By Clare Maskrey, Principal Policy Officer at Bolton Council
Bolton Council and partners have developed a co-designed Tackling Poverty Strategy. The strategy, which has been developed over the last 18 months, seeks to establish a longer-term, sustainable partnership approach to poverty in the borough, especially when demand on services is high, capacity is stretched, and funding is uncertain.
We have worked closely with Resolve Poverty in a strategic partnership. Over this time, Resolve Poverty has played a key part in the working group established to develop the strategy. This group has now evolved into a delivery group, with Resolve Poverty’s continued input being crucial.
They have provided strategic direction and oversight, strengthening our approach by setting a Greater Manchester and national context. Their extensive knowledge and experience in tackling poverty have provided valuable impartial insights and guidance.
Resolve Poverty has supported us by managing consultations with stakeholders and residents, presenting at internal meetings on strategy progress, developing template documents that have been used to capture key information, sharing good practice from other areas, and managing our lived experience programme.
We have also worked in collaboration on the Money Advice Referral Tool. Now the tool is live, its promotion and development has now formed one of our priority actions. We are continuing to work with Resolve Poverty on developing and evolving this tool.
We are now working with Resolve Poverty over a three-year period with a critical friend approach. This really ties in with our governance of the strategy and will assist us to revisit the group we initially engaged with as part of our lived experience element.
Extensive research and engagement work has taken place with residents and partners to determine the main themes and priority actions for the strategy. Three critical themes have been pinpointed which are central to our strategy and ongoing efforts to combat poverty:
- Prevention and Reduction
- Mitigation
- Working Together.
Alongside these themes are various priority actions which have formed a basis for the strategies action plan. Our delivery group has developed this action plan and is very much a council and partnership approach. This work is particularly well placed to make use of the Council’s emerging performance framework, which will seek to interpret performance through a holistic lens, with consideration to a greater range of activities which contribute to the achievement of strategic objectives.
As poverty covers such a breadth of areas, we are now looking at the development of various subgroups / input of existing groups, that can focus on specific actions that would then feed into the main delivery group. For example, Bolton’s existing Advice Capacity Group meet on a weekly basis, looking at a co-ordinated approach around the promotion of Pension Credit and how this can be best managed in terms of staffing capacity, barriers that may arise and issues that services may be experiencing. This group includes a whole raft of services that can support residents in various ways in terms of claiming Pension Credit. This group has really been key in terms of providing a joined-up approach, enabling residents to gain advice and support in the best possible way.
Phil Rimmer, Bolton Council’s Assistant Director for Revenues, Benefits and Customer Services said:
“As a Council we are committed to doing all we can to tackle poverty and Bolton’s anti-poverty strategy highlights the way we will better support residents in the long-term who are at risk of mounting debt, food poverty and homelessness.
“For those living in poverty in Bolton, every day is a struggle and things that are an inconvenience to many of us – an unexpected bill or a spell of cold weather – can lead to a crisis for those who need the most help.
“I’d like to thank all our partners who have contributed so much over recent years, and for their ongoing support in creating Bolton’s anti-poverty strategy, including Resolve Poverty who has been pivotal in the process along the way.”
Graham Whitham, Resolve Poverty’s Chief Executive said:
“We have been proud to work with Bolton Council and partners on developing and implementing their anti-poverty strategy. This experience underscores the value of our involvement in supporting localities to build the architecture needed for joined-up action on poverty, creating spaces for a strong and strategic focus on effective policy responses to this critical issue. As we move forward, our strategic partnership with Bolton will continue to drive the strategy’s implementation, offering valuable insights and practical support.
“Resolve Poverty offers a range of consultancy and training services to support local authorities and organisations in understanding and enhancing their role in resolving poverty. For more information, please get in touch with Tom Waring.”
Clare will be joining us at our Annual Conference to speak at our session on the role of localities and regions in the national mission to end poverty.
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This article is featured in our 5 March newsletter.
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