Non-urgent council services remain under threat as council staff 'pinged'
Over 60 Wigan council staff are currently off work due to having to self-isolate
Wigan council bosses say non-urgent services such as street cleaning could continue to be scaled back whilst the borough's infection rates remain high.
Despite a drop in the number of people testing positive in the borough in recent days, COVID rates in Wigan are still the highest in Greater Manchester.
Last week saw more than 60 members of staff having to take time off through having to isolate which has forced councillors to shift staff around to plug the gaps.
Whilst COVID rates have dropped slightly in recent days, Wigan still has the highest rates in Greater Manchester.
Currently, over 700 people per 100,000 are testing positive for coronavirus in the borough, higher than at any point during the first and second waves in March 2020 and January 2021.
Deputy Council Leader Keith Cunliffe said:
"We don't receive any notice of when staff are going to be off if they get pinged"
"It's creating tremendous difficulties in ensuring that essential services such as the household waste collections and urgent repairs keep going."
"We're having to respond and react to this virtually daily."
"It's not so much the number of people but it's where they work and what their role is."
"We're not experiencing anything that any other council isn't experiencing."
"But, it's not necessarily the number of people off but who is off that's more important."
"The whole government approach to this has been an absolute crisis."
"If it had been more carefully planned in the first place, it might have been helpful."
"After freedom day, there's likely to start to be an increase again so we're just having to cope as the best we can."
"It's haphazard, not planned out and we keep having to add some jobs."
"I just wish they had been more careful about freedom day been more cautious and done it in steps."
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