Written Question: Review of Covid Marshals

Lord Moylan: To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Greenhalgh on 7 December 2020 (HL10627), when they expect to publish the three-month review of the spending of the £30 million allocated on 8 October 2020 to help local authorities in England fund their COVID-19 compliance and enforcement work.

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh): In November 2020, a £30 million ringfenced Compliance and Enforcement Grant was allocated to all district and unitary authorities in England to spend on COVID-19 compliance and enforcement related activities. In January 2021 MHCLG issued an activity and spend survey to all councils in receipt of the grant. The responses from this informed a review of how the grant was being utilised.

The Department have no plans to release the findings of the three-month review. Information was provided in confidence by local authorities during the grant period to support the development of Government policy. The information gathered as part of the review was used to inform successive iterations of the ‘Local authority COVID-19 compliance and enforcement good practice framework’(opens in a new tab), (attached) which was archived on 19 July 2021 but it still available for reference.