Tackling Poverty Plan
Foreword
Councillor Linda Davies Evans,
Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Tackling Poverty
This Tackling Poverty Plan is an important document for the Council as we work towards addressing and alleviating some of the pressures caused by poverty for our local residents and communities. It is disappointing that we have to prepare such a plan, but the reality is that a greater number of our residents and communities are now facing challenges as a result of poverty that we as a Council, working with our partners, are keen to support in whatever way we can.
We very much recognise that the current cost of living crisis is having a big impact on our residents, but we also recognise the longer-term generational impact that poverty has so we are keen to address the root causes of poverty and find ways to support our residents to lift themselves out of poverty.
We have to acknowledge that we as a Council won’t be able to resolve poverty ourselves – many of the factors contributing to the situation need to be addressed at a Wales and UK level. However, we do have a leading role in supporting our residents and communities to help themselves, by removing barriers to access support and empowering people to do for themselves.
With this in mind, the Council has identified tackling poverty as a thematic priority as part of its Corporate Strategy for 2022-27 and this will be a key contributor to making progress against our well-being objective to enable our residents to live and age well. In addition, the Carmarthenshire Public Services Board (PSB) has identified tackling poverty and its impacts as one of its well-being objectives and as a Council we will work with our public sector partners and other stakeholders on areas of collective responsibility to make progress on this objective.
This Plan provides a focused response on our activity over the next 12-months and is very much focused on support with the pressing cost of living crisis. It also identifies key areas of development that will enable us to refine our longer-term plan to address the broader causes of poverty. During the next 12-months Welsh Government will be publishing its national Child Poverty Strategy and once that is published, we will review our approach and further develop our medium to long-term tackling poverty plan.
I would like to acknowledge the input and support of the cross-party elected member Tackling Poverty Advisory Panel who have contributed towards the development of this plan in a considered, constructive and meaningful manner. This input is particularly welcome as we all strive to support the residents and communities of Carmarthenshire as best we can.
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
| 5 ways of working | Council approach |
|---|---|
| Collaboration Acting in collaboration with any other person (or different parts of the body itself) that could help the body to meet its well-being objectives. |
Developing understanding across the Council of collaboration opportunities. This will be continually reviewed and developed as part of the One Council approach to this thematic priority. |
| Integration Considering how the public body’s well-being objectives may impact upon each of the well-being goals, on their other objectives, or on the objectives of other public bodies. |
Improving our understand of cross-service impacts and ensuring that our interventions work towards the same goal and objective. Developing greater cross-organisation understanding and response in order to enable holistic service provision to our residents. |
| Involvement The importance of involving people with an interest in achieving the well-being goals, and ensuring that those people reflect the diversity of the area which the body serves. |
Ensuring those with lived experience of poverty have a leading voice in shaping our approach. |
| Long term focus The importance of balancing short-term needs with the need to safeguard the long term needs. |
Developing our understanding of the challenges in order to tackle the root causes of poverty and not just address the short-term presenting challenges. |
| Prevention How acting to prevent problems occurring or getting worse may help public bodies meet their objectives. |
We recognise that early intervention to prevent issues from escalating are central to this agenda. We will work to ensure that the resources available to provide support are used in the most effective and efficient way. |
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.
Action Plan
A lead officer/s have been identified for each of these actions, however it should be noted that all relevant Council services will pro-actively contribute to this work and the Council will engage with other relevant PSB members and other stakeholders in order to make progress
| Priority Area | Key issues | Identified Action | Lead Officers & Timescales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preventing Poverty |
Plethora of support services available and can be challenging for residents (and staff) to know what and how to access.
Cross-referral between services in the Council does not always happen –number of reasons: data protection, lack of awareness, capacity, specialist view to addressing customer needs. |
Develop universal support model through Hwb – triage and signpost. This will be in addition to direct access to specialist services already in place.
Develop Council website content and information about support services available and self-referral option.
Embed holistic approach to addressing customer needs across all council services by developing means of cross-referral and client management across services – review current best practice i.e. children’s services single referral form. Review current entry points and develop consistent approach and develop road map for customer contact – particular focus on Cllr enquiry process. Identify data protection issues and develop approach for addressing i.e. seeking relevant permissions for sharing data at initial contact with customer.
Develop internal directory of support services for Council staff (and councillors) – consider use and further development of existing directories such as Dewis.
Develop ways of providing support to pupils and wider families through school support staff – will need to be mindful of resources and capacity. Develop communication plan with focus on specific campaigns – linking into national work. |
Deina Hockenhull Deina Hockenhull Deina Hockenhull & Gwyneth Ayers Deina Hockenhull, Siân Rees-Harper & Gwyneth Ayers Deina Hockenhull, Siân Rees-Harper & Gwyneth Ayers Deina Hockenhull & Siân Rees-Harper Aeron Rees Deina Hockenhull |
| Improving the lives of people living in poverty |
Public awareness of financial support, and stigma of claiming is still an issue.
|
Specific promotion of unclaimed benefits with targeted groups e.g. free school meals; Council Tax Reduction Scheme; Discretionary Housing Payments.
Consider opportunities for outreach support sessions – focusing on 10 rural towns.
Review current Council contacts with external groups and organisations and identify ways of improving cross-referral and intelligence sharing about key issues facing Carmarthenshire. Work with PSB partners to better understand key challenges, identify existing support and gaps for further development. Better understand and develop a plan for addressing digital literacy across Carmarthenshire. |
Deina Hockenhull & Gwyneth Ayers Deina Hockenhull Deina Hockenhull, Siân Rees-Harper & Gwyneth Ayers Gwyneth Ayers Gwyneth Ayers |
| Helping people into work |
A number of different employability programmes provided (tend to be grant funded) – good connectivity with certain services but could further develop across the Council. In-work poverty an issue but we need to better understand why and how this is affecting our residents. |
As new curriculum is introduced, ensure links between schools and RLSP in terms of preparing pupils with future skills and areas for growth in terms of employment/careers. Review information and intelligence gathered through employability schemes in relation to local challenges and barriers in getting people into work. To consider new projects/programmes that could be delivered through future funding opportunities. |
Aeron Rees & Jason Jones Jason Jones & Gwyneth Ayers Tackling Poverty Officer Working Group |
| Better understanding the challenges |
We need to strip back to focus on who has been most impacted by the pandemic/cost of living crisis, where there is greatest need and to better understand key groups and what support is equired/available e.g. the homeless, unemployed, those in need of education or training. Benefit/entitlement take-up – need to better understand current position in order to target future specific cohorts. In-work poverty – need to better understand implications and scope. Improve use of data and information already held by the Council – build a Carmarthenshire picture. External groups and organisations hold a wealth of information |
Analysis of research and information relating to COVID/Cost of living community impact – identify key communities/population groups of interest in Carmarthenshire. Research into unclaimed benefits in order to develop targeted campaigns.
Research into in-work poverty rates in Carmarthenshire and better understand barriers. Use intelligence gathered through various consultations undertaken by services to help build the Carmarthenshire picture – tell us once approach. Develop understanding on a geographical basis – what are the differences and similarities between different communities. Will support targeted intervention rather than holistic support. Develop network of data and performance officers across the council (and with other partners) to help build intelligence and the Carmarthenshire picture.
|
Gwyneth Ayers & Rachel Clegg Gwyneth Ayers & Rachel Clegg Gwyneth Ayers & Rachel Clegg Gwyneth Ayers & Rachel Clegg Gwyneth Ayers & Rachel Clegg Gwyneth Ayers & Rachel Clegg |
