Councillor Penberthy (Cabinet Member for Housing, Cooperative Development and Communities) introduced the report and highlighted the following points:

a)     Cabinet approved in October 2024 that Plymouth City Council (PCC) would take a fresh approach to tackling poverty in Plymouth;

b)    The plan was to build a city approach to tackling poverty, beginning with PCC and expanding to existing partnerships. This would build on existing practices and principles such as co-production and asset based community development, appreciate inquiry and trauma informed work;

c)     The economic strategy had a pillar on inclusive growth which would include work on tackling poverty;

d)    Building Bridges to Opportunity included tackling child poverty and the cost of living task force.

Nick Shaw (Public Health Registrar) added:

e)     The first stage of the work was to engage with people within PCC, within the wider communities working in organisations in Plymouth, people living in the community and partners in the voluntary and private sector to allow the framework to have a whole systems approach;

f)      The core aspect of the framework was to have an environment in Plymouth where the risk of falling into poverty was reduced and where people in poverty would be able to move themselves out;

g)     The principles guiding the development of the framework were around the whole systems approach, and focussed not on what PCC was doing for communities but how to work as a whole system, looking across the whole of the life course;

h)    Transport links would be optimised within the city so people who were living within local communities were able to access work, healthcare and opportunities;

i)      The next stage of the plan would be taking all information from previous work and understanding the core themes, alongside mapping strengths and areas of improvement within existing work.

Councillor Penberthy (Cabinet Member for Housing, Cooperative Development and Communities) added:

j)      PCC were awaiting the results of consultations on the Government’s child poverty work.

In response to questions, it was explained:

k)     Child poverty had been removed as a statutory duty;

l)      There was a 21% difference in men’s and women’s hourly pay in Plymouth;

m)   In comparison to the National Living Wage Foundations rate of pay, women in Plymouth earned 50% less than the national average for women;

n)    PCC were providing 48 places of specialist housing for young people within the homelessness system which wasn’t just a bed, but a self-contained flats;

o)    Building Bridges to Opportunity was not a public facing project and was focussed on partnerships to ensure the duplication of services was avoided;

p)    PCC were aware of the data being produced by the work Citizen’s Advice and the University of Plymouth were undertaking;

q)    Skills and education from early years through to adulthood were key themes focussed on throughout the plan;

r)     The importance of Councillor Champions;

s)     The positive impact of partnership working;

t)     The final report would be brought back before the Scrutiny Panel prior to being presented to Cabinet.

The Panel agreed to note the report.