Agenda item

Agenda item

Manchester's support for families living in poverty

Report of the Deputy Chief Executive & City Treasurer and Director of Inclusive Economy attached

 

This report provides an overview of the Council’s response to poverty, including an update on the Family Poverty Strategy Reprioritisation and also details some of the major activities undertaken across the Council to help tackle poverty.

 

Minutes:

The Committee considered the report of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer and the Director of Inclusive Economy that provided an overview of the Council’s response to poverty, including an update on the Family Poverty Strategy Reprioritisation.

 

Key points and themes in the report included:

 

·         Providing an introduction and background, noting that poverty in Manchester was deeply engrained and formed one of the most significant challenges due to its wide ranging and profound impacts on the people affected;

·         The scale of the challenge had been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic;

·         Noting that the Council and partners had a long-standing commitment to tackling poverty and supporting all its diverse residents to lead happy, healthy and fulfilling lives;

·         Information on the rationale and approach taken to the Family Poverty Strategy 2017-22 Reprioritisation; 

·         Delivery of the Family Poverty Strategy, with examples of current activity and best practice;

·         The approach to communications with residents;

·         The Council’s corporate role in tackling poverty;

·         The impact of the Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector;

·         Tackling poverty through day-to-day service design and delivery, with descriptions and examples provided across a range of Directorates and services; and

·         The Council’s response to COVID-19, noting the key achievements of the work to date.

 

The Committee also received a presentation from representative of Munchers Poverty Truth Commission, which informed Members of the findings of the investigation in to the 

Question “What if people who struggled against poverty were involved in making decisions about tackling poverty?”.  One of the key learnings from the Poverty Truth Commission was the value in developing relationships with people who share different life experiences and deeply listening to the impact of those experiences

 

The Committee was invited to comment on the report prior to it being considered by Executive.

 

Some of the key points that arose from the Committee’s discussions were: -

 

·         That the voices of people with lived experience of poverty was important and there was a need to keep including commissioners to feed-back information;

·         Whether the Family Poverty Strategy could link into and be considered alongside other Council strategies;

·         That there was a stigma attached to poverty and it was questioned as to how people could be encouraged to ask for help without losing their self-esteem;

·         Did the Executive feel that some recommendations are more challenging than others;

·         That the Marmot Review (into Health Inequalities) referred to in the report confirmed weaknesses around gender and race inequalities and that this could affect how the Council looked at the implementation of recommendations;

·         Would there be some wider Scrutiny focus implemented to share reports and recommendations between Committees;

·         That, whilst access to work and working was important, it was not a reality for all and to consider the Poverty Premium for people with disabilities and/or illnesses that keep them out of work; and

·         That consultation was key to decision making.

 

The Deputy Leader confirmed that the Executive for Health and Care and the Assistant Executive Member (Antipoverty) were leading on the Family Poverty agenda and would bring together everything the Council was doing around the issue of poverty and looking at measures of support and prevention. The Deputy Leader stated that the report showed some of the harder issues and added that certain aspects of the Poverty Report (i.e. Revenues & Benefits) would be fed back to other Scrutiny Committees and it would be helpful for these to be shared with the Economy Scrutiny Committee in a year’s time.

 

The Executive Member for Health and Care stated that the report was to provide information on the refresh approach to Family Poverty and confirmed her agreement with the need to include people with lived experience. The Executive Member for Health and Care stated that COVID-19 had exposed and widened many of the inequalities in people’s lives and that the Council were committed to sharing the successes of the city with its inhabitants so all have the same opportunity to thrive but added that some of the policies were national and beyond the scope of the Council’s response on the issue. The Executive Member for Health and Care stated that next month’s Economy Scrutiny Committee would focus on aspects considered within the Marmot Review and added that the Family Poverty Strategy took consideration of some people’s inability to work and felt that there was a need to look at tackling the poverty premium.

 

The Assistant Executive Member (Antipoverty) confirmed that he was taking the lead on Antipoverty and working closely with the Family Poverty Strategy group and referred to the report for information on how the Council was working with vulnerable residents across the city. The Assistant Executive Member (Antipoverty) referred to the work being done on family poverty but gave mention of the pandemic’s affect across single adults and adult households and that when the wider review was complete in 2022 this demographic would form part of the ongoing review.

 

The Director of Inclusive Economy stated that there were three core themes to the Family Poverty Strategy, namely – access to quality sustainable work as a route out of poverty, focusing on the basics such as food and fuel and the third being boosting resilience and building on strengths. The Director of Inclusive Economy stated that part of the Family Poverty Strategy focused on families with children, noting that there had been an increase in the reliance on free school meals during the pandemic and echoed the Assistant Executive Member for Antipoverty’s comments around single adults and adult households needs being included to broaden the strategy’s aims.

 

A guest speaker from the Poverty Truth Commission stated thata shared sense of community between people with similar experiences could be a great help to individuals with regard to self-esteem and capturing these experiences should also feed into strategies to tackle poverty.

 

The Executive Member for Housing and Employment stated that Manchester Adult Education Service (MAES) formed part of the response to the lack of work by training 3,000 adults per year.

 

Decisions

 

The Committee endorse the recommendations that the Executive:

 

1.         Note the progress that has been made in delivering the Family Poverty Strategy 2017-22;

2.         Note the Council’s commitment to tackling poverty and its overall offer to residents;

3.         Note the recommendations of the Poverty Truth Commission Report; and

4.         Endorse the suggested approach to the refresh of the Family Poverty Strategy to address poverty more broadly and support all residents experiencing poverty; those with and without children.

 

Supporting documents: