Council Leaders pay tribute to the response by staff and citizens to Covid-19

Following the First Minister’s update on plans to reduce legally imposed protective measures, including certification schemes and the requirement to wear facemasks, Leaders have echoed her commitment to remain vigilant and prepared for any future threat from the Covid virus.

The announcement came as the Council’s Policy and Sustainability Committee considered the final update of the Council’s Adaptation and Renewal programme, set up in spring 2020 to respond to the challenges of the Covid-19 virus.

Councillors reflected on the last two years as Scotland’s capital responded to the global pandemic and paid tribute to the tireless commitment shown throughout by colleagues, partners and charities.

Council Leader Adam McVey said:

The First Minister has signalled another step back towards normality and again I’d like to thank our frontline colleagues for their incredible efforts over the course of the pandemic.

We very much welcome the new framework, and I strongly agree with the First Minister that we must remain vigilant and be prepared should anything change.

I continue to be immensely proud to lead the Council and as we take another step out of the crisis and I would like to thank colleagues, partners and volunteers once again for their hard work and their support for our city and our residents.

Services across the Council had to adapt and change significantly to respond to the urgent and critical support needed in our communities across the city. From care workers to refuse collectors, teaching staff to those helping families in crisis, our officers have been doing, and continue to do, an amazing job in incredibly challenging circumstances.

Covid is, of course, still very much with us and by looking out for one another, getting vaccinated, testing regularly, and following all the other guidance in place, we can return to more of a ‘normal’ way of living.

Depute Leader Cammy Day added:

Throughout the pandemic, our priority has remained the same: protecting vulnerable residents, keeping our staff as safe as possible and continuing to deliver essential services. Colleagues have gone above and beyond to make this happen and I want to pay tribute to the Chief Executive and all Council teams for their huge efforts over the past two years.

Now, as we look to get back to some sense of normality, we have to take this opportunity to be more forward thinking and progressive in our plans for how we work better and more efficiently together. We’re looking forward to bringing our teams back into our offices gradually and safely – supporting their wellbeing and providing a much-needed boost to local businesses.

How the Council is continuing to respond to Covid-19:

• We created five Council Resilience Centres from which we delivered essential frontline services requiring face to face contact. Areas included housing, homelessness, welfare and benefits advice.
• Reduced rough sleeping in the city to less than 15 people sleeping on our streets each night. This is a significant drop given that, prior to the pandemic, there were on average 80 – 120 people sleeping rough each night in Edinburgh. 
• Administered the Self-Isolation Grant process which has awarded 8,125 applications, giving out over £4 million of essential financial support.
• Awarded over £4 million of support to those in crisis and made payments of over £12.6m of free school meal, school clothing and pandemic hardship payments.
• Distributed over 13,800 food parcels to families and children referred by schools and early years providers. This was in addition to free school meal payments for eligible school children which also continued throughout the holiday periods.

Delivering emergency Covid-19 financial support

• Over £7m in financial support was successfully distributed to Edinburgh residents including those who lost work, have significant health issues or are struggling to afford life’s essentials. 
• Our Advice Shop has assisted more than 4,500 people to obtain information and advice regarding benefits and debt matters.
• We delivered a welfare contact service for self-isolating households. At peak periods, over 2,000 calls were being made each week and residents were given support or signposted to the relevant Council services or partner agencies.

Delivering our core public services

• Our refuse collectors are still picking up more than 420,000 bins a week and in the last year have collected 173,020 tonnes of waste. We were able to do this by using both our own fleet and hired vehicles so that two operatives could travel in the lorry cab with a car following behind for a third.
• Our commitment to delivering affordable homes within safe and sustainable neighbourhoods across the city has not wavered. Between April 2020 and March 2021, working in partnership with Registered Social landlords and developers, we completed 1,087 affordable homes and approved 1,286 new affordable homes for site start.
• Keeping our residents informed: our website was visited over 31.5million times (+113% on the previous period) and pages viewed nearly 73 million times since March 2020.

Delivering Education

Despite managing over 10,000 Covid-19 cases from the start of the 2021/22 academic session alone, all 89 primary and 23 secondary schools have remained open. To do this:

• We’ve recruited 127.8 FTE Teachers and 58.25 FTE Pupil Support Assistants to support Covid-19 recovery across our educational settings. This has helped to support the rollout of Wellbeing Bases in our secondary schools.
• We’ve improved digital access. We are now delivering our Empowered Learning Programme, providing over 40,000 devices to students and staff from P6 to S6. Further devices are being provided to P1-P5 and early years settings.
• We’ve purchased portable C02 monitors for all schools in order to monitor ventilation in line with the evolving Scottish Government guidance.

Delivering support to businesses

• Our employability providers spent over 14,000 hours supporting people to access training, employment or learning opportunities. Over 1,181 people went on to secure a job, training or other positive outcome following support from our services
• We’ve helped approximately 19,000 local businesses to secure grant funding, paying out around £261m in Coronavirus business support grants since March 2020 across both Edinburgh and Midlothian.
• We’ve supported around 3,851 businesses through the Edinburgh Business Gateway services.
• We’ve awarded a total of £420k to 87 small businesses to help them recruit young people and help those with additional barriers to getting a job.
• Suspended permit charges for outside tables and chairs to support the recovery of the hospitality business. This has been maintained to support ongoing recovery.
• Through ‘The Story Never Ends’ visitor destination campaign, we have engaged with thousands of people globally with 13.2m impressions across Social, YouTube, Search and Display, 180+ pieces of press coverage and 1.4bn online readership reach in national and international quality titles.