A cross-party agreement that the Local Government Association (LGA) would lobby for a coronavirus payment to staff was ditched after senior councillors blocked the move, The MJ can reveal.

Members of the LGA’s cross-party resources board had agreed to lobby the Government for cash to provide ‘special payments to staff as a result of COVID-19’ in a behind-closed-doors meeting.

Recommendations made by LGA boards are almost always nodded through by the executive advisory board, made up of the association’s most senior members.

But, in a rare move, Conservative and Lib Dem members of the executive advisory board are understood to have spoken out against the LGA calling for a one-off consolidated payment of up to £500, which would cost more than £320m.

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