Report of the Director of Inclusive Economy

Making Manchester Fairer: Tackling Health Inequalities in Manchester 2022-27 describes the actions that the city will take to reduce inequalities, with a focus on the social determinants of health. This report provides a progress update and next steps for the delivery of three of the key themes of the Making Manchester Fairer Action Plan - ‘Cutting unemployment and creating good jobs’, ‘Lifting low-income households out of poverty and debt’ and ‘Improving housing and creating safe, warm affordable housing’ in conjunction with the delivery of Manchester’s new Anti-Poverty Strategy.

The Committee received a report of the Director of Inclusive Economy which provided a progress update and next steps for the delivery of three of the key themes of the Making Manchester Fairer Action Plan - ‘Cutting unemployment and creating good jobs’, ‘Lifting low-income households out of poverty and debt’ and ‘Improving housing and creating safe, warm affordable housing’ in conjunction with the delivery of Manchester’s new Anti-Poverty Strategy.

Key points and themes within the report included:

• Background information on Making Manchester Fairer 2022-2027;
• Integration with Manchester’s new Anti-Poverty Strategy;
• Making Manchester Fairer Action Plan;
• Work and employment highlights and achievements;
• Operational activity;
• Employment and Wellbeing Kickstarter;
• Lifting low-income households out of poverty and debt (Poverty, income and debt), including highlights and achievements; and
• Improving housing and creating safe, warm, affordable homes, including highlights and achievements.

Key points and queries that arose from the Committee’s discussions included:

• To welcome the ambitious strategy;
• Concern about the level of child poverty in the city and the number of residents not working due to long-term sickness but to welcome the work taking place to address these issues;
• The impact of low wages and the rise in the cost of living, particularly the cost of housing and heating, and work in relation to the Living Wage and helping people into better paid jobs;
• Difficulties in capturing data on levels of adult poverty;
• Measures of how successful Employment Fairs were and whether consideration should be given to holding Employment Fairs outside the city centre;
• Noting that fighting systemic and structural discrimination and racism was one of the key themes of Making Manchester Fairer and was within the remit of a different Committee, highlighting that this also impacted on key themes that the Committee was considering and that this needed to be an overarching way of analysing all the themes, rather than just being seen as a discrete area of work; and
• How to scrutinise this area of work, including considering every item that came to the scrutiny committee in the light of Making Manchester Fairer, and whether this should be incorporated into the scrutiny report template.

The Director of Inclusive Economy reported that the Living Wage was independently calculated and had increased by 10% the previous year to reflect the rise in the cost of living.  She advised that there had been concern about whether organisations would want to continue to be accredited Living Wage Employers due to the increase but she reported that the city’s targets for this had been met and more employees in the city were benefiting from it.  She reported that the Employment Fairs had been successful, although there was a limit on the extent to which attendees could be tracked.  She advised that holding the Employment Fairs in the city centre worked well due to good transport links but some had taken place elsewhere, including in Wythenshawe and at the Etihad Stadium.  She reported that people who were attending English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses through Manchester Adult Education Service (MAES) were often in work but were able to access university or better paid jobs once they had improved their English and she highlighted the in-work progression service ‘Ambition Manchester’, which MAES was delivering.  She reported that the current job market meant that people had more choice between employers and people in low-paid work were moving to different employers or sectors for slightly better money, although this might not continue if the economy went into recession.  She recognised the Member’s comments about the impact of structural inequality, highlighting the challenges facing people with long-term health conditions, people with caring responsibilities and those facing racial inequality.  She reported that the Council had worked closely with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) in relation to the Shared Prosperity Fund to ensure that it was allocated based on level of need, so Manchester would attract a proportionately higher delivery of commissioned services, and she also reported that grant funding would be provided to local organisations who understood what was needed and what would work in their area.  In relation to people with a disability or underlying health condition who were economically inactive, she advised that Making Manchester Fairer was looking at how NHS systems could be aligned with welfare to work, employment support and skills systems to provide holistic support.

A Member reported that knowledge of English was not the only barrier facing people from racialised communities, that graduates from these communities with excellent English and academic achievements could struggle to get graduate jobs and that this needed to be addressed.  The Leader acknowledged this point and the Member’s earlier point about systemic and structural discrimination and racism impacting across all the themes within Making Manchester Fairer.  She noted that it had been agreed that the Health Scrutiny Committee would scrutinise the whole Making Manchester Fairer programme, with the Chairs of the other scrutiny committees invited, while the other scrutiny committees would look at the themes within their remit; however, she offered to discuss with the Chair how this approach was working and any ways it could be improved.  The Member welcomed that this area had been included as a core piece of work within Making Manchester Fairer.

The Strategy and Economic Policy Manager acknowledged that it was more difficult to gather data on adult poverty, reporting that there was not a UK Government or Government agency dataset available on this but that the Council did work to try to understand where poverty was concentrated within the city and the likely characteristics of the people who experienced poverty in Manchester.  The Leader informed the Committee about work which had taken place during the pandemic to identify people in need of support, advising that this had highlighted a gap in support in relation to single adults living in poverty and that this was now a priority area.

In response to a Member’s question, the Director of Housing Services reported that there had been significant investment of around £50 million in the decarbonisation of social housing and £10 million in relation to private housing but he acknowledged that the scale of this work was very large and there was a lot further still to be done.  In response to a further question, he agreed to provide the Member with a figure of the cost of bringing homes in the city up to the required standard.

The Chair highlighted that debt was an issue which affected a lot of people experiencing poverty and suggested that the Committee might want to look at this at a future meeting, including fairer access to finance, such as Credit Unions.

The Deputy Leader welcomed Members’ comments in relation to how this work should be scrutinised, including the use of measurable targets, and how it should be embedded into all work, including at a ward level with Ward Councillors and Neighbourhood Officers, and she advised that further consideration would be given to this.  The Leader stated that there would also be a discussion about other ways to engage with Members about this work, outside of scrutiny committees. 

The Director of Inclusive Economy reported that Neighbourhood Teams were included in the work on the Council’s response to the cost of living crisis.  She advised that information could be incorporated into a future report to enable the Committee to monitor progress with the action plan.  In response to a question about people who were not in work due to long-term ill health, she drew Members’ attention to the Working Well: Individualised Placement Support in Primary Care (IPSPC) programme outlined in the report.  She recognised a Member’s comments on the impact of being a carer on people’s ability to undertake paid work, saying that this was an area of focus for the Council, while also commenting that increased flexibility and hybrid working could have a positive impact in enabling carers to work.

Decision:

To note progress on the relevant themes of the Making Manchester Fairer Action Plan and incorporation of the Anti-Poverty Strategy as a joint programme of work.

[Councillor Northwood declared a personal interest as an employee of the national Citizens Advice Bureau, although this was a separate entity from Citizens Advice Manchester, which was referenced in the report.]