Agenda item

6.1  The Chair stated that the purpose of this item was to receive an update from the Health and Care partners on the work of the Council and the NHS to support residents with the cost of living crisis focusing in particular on mitigating the health impacts.

6.2  He welcomed for the item:

  Nina Griffith (NG), Director of Delivery, City & Hackney Place Based Partnership

  Jenny Zienau (JZ), Strategic Lead (Change and Transformation), Policy and Strategic Delivery

6.3  Members gave consideration to two documents:

Briefing note on Cost of living and health equity

Executive Summary of Institute of Health Excellence report ‘Rising Cost of Living: a review of interventions to reduce impact on health inequalities in London’

6.4  NG took Members through the report in detail. The cost of living crisis locally had been the driver for this and the aim was to take a system level approach using collective levers of council and NHS to address the crisis. She took Members through the 4 key strands of the Poverty Framework namely:  Coordinating our system response; Equipping the resident facing staff; The crisis grants and income maximisation work via the Money Hub and the Use of Data and Insight. JZ went on to explain outreach with VCS partners and importance of co-designing the Money Hub with them

6.5  Members asked questions and the following was noted in the replies:

a) Chair asked about referral pathways to the Money Hub, limits on access and how checks on further Benefit eligibility are done. NG detailed the process explaining that it was quite bespoke and that among the team there are for example experts on housing benefits, on disability allowances and sometimes input on case management.  A large part of the work was around helping those with rent arrears. JZ described how the Money Hub worked in close partnership with the VCS partners giving the example of the work at the Lubavitch Children's Centre. The outreach is carefully co-designed with partners in the relevant communities.

b) Members asked about barriers to access and how those with No Recourse to Public Funds are being supported. NG explained that there is a big focus on reducing barriers and they acknowledge that everyone has different levels of trust in the local authority and statutory services and so they recognise that not everyone will come forward when they need to, hence they work very closely with the relevant VCS partners who might have those trusted relationships in place. JZ explained that on the No Recourse to Public Funds cohort the challenge is that they can’t give out money they can only support people to access what they are eligible for. They help them find support via homelessness services and charitable services and that the population is limited in terms of how much the Money Hub can increase their incomes.  She explained that there were plans for a hardship fund specifically for this cohort utilising some windfall funding that came via NLWA and they hope to go live with that within a few weeks.  They are very aware of the scale of the problem here and that it is a significant issue for many VCS partners who support these individuals via the food network, for example.  Cllr Kennedy commented that the Money Hub was a great example of best practice in the sector and the fortnightly catch up sessions with the all provider partners were a great learning and sharing opportunity and he recommended Members to ask to listen in on these as it would help for example in clearing up Member case work.

c) Members asked about how much of the funding is being utilised and if any is under utilised. NG explained that one of the drivers for the Money Hub was that they could see that people were not accessing all the money they were entitled to and there was value in combining grants and funding there to assist these cohorts as well. She clarified that figure in 3.3 was the cash gone to households as a direct result of an intervention by the Money Hub.  The Chair clarified the difference between the value of estimated unclaimed benefits, the funding of the Hub, and the grants involved. NG added that some of it is one off grants and other is ongoing uptake of entitled benefits. They supported £220k of one off grants and £240k of ongoing benefits

d) Members asked about the need for dedicated outreach to those living in the Private Rented Sector and on feedback so far from the new Warm Hub spaces adding that it was more difficult for those in the PRS to find out the information about access to grants and benefits.  NG agreed and explained that they can access the Money Hub and there is specific outreach already but it needs to be built on.  As regards the Warm Hubs, JZ added that Volunteer Centre Hackney, who we just heard from, were one of the providers. She added that some were obviously more sustainable than others and they were generally successful where community partners provided spaces that are already well used and familiar in the community and that they were hoping to expand the offer. The offer also encompasses homework activities for children and some warm meals.  One provider had purchased a washing machine to enable users to do their laundry whilst there. She added that Healthwatch would be helping with gathering insight data for the project. The system convenors who are funded by the council are finding out what is needed and what other outreach would be of benefit.

e) Members asked about targeting those in HMOs and those in small properties in the PRS who would be experiencing poverty and likely be more isolated. JZ replied that this was also a focus and they were utilising the licensing scheme in the north of the borough to reach people.  She added that many in smaller and single properties were more likely to be in poverty and while Hackney Housing tenants get many newsletters those in PRS don’t receive the same level of communications. NG added that this inequity of access would be addressed further.

f) Sally Beaven (Healthwatch Hackney) offered a quantitative survey on service users to build up the evidence base on the Money Hub and thus assist in future funding. The Chair encouraged further discussions between officers and Healthwatch on this.

g) Members asked about the timeline for the free school meals task group. NG replied that she would have to follow up on this.

ACTION:

NG to provide further information on the timeline for the Free School Meals Task Group.

h) Members asked about security of future funding for the Money Hub project beyond October.  NG stated that they were very aware that this is non recurrent funding route and the onus was on them to maximise the benefit of this while they have them and do a proper evaluation and use that to secure the funding they will need in future They will want to understand that there have been points of failure which led people to the Money Hub in the first place and the Council and partners need to think more about getting things right first time. They have mobilised a lot of service offers that support people with economic problems and they now need to look in the round at what has worked and what hasn’t so that a cost effective offer can be put in place for the future.

i) The Chair asked about the funding. NG stated that it was joint Council and NHS and the project  had pulled together existing teams to put the Hub in place as a single point of access. Health and Care Board partners had put in £509k which had come from some non recurrent funding streams that were available from underspends in some other areas.

6.6  The Chair commented that if, at the end of year, you’re still helping people get unclaimed benefit at the same rate, then until that tapers off, this fully aligns with the requirements in the 3rd strand of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy and so should continue to be supported. He asked if he could be kept informed of what will happen to the funding for this and he thanked the officers for their detailed and helpful report.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted.