Tackling Poverty Plan

Introduction & Context

2.1 How do we define poverty?
For the purpose of this plan and our approach as a Council we will adopt the Joseph Rowntree Foundation definition of poverty in the UK:

Poverty affects millions of people in the UK. Poverty means not being able to heat your home, pay your rent, or buy the essentials for your children. It means waking up every day facing insecurity, uncertainty, and impossible decisions about money. It means facing marginalisation – and evendiscrimination – because of your financial circumstances. The constant stress it causes can lead to problems that deprive people of the chance to play a full part in society.

2.2 Why are we preparing a plan?

• Relative poverty can be defined as whereby total household earnings are less than 60% of the national median income. As at 2022, 60% of national median income was £22,020. At a household level the most recently available paycheck data suggests that 34.5% of all households in Carmarthenshire are living in poverty, this translates to around 28,730 households. Carmarthenshire exhibits the 8th highest level of all local authorities in Wales and poverty levels remain higher than the Welsh average by 1.1%.
• In addition to earnings, we have also taken account of the findings of the most recent (2019) Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD), which is the Welsh Government’s official measure of relative deprivation for small areas in Wales. It identifies areas with the highest concentrations of several different types of deprivation including access to services; community safety; education; employment; health; housing; income; and physical environment. Carmarthenshire has a total of 112 Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) and 25 of those Carmarthenshire LSOAs are ranked as being in the 30% most deprived areas in Wales. The majority of these areas (60%) are located in the Llanelli region (15 LSOAs) with 20% in the Amman area (5 LSOAs), 12% in the Gwendraeth area (3 LSOAs) and 8% located in the Carmarthen area (2 LSOAs).
• We have a statutory Socio-Economic Duty to reduce inequalities of socio-economic disadvantage that was introduced in March 2021.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic and current cost of living crises are demonstrating a greater impact on those living in the most deprived communities. We need to better understand and address the factors driving this in order to bring about longer-terms change for our residents and communities.

2.3 The Council alone cannot resolve the situation ourselves and it is therefore essential that we work with our local Public Services Board (PSB) partners and stakeholders from the third, community and private sector to remove barriers and enable people help themselves whilst also providing a voice to lobby at a Wales and UK level.

2.4 The Council has identified Tackling Poverty as one of our thematic priorities within the Council Corporate Strategy 2022-27, aligned to the wider Well-being Objective to enable our communities and environment to be healthy, safe and prosperous. In addition, the Carmarthenshire Public Services Board (PSB) has set a specific Well-being Objective to tackle poverty and its impacts as part of its Well-being Plan 2023-28. We will therefore ensure that the Council and PSB partners work collectively to respond to the challenges facing our residents.

2.5 The Council has appointed a dedicated Cabinet Member focused on Tackling Poverty and a cross-party elected member Tackling Poverty Advisory Panel is in place to support and advise the Cabinet Member on their approach with making progress on this agenda. There is a Head of Service level Officer Working Group leading the Council’s responseto this work and the PSB is due to establish a Task & Finish Group to identify areas of collective action where partners can add value by working together.

2.6 The Council already provides a range of support services aimed at providing advice and guidance to our residents on a range of matters. These services include (but are not limited to):

• Housing support services including tenant support and homelessness prevention
• Revenues and benefits services
• Hwbs and Contact Centre
• Employability schemes
• Education based support services, family support services and supporting people
• Economic recovery schemes and business support.

The Council will continually look at ways to ensure these services are fully integrated and respond to the needs of our residents in a holistic way. We will also ensure greater collaboration between our services and those of external providers in order to ease resident access to relevant support services.

2.7 For this plan we have identified four key areas of focus for this plan. These will be reviewed once the national Child Poverty Strategy is published:

1. We need to better understand the challenges facing our county and use our enhanced understanding to drive our interventions. We will need to look at this across the spectrum of Council and partner services with a focus on key geographical areas (akin to the current programme of work in Tyisha) and population groups who face particular disadvantages.
2. We need to prevent poverty – there is a strong correlation between being born poor and experiencing a lifetime of poverty and many of the triggers of poverty experienced in childhood and later life are preventable if identified and addressed in a timely manner. Providing early, targeted, and holistic, interventions can therefore help reduce the likelihood of poverty occurring in our communities.
3. We need to help people into work - work is one of the most fundamental and effective means of tackling poverty in all its forms. Work provides income and opportunities for improved health and well-being.
4. We need to improve the lives of people living in poverty by supporting those in poverty and improving access to help to maintain basic standards of living.

2.8 Welsh Government are currently in the process of engaging stakeholders on the development of a refreshed national Child Poverty Strategy. It is anticipated that this will be published in the next 12-months. The Council is actively engaged in the development of that national Strategy and will review our local plans once it is published.

2.9 However, given the current pressures facing residents in Carmarthenshire we feel it is important and necessary to identify activity the Council will take over the next 12-months to support some of the short-term challenges our residents will face whilst also, developing our understanding and response to the medium and longer-term issues. This plan is therefore considered an interim short-term plan that will be fully reviewed once the national Child Poverty Strategy is in place.

2.10 We will embed the Well-being of Future Generations Act five ways of working as we implement the various actions of this plan and we further develop our medium and long-term approach.

2.11 One of the key areas of focus of this plan is to better understand the challenges facing our County. We have already made progress in this area with the development of a Poverty Profile for Carmarthenshire which will be continually reviewed and updated on a six-monthly basis. The latest iteration (April 2023) is attached as Appendix 1. We will use this profile as a means to gather, corelate and analyse various data and information sets in order to build the picture of poverty in the County, develop our understanding, identify data gaps and inform our decision making about proposed interventions.

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