Government spent £190m on COVID response in 2020

21 April 2021

​Newly released figures show that the Government spent a total of £190 million in 2020 on the response to COVID-19, and demonstrate other financial impacts on departments that arose from the pandemic in 2020. 

The figures show that the Government spent:

• £97.9m on the Co-Funded Payroll scheme. At its peak the scheme supported 17,000 jobs, or one-in three private sector workers, and support was provided to nearly 3,500 businesses
• £16.2 million on Phase 2 of the Test and Trace programme. The service carried out nearly 220,000tests between July and December 2020
• £11.6 million on the Spend Local Card scheme and increased Income Support payments
• £9.6 million on the construction and fit out of the Nightingale Wing. Work started in early April and the building was handed over to Health and Community Services on 5 May
• £6.5million on additional benefits costs, including £6m on Income Support, which supported an additional 1,000 households
• £5.1 million on redeploying GPs to assist with the response to Covid-19
• £1.9 million to open schools for children of critical workers and for vulnerable children, supporting nurseries, and developing IT systems to support learning at home
• £1.9 million on Contact Tracing, including staff, software, and other non-staff costs. The team identified around a third of all positive cases (31%) and there were 14 prosecutions for breaches of isolation requirements.

Of the £190 million spent in 2020, £181 million was funded from additional funding secured by the Minister for Treasury and Resources, Deputy Susie Pinel, and approved by the States Assembly. 

The remaining £9 million of the costs were funded through existing approved departmental budgets.

Minister for Treasury and Resources, Deputy Susie Pinel, said: "These figures demonstrate the scale of the Government response to COVID-19. There is not a single department whose work was not halted, altered, or significantly affected by COVID-19.

"I'd like to thank my colleagues in the States Assembly, who approved the availability of additional funding, and the thousands of Government staff who have helped keep our community safe, well, and functioning during an exceptionally challenging year."