The Committee received a report presented by Bev Morgan, Chief Executive Officer of Home Start Wirral and Chair of the Improving Life Chances Steering Group, providing details of progress in respect of the Improving Life Chances pledge and the identified five priority action areas –

·  Overarching actions

·  Supporting parents into sustainable employment

·  Improve life chances for children and young people

·  Supporting families to become financially resilient

·  Tackling the immediate effects of poverty.

The multi-agency Improving Life Chances Steering Group work to a strategy looking at opportunities to tackle child and family poverty in Wirral communities and break the cycle of disadvantage as a means of delivering the Improving Life Chances pledge.  The Steering Group has specific leads for each of the five priority action areas who work in partnership with appropriate agencies to deliver the identified actions. The submitted report provided an overview of activity and outcomes for 2017-18 in respect of the five priority areas, and a quarter 3 report for 2017-18 was appended to the submitted report.

The focus of work had been on establishing community pilots in Seacombe, Bidston and St James and Beechwood to target action and evaluate the impact of this effort.  A further appendix to the submitted report presented a review of actions undertaken and their impacts.

The Committee was advised that while the evidence pointed to positive effects of the work undertaken into improving the situation with regard to the immediate effects of poverty, there was no evidence of lifting people out of poverty.  It was considered that in order to strengthen the commitment to lifting children and families out of poverty, the Pledge could not standalone but needed to be core and central.  The Improving Life Chances Pledge needed to be embedded within other strategies, examples provided included children’s strategies and how to get the best start in life and housing strategies to mitigate the effects of poverty on living conditions etc. 

Councillor Moira McLaughlan, in echoing the comments of the Steering Group Chair with regard to the good work on the ground to support people but with little evidence of demonstrable overall improvement in a wider sense, welcomed the intention to work in different ways.  Councillor Jean Stapleton likewise welcomed the intention to work with other Strategy Groups to strengthen the visibility of the Pledge and work towards ensuring a child poverty theme in each Strategy, and noted that action plans for all strategies were being reviewed currently, so it was important to have early discussions with each Strategy Group to ensure recognition of child poverty issues before new action plans were launched in the new Municipal Year.

Councillor Wendy Clements queried who would scrutinise the Pledge actions and progress should the Pledge be reflected in other strategies, and commented on the need to ensure that the other Overview and Scrutiny Committees were aware of what issues to look for.  Bev Morgan advised that the Improving Life Chances Steering Group would continue to meet and monitor the Pledge, and could report on progress to this Committee.

Councillor Alan Brighouse queried the statistic used to determine the proportion of children in low income families.  The Committee was advised that the figure used was a national measure and that the delay in publishing figures was frustrating.  Other sources that might enable alternate relevant data to be obtained in a more timely fashion to allow the identification of families in poverty were under consideration.

RESOLVED – That

(1)  The report be noted; and

(2)  The intention to embed a child poverty theme into other Strategy action plans be welcomed and supported, and the Improving Life Chances Steering Group continue to monitor progress towards delivery of the Improving Life Chances Pledge and to report to this Committee on progress made.