CORONAVIRUS has seen online contact between a town hall and its residents almost double but cost it millions in lost revenue.

Blackburn with Darwen Council's leader Cllr Mohammed Khan said that the pandemic had caused a 70 per cent increase in its virtual interactions with the public.

But in a report to tomorrow's/tonight's annual Policy Council he warned of 'significant financial pressures from the increased costs and losses of income' due to Covid-19.

Cllr John Slater, leader of the borough's Conservative opposition group, said: "The switch to online has been forced on people by the pandemic. It is not what people want to do and we must keep face to face interaction with those who struggle with IT.

"The council is in a grave financial position due to Labour's mismanagement. There will be tough decisions to take when this is over. They cannot expect the government to keep bailing them out."

It says: "Coronavirus has resulted in significant, unplanned expenditure and income losses for the council.

"This year has undoubtedly seen one of the fastest transitions to on-line and virtual services.

"Overall we have seen a 70 per cent increase in contact across all channels compared to 2019.

"In particular, we have seen an increase in demand for online chat services.

"In April we launched our customer portal which has received 45,000 service requests and has over 20,000 registered users.

"We have had 124,757 online customer transactions and forms completed, with 104,015 social media link clicks.

"We have increased resilience for services in 2020 by providing enhanced IT capacity, enabling our staff to work anywhere.

"This has resulted in over 70 per of council staff connected remotely at any one time.

"We are facing significant financial pressures from the increased costs and losses of income due to the pandemic.

"They include: £7.252 million on adult social care; £842,000 on children’s social care; £1.367m on testing, contract tracing and outbreak management; and £10.113m in respect of the loss of sales, fees, charges and commercial income.

"The Revenue Monitoring Report noted a gross forecast overspend of £19.241m for the year due to the financial impact of Covid-19.

"This figure excluded the losses from council tax and business rates, currently forecast at £1.37m and £7.925m respectively.

"To date we have received £15.03m in general Covid-19 Grant funding.

"The size of the net 2020/21 forecast overspend due to Covid-19 has decreased significantly as the government has fed through financial support to assist."