FINANCE staff at Dorset Council dealt with almost double the sums they are used to in the last year because of the pandemic.

An influx of Government grant money which had to be accounted for and distributed meant that an extra £291 million was processed.

The council’s normal budget is around £295 million a year.

Executive director for Corporate Development Aidan Dunn says staff had to cope with an additional 39 separate new grants from the Government alongside the normal workload.

Of the £291m, around £228m went to directly support the local economy, most of it paid out to businesses, with grants also available for a range of other things including schools, public transport and Covid testing.

He told councillors on the audit committee that virtually doubling the cash-flow almost equated to doubling the workload, but that staff had coped extremely well.

The council had been one of the most efficient in the country for getting grants paid out.

Mr Dunn said that with the extra money had come additional reporting – some grants requiring monthly reports to be returned, others weekly.

“The risk to any business if they grow too quickly is that they can quickly lose control but we’ve been ‘on it’ and are using the money as effectively as possible to support business and residents,” he said.