Agenda item

Consider report by Service Director Customer & Communities on actions the Council is taking to tackle Child Poverty. (Copy attached.)

3.1       There had been circulated copies of a joint report by the Service Director, Customer & Communities and Service Director, Young People Engagement & Inclusion providing an overview of the evaluation of the actions that Scottish Borders Council and Partners were taking to tackle Child Poverty in the Scottish Borders.  The report was presented by Ms Jenni Craig, Service Director, Customer & Communities and summarised in a slide presentation.  Also in attendance was Ms Janice Robertson, Strategic Planning & Policy Manager.  Ms Craig explained that The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 required Local Authorities and Health Boards to jointly prepare a Local Child Poverty Action Plan, Report and an Annual Progress report.  A Report, Action Plan and Annual Progress Report for both 2018/19 and 2019/20 had been agreed by the Community Planning Partnership Strategic Board, submitted to Scottish Government and published on the Council’s website.  A current Report and Action Plan for 2020/21 had also been agreed and published with an Annual Progress Report to follow in April 2021.  The Child Poverty Planning Group (CPPG) managed the implementation of the Plans and was accountable to the Scottish Borders Community Planning Partnership (CPP). Membership of the CPPG, a strategic group of senior multi-agency partners, was shown in Appendix 1 to the report. The remit of the CPPG was to plan, undertake and monitor actions and to report to CPP and Scottish Government. Plans were prepared within themes and outlined the activity taking place, which partners were involved, which poverty driver the action sought to improve, intended beneficiaries/target groups and how the impact would be assessed.

3.2       Ms Craig went on to provide the highlights from the reports and referred to the Child Poverty Action Plan attached as Appendix 2 to the report. The 2018/19 report, the first produced under the Act, detailed activities including modern apprentice opportunities; targeted support and intervention to close the poverty related attainment gap; active promotion of free school meals, clothing grants and educational maintenance allowances;  Early Years Pathway Project; and Housing Plans to assist homeless. Highlights of the 2019/20 report included apprenticeships and training opportunities in partnership; Inspire Learning programme – access to own Ipad for all students from P4; and continuing successful Early Years Project.  The current report, due by June 2021, contained planned actions on a Money Worries App to signpost to services; Connecting Scotland bids to enable the more vulnerable to get online; continued work on the poverty related attainment gap; families in crisis access to emergency funds; and affordable housing developments.  A recommendation that was highlighted for local action, in a Poverty and Inequality Commission review of the 2018/19 Action Reports, was ‘to review how data and evidence is used to measure progress and ensure effective evaluation and monitoring methods were in place’.  The approach to this recommendation was outlined in the report. Action Plans were organised into themes and indications given of which partners were involved in each action and which poverty driver the action was designed to address. The Action Plan also set out how the impact of each action would be assessed and the beneficiaries and target groups of that action.  Evaluation and monitoring methods continued to be strengthened and were reviewed by the CPPG to ensure that they were effective and produced outputs and evidence to support actions.

3.3    In a discussion of the report and presentation, Members received further information in response to their questions, particularly in relation to the statistics contained within the Action Plan attached as Appendix 2 to the report.  Attention was drawn to the fact that, in terms of the HMRC child poverty data, shown within the appendix, the percentage of children who lived in families with limited resources in the Scottish Borders was significantly higher than the percentages in other local authorities in the family group. It was accepted that this could be due to the significant impact of the low wage economy in the Scottish Borders.  However officers were asked if more in-depth benchmarking work could be carried out with the comparator authorities to explore whether there were significant underlying issues or whether the difference was due to how the data was gathered.  Attention was drawn to a formatting problem in the table under Figure 8 within the appendix which resulted in a misleading set of figures.  Also there were no headings on the table to explain the information presented.  Officers apologised for this error and advised that a corrected table, with headings and showing figures for each Ward, would be circulated to Members.  When asked if there was scope for Councillors to be more involved in the actions to tackle child poverty, Ms Craig referred to the Member/Officer Anti-Poverty Strategy Working Group.  This was a short-life working group but there may be an opportunity for further Member involvement deriving from that.  Officers would raise this point with the Group.  In terms of the progress of the Pathways Project, Ms Craig explained that the pilot had been successful and that the project had been at the point of roll-out when the Covid outbreak occurred.  A question was asked about the risk of poverty remaining hidden and the significance of the Child Poverty Index (CPI), developed by Scottish Borders Council from data related to four components, rather than relying on one-dimensional measures.  Ms Craig confirmed that the CPI was a valuable tool with data being reported through the Anti-Poverty Strategy Working Group.  She would provide an update on how this was used and circulate to Members.  In response to a question about the attainment gap and issues around internet connectivity, the Service Director, Young People Engagement & Inclusion, agreed that in addition to providing Ipads there were actions being taken to address connectivity problems, for example by the provision of MiFi Units. However there needed to be more granular understanding of the attainment gap and its impact as this may not be the same for each young person.  Ms Craig agreed that financial challenges for families appeared to be growing and that an increasing level of advice would be required.  The Council would be liaising with Citizen Advice colleagues about what was expected to be a key area of focus this year.  The concluding discussion focused on how Child Poverty was defined as there appeared to be no clear definition.  It was noted that identification of the drivers for poverty were dependent on the definition.  Members also expressed the view that, although the report presented a raft of initiatives, it would be helpful to have more performance information.  Members welcomed Ms Craig’s suggestion to include performance information in the quarterly corporate performance report in addition to the presentation of a more detailed annual report.  It was agreed that officers be requested to provide an update to the Audit and Scrutiny Committee meeting in June 2021 to take forward the issues that had been raised.  The Chairman thanked the officers for their attendance.

DECISION

AGREED:-

(a)        that an updated table of figures showing child poverty levels in each Ward would be circulated; and

(b)        to request that officers provide an update to the June Audit & Scrutiny Committee to facilitate discussion on the following:

(i)         a definition of child poverty and a view of the key drivers for child poverty;

(ii)        how Councillors could be involved in the Council’s approach to tackle child poverty;

(iii)       the information to be included in presentation of data in quarterly performance reports; and

(iv)       whether benchmarking with local authorities within the family group could be carried out to identify any underlying issues giving rise to the difference in percentage levels of child poverty and to learn from best practice.