Plymouth's chair of Health and Wellbeing says silence on Public Health funding is "risking lives"
Ministers are yet to publish how they money will be allocated for the next year
Plymouth's chair of Health and Wellbeing is demanding the Government finally publish this year's funding for Public Health.
Councillor Kate Taylor says their silence is "risking lives in the middle of a pandemic".
With the new financial year only nine weeks away, Cllr Taylor says it is making planning for the year ahead "impossible".
The City Council say the prolonged uncertainty comes at a time when local authorities are facing wider budget cuts and pressure from central government to raise Council Tax by 5%.
The Government has announced that Plymouth City Council’s Core Spending Power (not including public health budgets) will increase by just £9.338 million with £7.922 million of this rise expected to come from increasing Council Tax.
"We are in the middle of the worst public health crisis in a hundred years, and yet the Government are forcing us to fight with one hand tied behind our back. The ongoing silence on public health is holding us back and that puts lives at risk. We need answers – now.
"From test and trace, to rolling out the vaccine, and now giving councils certainty in public health funding, the Government has repeatedly been too been slow to act, systems have failed, and lives have been lost.
"Council budgets have been ripped apart by the cost of Covid, and now the Government’s answer is to simply ask local people to pay more in their Council Tax, whilst risking a reduction in services."
Councillor Kate Taylor - Plymouth's Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Board
The Local Government Association, which represents councils, has said that Directors of Public Health and their teams desperately need certainty on how much they can budget for in 2021/22 to help their communities deal with the immediate impact of COVID-19.
According to LGA figures, public health funding grants to councils have been reduced by £700 million in real terms from 2015/16 to 2019/20.
The lack of any new money for public health in the recent Spending Review will also likely lead to greater demand pressures on the NHS, which is already facing unprecedented challenges.