Prime Minister Boris Johnson has pledged that Brexit will happen on October 31 and we will leave the European Union.

The Government has announced more spending on Brexit preparations and a big publicity drive is due to start shortly to provide access to information and advice that people and businesses might need.

Local councils are among the organisations that are working with the Government to ensure that the country is ready for Brexit.

So what has Cornwall Council done to ensure that Cornwall is Brexit ready? That was the question we asked and here is the response.

“Shortly after the referendum we produced a Cornwall and Isles of Scilly-wide assessment of the implications, risks and opportunities of Brexit – Catalyst for Change – with a wide group of stakeholders. We subsequently also developed ‘New Frontiers’, a post-Brexit framework of policy ‘asks’ to direct our engagement with Government. We’ve remained engaged with Government to stand up for Cornwall on post-Brexit policy, including articulating our requirements of Government’s replacement for European funds – the Shared Prosperity Fund – and to keep it to its promise that we will not be worse off as a result of Brexit.

“In October 2018 we also produced a high-level review of council-specific risks by service. This resulted in the addition of new Brexit-related risks to the Corporate Risk Register. We subsequently liaised with officers from across council services to discuss possible mitigations, including engaging with our major suppliers and reviewing our business continuity measures. We also produced a summary of Government’s extensive no deal technical notices to help services assess whether there were any further implications arising which the risk evaluation had missed.

“We also engaged with MHCLG, via our role on the Brexit Advisory group, to guide and inform their submission to Treasury for the first allotment of Brexit funding. We have subsequently utilised some of that initial allotment for additional staff resourcing, such as for engagement with the fisheries industry on new processes and relaying feedback on new processes back to Government.

“We have also engaged with local stakeholders and with other Local Authorities across the South West to share information, guide one another on preparations, and ensure a stronger collective voice to Government. We have also remained engaged with Government through many preparatory workshops.

“We have also been extensively engaged in the work of the Devon, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Resilience Forum (LRF) from October. The LRF are the primary coordinators of the multi-agency response at a regional level, incorporating Local Authorities, emergency services, the Environment Agency, the Highways Agency and many others. It will be a means for us to coordinate on response and recovery with local partners, and escalate issues to the Cabinet Office. To support this, prior to the March 29 deadline we established a process for services within the council to escalate issues for us to relay to the LRF.

“We also initiated public communications, including an open letter on the EU Settlement Scheme, advertising of the scheme through newsletters, and issuing a guidance document for businesses that was communicated to all members of the Cornwall Chamber of Commerce and Federation of Small Businesses. Public guidance and information, including community support resources, is available on our webpage at cornwall.gov.uk/brexit. This will be refreshed and updated in coming weeks to reflect Government’s updated guidance, and we’ll consider how best we can bolster Government’s public engagement campaign locally as the details of it emerge.

“We’ve also established an ID scanning service for those unable to complete the EU Settlement Scheme digitally, meaning that applicants won’t need to post supporting documents to the Home Office. Government’s EU Settlement Scheme provides a means for European citizens to stay in the UK beyond December 2020. We’ll be communicating further over coming months, and working try and ensure vulnerable groups receive support to complete their applications.”