising high streets and town centres – until then, councils may find this draft manual useful.
STAR Procurement 10 Point Plan to Support Recovery
As Government restrictions begin to be lifted, it is more important than ever that we continue with and increase the support available to our local communities, business communities and VCSE sector with our 'new normal'. STAR have launched a 10-point plan to provide assistance to councils throughout the continuation of lockdown and beyond.
Coronavirus (COVID-19): guidance for local government
Find sector specific COVID-19 guidance on the Government’s dedicated web resource for local government.
Webinars/e-Learning
Effective E-Procurement in the Public Sector - 25 May 2020
Risk Management in Public Procurement - 29 May 2020
Procure to Pay Process Optimisation - Reducing Costs - 9 June 2020
CIPFA Complex Procurements – Future of Development Agreements, Framework Agreements & Contract Modifications Post COVID-19 - 16 June 2020 - Webinar
|
