STARK choices will need to be made by councillors in East Lothian as they face a £15 million Covid-19 funding gap.

The council’s chief finance officer has warned that, unless the Scottish Government comes up with more funding for the local authority, it will be unable to meet its responsibilities.

In a report to elected members, Sarah Fortune warned that the decisions faced would be “unprecedented”.

Setting out a £15 million gap in the funds needed to meet the current demands for tackling the coronavirus crisis, she said the local authority faced the risk that the cost would rise even higher.

She said: “It is now very clear that the scale of the financial implications facing the council relating to Covid is considerable, with the funding gap currently estimated to be around £15 million and a high risk of this increasing as we progress down the long road to recovery.

“As the council’s chief finance officer, I now consider it necessary to inform councillors that unless the position changes dramatically with regard to the level of national government funding being made available to cover the costs of the council’s response to this national public health crisis, the council faces a financial challenge on an unprecedented scale.

“By statute, councils are not able to operate on a deficit-funding basis and therefore the situation now requires a range of significant interventions designed to reduce our net operating costs that will in turn have significant implications upon the delivery of local services.”

No details of possible cuts were laid out in the report, which said a full and “robust” finance review would need to be held.

The council revealed that it had seen a fall in council tax revenue by about £850,000 as of the end of May, relative to the same period last year, and faced a loss of income of about £4.5 million from facilities which had been closed.

It had already been told that the cost of returning staff and pupils to schools next month could be more than £10 million if it needed to implement ‘plan B’ of blended learning.

Although the report acknowledged that some Scottish Government funding had come in, it said it fell short of what was needed.

Councillor Norman Hampshire, depute leader of East Lothian Council, said: “While additional Government funding has been welcome, it is only funding a small proportion of the many activities which are part of the operational response to Covid-19.

“The chief finance officer has highlighted that the costs incurred to date are significantly in excess of the additional funding being made available and not containable within approved budgets.

“The stark reality is that, if we are to continue delivering high-quality frontline services, it is absolutely critical that further national funding is made available”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We have taken exceptional measures in every area of government as we deal with the challenges of Covid-19 – and that is particularly clear in our support for local services.

“To date, the Scottish Government has committed almost £330 million of additional funding to local government for Covid-19 measures and Scotland’s councils have received £405 million in advanced payments so far this financial year to assist them with their cash flow, and by the end of July this will have risen to £455 million.”