Councillors approve poverty action plan
South Lanarkshire councillors last week approved an action plan to tackle poverty in the area.
The committee heard of the work carried out by the local authority’s Tackling Poverty Working group and welcomed its recommendations.
A cross-party working group which was formed to tackle poverty in the area, held its first meeting in February 2020.
However, due to Covid, the group did not meet again until February 2021 when it considered action plans to address poverty and has since met five times.
Councillor John Ross, chair of the Executive Committee, praised the group, and said: “I think it’s been valuable from the point of view that members actually got to see what the council is doing and has been doing to tackle poverty.”
However, Cllr Alex Allison questioned the success of the group and its work over the years.
He said: “No objections to anything in the report, it’s just the fact that the group was decided four years ago, didn’t set up until a year later, didn’t meet until a year after that, and had seven meetings over the four years and what’s the outcome? No real outcomes.
“I would have thought something as important as tackling poverty would have had a much more active time and actually be able to do something. Just an observation.”
In response to this, chair of the group Cllr Lynsey Hamilton explained the delay the group faced and the importance of it.
She said: “Covid has held this up. I was the chair of it and I had maternity leave which held it up probably as well, so that’s why it’s taken so long.
“It probably should have been quicker but alongside the people that were on it with me, it was a very, very useful forum to be on because it actually gave us an overview of what the council was doing and what each department was doing.
“We felt as the working group that actually we need to quantify and look at how the things that we do are impacting to see if we are spending the money in the right places. I do think it has been a really useful project.”
The group presented a range of recommendations which the future work of the council should reflect.
Firstly, it suggested that the council should use the information gathered on the impact and lived experience of poverty to determine the best solutions to address poverty-related issues.
The council should also make use of the Fairer Scotland Duty as a means of ensuring all council services are held to account when it comes to reducing the impact of poverty on residents’ lives.
The group also recommended that the council should create an action plan to focus on how to coordinate this work and integrate it with other work, both within the council and with external partners.
Over the seven meetings, a range of topics have been discussed with aims of targeting poverty.
Topics considered by the group include financial issues people face due to Covid, welfare support, child poverty and access to free sanitary provision amongst other issues.
To date, the group has gained an understanding of the contributions to the Tackling Poverty agenda from each of the resources within the council.
The working group has also considered the lived experience feedback provided from various groups who have experience with the impact of poverty, along with examining the work of various partnership groups.
Cllr Eileen Logan said: “I was lucky enough to be twice a substitute and I was very impressed by all the members of the group who worked closely together.”
Approving the recommendations means officers will now develop the action plan.