Agenda item

To hear from Councillor Stephanie Cryan, Cabinet Member for Communities, Equalities and Finance on council initiatives and funding to support residents in response to the cost of living crisis.

The committee heard from Councillor Stephanie Cryan, Cabinet Member for Communities, Equalities and Finance, and also from Dominic Cain, Director of Exchequer.

 

Councillor Cryan drew members’ attention to the impacts the Cost of Living Crisis was having on residents, high inflation, rising interest rates, stagnation in wages and growth, the energy crisis.  Councillor Cryan highlighted that the impact of the cost of living crisis was worse for people on the lowest incomes as the percentage they spent on food and fuel was greater than those with higher incomes.  Councillor Cryan stressed concern with the direction of travel in terms of the national picture, with a government not keeping to its manifesto commitments, such as promises for benefits to rise in line with inflation, and issues around cuts to public sector spending.  This would exacerbate an already precarious situation for many people. 

 

Councillor Cryan informed the committee that the council had a really good network, working with the community sector and voluntary sector.  Councillor Cryan explained that the council was aware of who the vulnerable people were, but what the council didn’t know was who the people were who were just over the threshold to receive Universal Credit/benefits and struggling.  There was particular concern around this group of people as they would have no support.

 

There was also concern and uncertainty around local government funding and future funding settlements, with the government’s view that local authorities funding could be reduced further, and the roll back of a government commitment to a two year funding settlement, along with the potential of not taking account of inflationary costs.  Councillor Cryan stressed that despite of all of this, the cost of living crisis was the council’s number one priority and that local government was working with partners to respond to the crisis, and were the safety net for residents.

 

With regard to the Cost of Living Crisis report that was due to be considered by Cabinet, Councillor Cryan explained that the report set out everything that the council had done, which included the early response from the beginning of the year, what had been done recently and what the council wanted to continue to do.  Councillor Cryan also explained that she was the lead cabinet member for the cost of living crisis but that it was a cross council response and included pieces of work supporting residents across the different council departments. Councillor Cryan highlighted that there was a lot of activity taking place in the departments of Public Health, Adult Services, Children’s Services and in Housing.  She stressed that the council could not support residents without the cross council response.

 

In terms of level of support compared to other local authorities, Councillor Cryan advised that the council had looked at other local authority cost of living funds and had not come across another local authority with a cost of living fund larger than Southwark’s.

 

Following Councillor Cryan’s initial address, questions, comment and discussion took place along the following lines:

 

·  Identifying unknown individuals just above universal credit threshold who are at most risk.

·  Take up of Household Support Fund (geographically, ethnicity and age) and targeting communication at those who have not been applying.

·  Impact of energy price cap on tenants and leaseholders connected to district heating systems.

·  Support being given to council staff who earn £30,000 or less.

·  Non-council freehold blocks requesting to be on boarded to Laser Energy Contracts.

·  Signposting residents to information and help available.

·  Cost of living advice lines.

·  Work being done to bring all sectors together to respond to cost of living crisis.

·  Work being done around opening up council facilities to people who need somewhere warm and welcoming to go.

·  Access to free healthy school meals for over 11s.

·  Availability of financial provision for struggling small business.

·  Climate Action Fund – potential for using underspend to fund green/cost of living objectives for example insulation of homes, advice to people on how to save energy such as switching to more sustainable sources.

·  Cost of repairs, as experienced by leaseholders – need for increased transparency around how costs are calculated and the opportunities for challenge.

·  Reaching out to residents in the private rent sector.

·  Completion of equality impact assessment referenced in cabinet report

·  Energy support fund – checking that it is reaching the right people.

·  Solar panel energy that could be produced by schools, hospitals, businesses and houses.

·  Increase in construction of new homes which supply 100% green energy system.

 

The following key points were made in response to some of the questions asked:

 

Targeting support

 

·  Suggested to government that they should share more information with local authorities to enable targeted support.

·  Providing support through community referral pathways, working with other organisations (61 expressions of interest received from both large and small organisations, ranging from large charitable trusts to small tenants and residents associations).

·  Introducing a Low Income Family tracker to ensure people who need support can get support.  This would enable the council to have further information/data going forward.

