Senior politicians in Cumbria will today address the "extremely challenging" financial situation faced by the county's top tier authority.

Cumbria County Council's cabinet will be meeting today, with one issue set for discussion being the financial pressures placed on the authority's finances, which have been "amplified" by the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report which will be presented at this morning's meeting.

The report, prepared by the council's director of finance Julie Crellin, underlines that the council had resolved to make more than £5.6m in new savings in February 2020, before the effects of the pandemic took hold.

Now, as a result of coronavirus, there have been "significant and unprecedented consequences" for the county council - a situation also faced by many other local authorities across the country.

The county council has been faced with a slew of costs in order to respond effectively to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as lost income from the suspension of services, and more significantly from a decrease in funding from council tax and business rates.

In total, it is forecast that for the year 2020/2021, Covid-19 will bring an additional cost to the council's budget of £31.217m.

It is also forecast that again, as a result of the pandemic, it will lose income of £7.725m.

In addition, the pandemic has prevented the realisation of more than £13.1m of savings that had previously been set for delivery.

Collectively, between the costs, lost income and unrealised savings, the Covid-19 pandemic has been calculated to have an impact on the county council's finances across the year 2020/2021 of just over £52m.

The county council has been assigned just under £35m in Government funding to address the impact of Covid-19.

Pressures on the budget are set to be mitigated by the fact Covid-19 also resulted in temporary underspending across a number of areas.

The report to be presented to the cabinet today underlines the continued uncertainty associated with the pandemic, and notes that the budget forecasts assume that there will be no second wave of the virus in the coming months - and if there is, that the Government will provide further funding to "address the impacts".