Issue - decisions

Matter for Decision

The Council’s first Anti-Poverty Strategy was approved by the Executive Councillor for Finance and Resources at Strategy and Resources Committee on 23 March 2015. The strategy set out the Council’s strategic approach to addressing poverty in Cambridge during the period April 2014 to March 2017.

 

The Council’s Anti-Poverty Strategy aimed to improve the standard of living and daily lives of those residents in Cambridge who currently experienced poverty; and to help alleviate issues that could lead households on low incomes to experience financial pressures.

 

The Council has produced a revised and updated Anti-Poverty Strategy for the period from April 2017 to March 2020, which was presented at committee for approval by the Executive Councillor. The revised Anti-Poverty Strategy set out 5 key objectives and 57 associated actions to reduce poverty in Cambridge over the next three years.

 

Decision of Executive Councillor for Communities

Approved the revised Anti-Poverty Strategy for 2017-2020.

 

Reason for the Decision

As set out in the Officer’s report.

 

Any Alternative Options Considered and Rejected

Not applicable.

 

Scrutiny Considerations

The Committee received a report from the Strategy and Partnerships Manager.

 

Opposition Councillors made the following comments in response to the report:

       i.          Sought clarification on whether projects that received funding from the Sharing Prosperity Fund delivered value for money. Requested quantifiable details such as return on investment data.

     ii.          Requested that future officer reports included additional information on the impact of projects funded through the Sharing Prosperity Fund so Members could properly scrutinise them and assess whether they are effective and were delivering value for money.

   iii.          Sought clarification regarding the respective contributions to some anti-poverty projects made by the Council and partners, such as the Living Wage campaign and the collective energy-switching scheme.

 

The Strategic Director undertook to put measurable details of impacts in future officer reports where available, so that councillors could scrutinise projects.

 

   iv.          The Anti-Poverty Strategy approach was working well where it had been introduced by Labour Councils across the country.

    v.          Requested the Anti-Poverty Strategy looked at the impact of general long term risks (eg Brexit, low income families not being able to afford food due to rising cost of living). Particularly for disabled people in poverty as they were hit harder than able bodied people and had less access to resources (eg education and leisure facilities).

   vi.          Suggested that community centres could provide more free ICT facilities.

 

The Strategy and Partnerships Manager said the following in response to Members’ questions:

       i.          The table in Appendix A (P31 Sharing Prosperity Fund expenditure to date and future allocations to projects) showed time limited (1-3 years) funding for projects. Some projects had funding until 2017-18 whereas others also received it for 2018-19. Funding would be reviewed in future.

     ii.          The Officer’s report set out a cost/benefit analysis for funding allocations, where available. Overall projects delivered value for money, but some led to more direct cost savings than others. For example the fuel and water poverty project led to direct cost savings for residents by providing support for measures such as switching energy providers, energy efficiency improvements to properties, energy debt write-offs, and installing water metres. However, the project was resource intensive as many people who were in fuel poverty were vulnerable and required a high level of face-to-face support from officers in order to make these changes.

   iii.          Both the original and revised Anti-Poverty Strategy emphasise that the City Council could not undertake work on its own and would have to deliver initiatives alongside partners. This was one of the learning points from the original strategy.

   iv.          (Reference P31 of the agenda) The City Council was working in partnership to deliver a number of anti-poverty projects which had received funding from the Sharing Prosperity Fund. The Council has worked in partnership with the national Living Wage Foundation (LWF) to promote the Living Wage, with the LWF focussing on national employers based in Cambridge, and the City Council focussing on independent employers in the city. The Council has carried out additional promotion of the county-wide collective energy-switching scheme organised by Cambridgeshire County Council. Data was available on the number of Cambridge residents that have switched providers through the scheme, but it was not possible to identify how many of these have done so as a direct result of the Council’s promotional activity.

    v.          The Council works in partnership with a number of churches and other partners to provide free holiday lunches to low income families in venues across the city. This project will continue in future, but the Council is not required to continue funding it through the SPF as the project is sustained by contributions from mainstream Council budgets and voluntary and private sector partners.

   vi.          Additional resources have been allocated the Sharing Prosperity Fund through the Mid Term Financial Strategy. Prior to this allocation being made, the Strategy and Partnerships Manager had worked with officers across the council to identify initial project ideas which would achieve the Strategy’s objectives. These projects would be worked up into more detailed proposals in due course and progress will be reported back to the Community Services Scrutiny Committee in future.

 vii.          The City Council had various projects that addressed multiple priorities eg the Sharing Prosperity Fund has funded Cambridge Sustainable food to deliver cookery lessons for low income residents, which addresses poverty, healthy eating and sustainable food issues. The Digital Skills Strategy focussed on increasing people’s access to the internet, but also helping them to upskill so they could apply for better jobs. Once they were on-line, people were more able to change tariffs and get better deals.

viii.          The City Council was working with private sector providers to increase access to, and reduce costs from, broadband services. For example, people could access free wi-fi in community centres and some other council buildings. The Strategy and Partnerships Manager was unable to go into detail of other projects due to commercial sensitivity.

   ix.          It was sometimes hard to quantify which benefits to residents were due to the input of the City Council when working in partnership with other organisations, but that we valued working together and believed that those partnerships were the best way to use council resources alongside others to help communities. Other partners and services were also facing diminishing resources from Central Government.

 

The Executive Councillor said:

a.    Digital skills were important as people had to access more (services) on-line, for example Universal Credit.

b.    Undertook to follow up concerns about Clay Farm ICT facilities with the Centre Manager.

c.    The revised Anti-Poverty Strategy contained a stronger reference to the dual impact of poverty on disabled people and people with other protected characteristics.

d.    £1.3m of dedicated Sharing Prosperity Fund funding had been spent to date through the Strategy.

e.    The City Council would do what it could to mitigate the impact of County Council Children Centre closures on City Council services (ie greater strain due to increased demand).

 

The Committee resolved by 6 votes to 0 to endorse the recommendation.

 

The Executive Councillor approved the recommendations.

 

Conflicts of Interest Declared by the Executive Councillor (and any Dispensations Granted)

No conflicts of interest were declared by the Executive Councillor.