Local and regional authorities

Strengthen and expand your role in tackling poverty in your area

We can work with you to design and implement strategic responses to poverty, helping you to have the biggest impact with the resource you have and bring about positive outcomes for local residents.

Click on the subheadings below to find out how we can support your work.

Book a free 30-minute consultation

We support organisations to develop anti-poverty strategies building on our 2023 report, Local anti-poverty strategies: good practice and effective approaches, which sets out a framework for effective anti-poverty strategy development with 12 clear steps based on good practice from around the UK. 

We have used this report to support anti-poverty strategy development in Bolton. From defining poverty and its drivers through to ensuring effective accountability and monitoring processes are in place, we can work with you to put this framework into practice and ensure the strategy leads to meaningful impact. 

By working with us, you will get: 

  • Support to develop an anti-poverty strategy for your organisation or region
  • Guidance on how to implement the strategy to ensure it delivers for those in need 
  • Ongoing strategic oversight from our policy and research team
  • Our advice on how to engage people with lived experience of poverty in a meaningful and ethical way.

For all the different ways we can support you with your anti-poverty strategy, click here.

To find out more about working with us, please contact Tom Waring at thomas@resolvepoverty.org or book a free initial 30-minute meeting. 

The government has committed to enacting the socio-economic duty, which will legally require public authorities to consider the way their decisions increase or decrease inequalities that result from socio-economic disadvantage. There is currently no formal timescale for national enactment of the duty and therefore we encourage the public sector to voluntarily adopt the duty, to ‘get ahead’ of the statutory requirement and demonstrate a commitment that resolving poverty is a priority.

We support public bodies to voluntarily adopt the duty and maximise the impact it can have through effective implementation. We provide support by: 

  • Training your organisation to understand the duty
  • Reviewing your organisation’s policies and procedures and produce guidance on where the duty can be integrated
  • Supporting you to gather and understand data and case studies which can be used effectively as a tool for decision-making and accountability around adopting the duty 
  • Providing resources which can be used in your future work to ensure the adoption of the duty has the best possible impact 
  • Supporting your organisation to measure the impact of adopting the duty.

To find out more about working with us, please contact Tom Waring at thomas@resolvepoverty.org or book a free initial 30-minute meeting.

We recognise that organisations like yours are struggling with prioritisation in the context of widespread public sector cuts. Justifying investing in anti-poverty activity among competing priorities can be difficult, but we can support you by looking into existing practice to advise on ways to make sure the work you’re already doing is working well to support people experiencing poverty. 

We offer a review of your policies and procedures to ensure they are focused on poverty alleviation, and will deliver for those who are experiencing poverty. We can focus on individual pieces of work or policies, or provide a full review of your organisation’s practices and procedures. We have proven success in supporting organisations across the country to tackle poverty locally, meaning our expertise can help you deliver effective anti-poverty efforts. 

Our work includes: 

  • Evaluating policies and practices to check they are fulfilling the needs of people experiencing poverty and ensuring cost effectiveness
  • Reviewing programmes, work or activities and highlighting where this work may exacerbate inequality arising from socio-economic disadvantage
  • Make recommendations to ensure anti-poverty practice is a priority for your organisation. 

To find out more about working with us, please contact Tom Waring at thomas@resolvepoverty.org or book a free initial 30-minute meeting.

We can work with you to design a bespoke training programme for your organisation.

We offer leading expertise on the best ways of understanding and tackling poverty, valuing the voices of people experiencing poverty, and supporting those in poverty. Through our training offer we can share this expertise with your organisation. 

To find out more, get in touch with Tom Waring at thomas@resolvepoverty.org or book a free 30-minute consultation. 

We can also deliver our Poverty Awareness Training as an e-learning package for your organisation. Our Poverty Awareness Training supports professionals to better understand how poverty affects the people and communities they work with, with best practice for supporting people in poverty effectively, safely and respectfully. Click here to learn more about e-learning. 

Money Matters, an innovative programme by Resolve Poverty, tackles financial hardship by delivering specialist benefits and debt advice directly to families within school and community settings. This approach is crucial because many families facing poverty have not accessed traditional advice routes. Annually, £23 billion in benefits remains unclaimed due to factors like system complexity, past negative experiences, and a lack of awareness about available support.

The programme has already achieved significant financial gains, securing over £460,000 for families, primarily through ongoing benefits. Gains have also included grants for utility debt reduction, social tariffs, and essential household items and more. Beyond financial relief, Money Matters empowers parents to alleviate stress, enabling them to focus on their children’s well-being, mental health, and regaining confidence in managing their future.

Resolve Poverty can offer comprehensive support to establish and develop the Money Matters programme in your area. Our experienced team effectively engages school communities through various events, fostering trust and enabling parents to comfortably discuss their financial situations.

Our support package includes forming and facilitating a Money Matters working group with partners and individuals with lived experience, leveraging our expertise to develop a tailored delivery plan, identifying and collaborating with local advice organisations, monitoring impact for evaluation, and exploring funding avenues for sustainability. We also facilitate connections with other Money Matters provisions for shared learning.

To discuss setting up or developing a Money Matters programme, please contact Jennie Lucas at jennie@resolvepoverty.org.

The North West Local Authority Officers’ Forum includes local authorities from Greater Manchester, the Liverpool City Region, and Lancashire. This forum is intended to be a knowledge exchange where local authorities can come together to share best practices on anti-poverty work, hear updates on national campaigning, and gain early access to Resolve Poverty’s policy publications and current projects. 

The forum provides a dedicated space for local authority officers to hear from expert speakers, discuss challenges, share success stories, and learn from one another, ultimately helping to strengthen local responses to poverty. 

We are always looking for contributors and subject matter experts to present and partake in the forum discussion on topics that fall within our key policy areas, especially local authorities, combined authorities, anti-poverty organisations, and academics with a research interest in poverty. Topics discussed at the forum include developing and implementing local anti-poverty strategies, Council Tax support schemes, and maximising the effectiveness of the Household Support Fund. 

If you would like to learn more about the forum or are interested in presenting, contact Penny Rimmer at penny@resolvepoverty.or

We’ve worked with:

Bolton Council have worked with Resolve Poverty over twelve months on the development of our co-designed anti-poverty strategy. They have provided strategic direction and oversight, really strengthening our approach by setting a local and national context. They have supported us by managing consultations with stakeholders and residents, presenting at internal meetings on strategy progress, developed template documents that have been utilised to capture key information, shared good practice from other areas and managed our lived experience programme. The benefits of working with Resolve Poverty have been vast and have really provided us with a wealth of impartial advice and direction.

Phil Rimmer, Bolton Council