Agenda item

CHILD POVERTY

The Co-operative Scrutiny Board will receive a 12 month update on Child Poverty.

Minutes:

The Cabinet Member for Co-operatives, Housing and Community Safety (Councillor Penberthy), the Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Public Health (Councillor McDonald), Senior Policy, Performance and Partnerships Adviser (Candice Sainsbury), Father Sam Philpott (Child Poverty Champion), Performance and Research Officer (Alex Handley) presented the annual update on the Child Poverty Strategy, which highlighted the following key issues –

 

(a)

child poverty was essentially a result of poverty in families; child poverty matters because it meant that children were suffering now and their future lives could be blighted;

 

 

(b)

in 1999, the Government made a commitment to end child poverty by 2020; the Child Poverty Act was published in 2010 in order to deliver this and also placed a number of duties on local authorities and other local delivery partners to work together to tackle child poverty;

 

 

(c)

 

Plymouth shaped its own response to child poverty based on its understanding of child poverty as the outcome of economic, environmental and social factors that could damage a child’s development and limit or prevent children and young people from having many of the experiences and opportunities that others took for granted;

 

 

(d)

 

‘Child Poverty Matters – the Child Poverty Strategy’ for Plymouth 2013-2016 was endorsed at Full Council in June 2013;

 

 

(e)

the child poverty cross party working group was established in June 2014 and included three Labour and three Conservative councillors, including the Cabinet Member with responsibilities for child poverty;

 

 

(f)

the update on the Child Poverty Action Plan had been provided to the child poverty working group over the past 12 months and provided updates on the following areas –

 

 

 

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financial support and independence;

 

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family life and children’s life chances;

 

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communities and neighbourhoods;

 

 

 

(g)

the ‘conversation’ about child poverty in Plymouth, had been led by Father Sam Philpott and had taken place on 16 July 2014 with around 30 stakeholders from across the city; there were a number of key themes that emerged from the conversation which included –

 

 

 

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the need for active leadership to ensure intolerance of children living in poverty in the city;

 

 

 

 

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the requirement for a holistic service planning and delivery approach.

 

Father Sam Philpott thanked the council for inviting him to take the role as Child Poverty Champion.  His ambition was for Plymouth to be known as the child poverty free zone, intolerant of children living in poverty and his goal was for both councillors and council staff to become Child Poverty Champions (the council’s partners would also need to be engaged in this process).  Aspirations would also need to be raised and practical ways of helping children to climb out of poverty needed to be found.

 

In response to questions raised by the Board, the following was reported –

 

(h)

the figures provided within the scorecard were based on the latest available data; the information highlighted how the performance had changed since 2010 against current performance also the national position;

 

 

(i)

Plymouth had a low income economy and had witnessed over the last three years a worrying trend with a drop in wages; one of the main reasons for this situation could be attributed to the higher than average part time jobs within the city;

 

 

(j)

 

the City Council as an employer had previously adopted the principles of the Living Wage and its implementation in 2013; it had also recently backed the Living Wage campaign for the city.

 

The Board agreed –

 

(1)

that scrutiny members participate in community walkabouts, facilitated by Father Sam Philpott and other child poverty champions to better understand the lived experience of children and young people living in poverty across the city; 

 

 

(2)

 

to undertake a co-operative review, as part of the budget scrutiny process, to analysis the impact of the budget setting decisions 2015/16 – 2018/19 on the efforts to address child poverty in the city.

 

Supporting documents: