During a webinar with communities secretary Robert Jenrick on Sunday, council representatives were told they would receive additional funding of £8 per head for actions to tackle Covid as well as £20 per head for discretionary business support.

Councils are expected to get support measures in place by this Thursday, piling further pressure on stretched teams which in some areas are also facing the threat of flooding.

LGC understands there is emerging frustration particularly around how business grants will be allocated for areas that had been under tier three restrictions but are now moving to the national framework.

Simon Greaves (Lab), leader of Bassetlaw DC in Nottinghamshire which moved into tier three last week told LGC all tier three areas had been awaiting guidance from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on how the £20 per head for local business support is to be configured and distributed.

He said he was “alarmed” that “instead of going back to a regime and set of measures already on the shelf from the previous lockdown”, the government is putting in place “a new series of measures that will be insufficient for businesses being asked to make a huge sacrifice”.

“This is a national lockdown on the cheap,” he said.

“The difficulty is the absence of government guidance. At the moment, councils are trying to work out how to approach this with one hand tied behind their back.”

Richard Foster (Con), leader of Craven DC, said councils still need “proper advice” about which businesses can remain open and when councils will receive new funding.

“In real terms, it should be a faster process this time to allocate grants around because we know who businesses are now, we have their bank account details.

“But we haven’t got the details of the discretionary scheme yet. We might have to pull policy together very quickly to get it going.

“We could always do with more time, but government never seems to give it to us.”

One chief said councils need to know whether new grants which offer support for businesses forced to close based on their rateable value will only apply to head offices.

Leisure trusts that run leisure centres were among councils’ arms length companies that received insolvency protection during the first lockdown, and the chief told LGC that councils need to know whether the government will put the same measure in place again.

Of the one-off discretionary payments council will be able to make, they said: “We need to make sure we have consistency, that our interpretation [of the guidance] is the same as other councils so we want to roll these out in the same way as other areas.”

Councils will also be given an unringfenced £14 per clinically extremely vulnerable person under a new local shielding framework, and tasked with putting in place support for them from Thursday.

However, the advice is less restrictive than shielding was during the first wave as exercising outdoors, meeting their support bubble outside and attending NHS appointments will be allowed.

Some district councils are contemplating reinvigorating local community schemes set up during the last lockdown to help a wider cohort of vulnerable people.

Mr Jenrick emphasised that the government’s support measures for the extremely vulnerable do not amount to ‘shielding’. But some claim this has led to some confusion. “If these measures are not ‘shielding’, then what is?” said one chief.

There is also confusion over whether some council buildings and libraries count as essential retail or public service and can stay open.

The Department for Culture, Media & Sport is working to establish guidelines for councils on what elements of a library service may remain open during lockdown, with new regulations expected later this week.

On Sunday’s call, Mr Jenrick is understood to have encouraged councils to keep these services open where they can. But Stewart Young, leader of Cumbria CC, questioned whether anybody would use them under the lockdown rules. “We have just reopened our archives this week and now we are trying to find out if they will close again,” he said.

Many council leaders and chief executives are understood to be concerned their residents may seek to maximise opportunities to socialise before the lockdown kicks in, leading to spiralling infection rates.

The leader of a tier one unitary warned that “people will go to restaurants now while they can, and maybe Christmas shopping” and urged the government to consider a more “rapid” start to any future lockdown.

They also warned it is “harder for tier one areas to get the public on board” as “the messaging has been to encourage the local flavour until now”.

But they added that councils now have “much better relationships” with Whitehall “which makes it easier”. “We are getting more visibility on stuff coming through now.”