Cornwall Being in Tier 1 is No Accident

“Cornwall being in Tier 1 is no accident” was the verdict of Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader of Cornwall Council.

As the Covid-19 vaccine starts to be rolled out in Cornwall by our local health services, the Council’s Cabinet set out the shift from ‘responding’ to ‘recovering’ from the pandemic, as ‘normal’ services start getting back on track.

Council success measures show a dramatic increase as a number of services have been re-instated and capital construction works recommenced.  The performance indicators are available on a new interactive quarterly performance dashboard on the Let’s Talk Cornwall website, focused on improving the transparency and accessibility of the Council’s performance reporting for the residents of Cornwall.

The key points of the quarterly performance update were:

• In quarter 1 Cornwall Council reported that 44% of their (usual) success measures were met, however, in this quarter that figure has increased to 69%.
• Cornwall’s housing teams have continued to work in a challenging environment during quarter 2, at its peak, 548 households within Cornwall reported as homeless – nearly double the usual number – all of whom were placed in accommodation, partly thanks to the establishment of seven additional COVID secure temporary accommodation sites.
• 90% of health visits for under 3’s are now being carried out.
• Children and Family Service user satisfaction levels have continued to remain above the challenging target of 76%, with 82% of users satisfied this quarter.
• Climate Change Emergency workstreams have continued to progress, most notably securing additional funding to deliver a 50% increase in the number of properties that will be part of a whole house retrofit pilot, as well as securing a green home grant for an additional 200 homes.
• Cornwall Council is one of only 5 areas in the UK to undertake a local nature recovery strategy pilot, which will map and develop action to start reversing the decline of our natural places.

However, there remains a significant challenge to bring the budget into balance, in the wake of the COVID pandemic. The total impacts are likely to be in the range of £109m with a Government support grant towards these costs of just £89m; a £20 million gap.

Deputy Leader of Cornwall Council, Adam Paynter concluded:

“We have now moved from responding to the pandemic to recovering from it. This shift to recovery in Cornwall demonstrates that Lib Dems with their Independent colleagues on Cornwall Council have responded better to the crisis than the national government. Significant challenges continue to be faced, but the Council is meeting those head on, which is partly why we were the only mainland authority in tier 1, and today it has been announced we will remain in this lowest Tier. This achievement, with the residents of Cornwall, has not happened by accident.”