 

District heating systems

 

·  Leaseholder charges will rise, but are comparable to or below the price cap at the moment.  Letters will be sent to leaseholders providing reassurance in relation to this.

·  Anybody on the district heating network is eligible for the £400 payment from the government, however because district heating networks are not under the energy price cap, this is taken off of electricity bills – some energy companies will take the amount off a person’s direct debit, other companies may pay directly to a person’s bank account as a payment each month.

 

Support to council staff

 

·  The council has been running sessions with the money and pensions service which provides council staff with information around a whole range of services that they can access, including independent financial support and advice.

·  The council also has a cross departmental programme board, which includes the response for council staff.  As the pressures increase over the next few months, the council will be ensuring that its response increases also.

 

Laser Energy Contract – onboarding of non-council blocks

 

·  Cabinet member for council homes and homelessness is looking at what can be done around this.  The council will be looking at whether it will be beneficial for non-council blocks to be onboarded or not on a case by case basis.

·  The council is only tied into the Laser contract until the end of March 2023 (prices only secured for 4 years).  It was unknown what the council would be offered if renewing contract, so caution was required around this.

 

Signposting and communication

 

·  More work was being done around communication to residents, via the communications team, with partner organisations and with T&RAs.

·  Cost of Living summit being arranged with voluntary sector, T&RAs, faith groups – information to be provided to empower them to provide help and support to individuals.

 

Cost of Living Advice Lines

 

·  The council was looking at how it could have or direct people to a dedicated advice line.

 

Warm hubs

 

·  Work being undertaken by Councillor Evelyn Akoto, cabinet member for health and wellbeing, and the public health department.  Looking at having a network of warm hubs across the borough, also looking at what else could be provided such as activities for families with young children, provision of food, tackling isolation and loneliness.

·  The Leader of the Council was writing to local businesses as well to see what help and support they can give.

·  Work also being done with Community Support Alliance with a focus on cost of living support.

·  There would be a briefing arranged for all ward councillors.

 

Access to free healthy school meals for over 11s

 

·  This was being looked at.  A working group had been established, chaired by Councillor Jasmine Ali, cabinet member for children, young people, education and refugees.  The working group also included cabinet member for health and wellbeing, and Councillor Cryan.  Different options were being looked at, and the council was also writing to schools in relation to universal credit and free school meals around the way the accounts were debited and whether there was scope to retain underspends on individual pupil accounts.

·  This was also a strand of the Right to Food Strategy.

 

Small business – support beyond advice

 

·  £18.5m already distributed to small local businesses through discretionary funding (government funding).  Also an additional £2m local authority discretionary fund during Covid pandemic to help support those businesses that were not eligible for the mandatory government grant.

·  The council works closely with businesses and the business improvement districts (BIDs) to support business.

·  Some businesses supported recently - last part of Covid funding was released in September 2022.

 

Climate action fund

 

·  £10m allocated to capital programme in July 2022

·  Work was being done looking at what can be done to making homes greener and insulated to make them more energy efficient.  Have applied for funding for council street properties as they tended to be the least energy efficient.

·  Officers in housing looking at all the different types of grant funding available for retrofitting work.

 

Cost of repairs to leaseholders

 

·  Asset management strategy and the repairs improvement plan coming to cabinet for consideration in the autumn.

·  Leaseholder tribunal available to leaseholders to challenge repairs.

 

Residents in private rented sector

 

·  Work being undertaken looking at fuel poverty in the private rented sector (public health and regulatory services) and how the council can support people in the private rented sector.

·  The council funds Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) to support people in private rented sector.  In addition CAB has an energy support advice service.

·  Community referral pathway can be accessed by all residents.

 

Equality impact assessment

 

·  Due to the discrete separate pieces of work being undertaken by different departments, the equality impact assessments will be done separately for each piece of work as appropriate.

 

Supply of new homes with 100% green energy system

 

·  Planning permission granted for a number of schemes before passive house standards commitment.

·  Passive house scheme being trialled in Rotherhithe ward.  The learning from this scheme will be taken forward to see how can be applied to other house building schemes going forward.

 

Councillor Cryan offered to come back to a future meeting after the winter period to provide the committee with an update on cost of living.