Insight into how county council is dealing with virus crisis

* County Hall, Ruthin. Headquarters of Denbighshire County Council.

Llanblogger has been sent a copy of Denbighshire’s briefing document to its own councillors and those on town and community councils on how it is responding to the coronavirus crisis.

Supplied to us by Llangollen member Graham Timms, this says that during the escalation of the pandemic the county council has been engaging with residents and partners across the county to support residents and maintain service delivery as much as possible.

The emphasis has been on prioritising information gathering and publishing to enable local communities to support their most vulnerable, it adds.

The council’s community housing team has been calling tenants who have been identified as vulnerable, largely due to their age. 

To date, reveals the document, 741 calls have been made out of a list of about 900. 

Of those, 79 have been marked as ‘amber’, signposted or referred to agencies for some additional help, and 19 have been marked as ‘red’ requiring immediate follow-up work. 

All the people on the list will be called at regular intervals throughout the period, assures the document.

“Tenants are in good spirits and are largely well supported by family, friends or neighbours. They have been very glad to receive the call,” it adds.

Registered social landlords operating in Denbighshire have been following the same process.

The document continues: “We have received some information about the Welsh Government’s Shielding scheme and letter. 

“The letter advises the recipients to self-isolate for a period of 12 weeks and make use of local support to ensure they have enough food, drink and medicine for the period. People who do not have that support have been advised to call our Contact Centre.

“The letter has been sent to about 1,300 residents in Denbighshire who have been identified by the NHS as highly vulnerable. This is being followed with a letter being sent to a further circa 1,400 this week. 

“Around 3,000 people will receive these letters overall. We are cross-referencing the lists with our own housing and social services lists to identify who may have already been contacted by us.

“We have started to proactively call all the recipients of the Shielding letter to check on their wellbeing and to signpost them to community support if they require help.”

The briefing goes on: “The Welsh Government has contracted with a company to deliver food boxes and are creating a database for local authorities to complete with information on people to receive these boxes: this is in the process of being set up.

“Meanwhile, we have a team of people who are ready to take calls from people who call us as a result of receiving the letter.

“Both teams (reactive and proactive) have information on local community and third sector services, as well as local shops and businesses that are helping residents. 

“This information is being kept up to date and published on our website: https://www.denbighshire.gov.uk/en/resident/community-and-living/community-planning/community-resources/community-resources.aspx”

The document says a further exercise is being established for the council to engage directly with people who are registered for free school meals through text, e-mail or voice message to landlines.

“We continue to publish safeguarding messages through our usual channels, including information about scams that have been identified by Trading Standards,” says the briefing. 

“In addition we have published a briefing note to councillors and city, town and community councils on mitigating financial security risks. This was devised with the help of WCVA and Citizen’s Advice.”

On community volunteering the document says: “We have been working closely with Denbighshire Voluntary Services Council (DVSC) to establish a single portal for registering volunteers and volunteering opportunities in the community. 

“They have published this on their website: https://www.dvsc.co.uk.  All of their resource is now focussed on mobilising and catalysing community action.

“As we have identified community responses we have encouraged them to register with DVSC to enable a coordinated approach in supporting people in need in communities across the county.”

On communications the document says that apart from the council’s own website, which has links to many other agencies such as the Welsh Government, the authority is actively engaging with local Facebook page administrators, 20 of whom are now receiving twice weekly newsletters with the latest information that has been published. 

Members of the council’s democratic services team are regularly contacting all county councillors by phone. 

They are signposting them to the latest information and also gathering local intelligence which is being fed through to the local resources spreadsheet, explains the document.