On Wednesday 8 July, the Cabinet of Cheshire West & Chester Council considered the declaration of a “Poverty Emergency” following the recent report of the second Poverty Truth Commission and concerns over a rapid increase in poverty as a result of economic fall out from the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Cabinet looked to set up a Poverty Advisory Board to build on the Poverty Truth Commissions with its key principles as follows:
• Ensuring equal opportunities for involvement between Community Inspirers and other stakeholders and adopting a common approach and principles of co-production.
• Further developing two-way conversation between residents of the Borough and the Council/partner agencies.
• Utilising data, analysis and evaluation to agree priorities and drive work more widely across the Council and with partner agencies.
• Collective, multi-agency and cross-boundary working.
• De-stigmatising and educational
Cllrs Lynn Gibbon and Charles Fifield spoke on this issue, welcomed what the Board intended to do but raised concerns about the lack of reference to helping those in poverty with needs in relation to literacy, numeracy, household budgeting and employment.
The Board seemed preoccupied with purely short term emergency measures to reduce the impact of poverty rather than also considering longer term measures to help provide a route out of poverty. They also raised concerns about rural poverty.
Cllr Fifield noted that home budgeting was advocated by the Citizens Advice Bureau and that the Trussell Trust and West Cheshire Foodbank had both recognised the need to help people with such skills with their “Eat well, spend less” and “pop up cooking” initiatives in the past. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation considers work alongside social security as the 2 key routes out of poverty.
As the Cabinet discussed the report and the comments raised, Cllrs Gibbon and Fifield were extremely disappointed to have our concerns dismissed by the Deputy Leader as “patronising” to those in poverty and that we were displaying a “Victorian” and even “Tudor” attitude to those in need, who we couldn’t possibly understand.
When given the opportunity to speak again, Cllr Fifield clarified his comments to remove any doubt as to what he was proposing, as an addition to the key priorities, the following specific phrase:
“Ensure issues such as numeracy, literacy, household budgeting and employment are also considered, where relevant”.
Sadly this was again dismissed, by the Leader of the Council, who none the less decided that 2 further key recommendations would be included:
Firstly, the Poverty Advisory Board could choose to call itself the Poverty Truth Advisory Board and secondly, that Councillors should be given further education as to what poverty actually is.
This was approved unanimously by the entire Cabinet which means that in West Cheshire we now have a scenario where additional Education for Councillors on Poverty is essential but additional education for people in poverty is not.
8 July 2020
(Update: January 2023 West Cheshire receivied a grant of £1.5m from Government to help with adult numeracy.
Useful Links:
Citizens Advice Bureau – Budgeting https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/budgeting/
Trussell Trust – East Well Spend Less holding page - https://www.eatwellspendless.org/
Money Advice Service: https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en
Martin Lewis – Home Budgeting https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/budget-planning/
