Transcript

I think this is it. Okay, so we're live on YouTube, so I'll hand over to you to start the meeting. Thank you very much. So good morning and welcome to this meeting of the Property Working Panel on Monday the 24th June. I'm your chair, Councillor Dan Ledger. I'd also like to welcome anyone watching the meeting via the live stream. May I remind members that the Code of Conduct applies throughout this meeting, we also reserve the right to remove and disconnect any participant who's disrupting this meeting by whatever means. Please turn any telephone devices off or on silent. In the event of a break in the internet connection, please bear with us as we try to reconnect. After 15 minutes, we're unable to reconnect. We'll consider this meeting adjourned and reconvened at a later date. If you wish to make a comment, please raise your hand and wait to be called. We will now start the meeting by doing a roll call of all members here present and it's over to our DSO, Sarah James. Over to you, Sarah. Thank you. I'll start with yourself, Councillor Ledger, please. Present. Thank you. Councillor Arnott. Councillor Chapman. Councillor Collins. Councillor Martin, please. Here. Thank you. Councillor Vixen. Present. And Councillor Smith, please. Present. Thank you and I can confirm that we're called, Chair. Thank you very much. And it's again over to you, Sarah, to confirm the apologies from today. I know we've had a couple. Yes, thank you. So apologies from Councillor Goodman, Councillor Haggerty and Councillor Heath. Thank you. Agenda item two of minutes of the previous meeting. Do any members have any comments on those? We just have to take those as read. Yeah, okay, we'll take those as read. Agenda item three of declarations of interests will again be done via a roll call. So it's over to Sarah again. Thank you. And again yourself, please, Councillor Ledger. None that I'm aware of. Thank you. Councillor Martin, please. Sorry, none. Thank you. And Councillor Vixen. None, thank you. And Councillor Smith, please. None. None that I'm aware of. Okay, thank you. I'll pass it back to you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Agenda item four of public speaking. We've got no members of the public registered to speak today. So we move on to agenda item five, which is updates to the terms of reference for the Poverty Working Panel. And this will be presented by Libby Jarrett, the Assistant Director of Revenue and Benefits. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, everyone. So this report is for the Poverty Panel to make recommendations to cabinet to approve the updated terms of reference. The updated term, the old or the current terms of reference haven't been updated since we started the since the inception of the Poverty Panel. And what we try to do is very much update them to reflect where we are now, to provide clarity, more clarity on purpose, and objectives and outcomes of the Poverty Panel. So I'm happy to answer any questions any members have on it. The existing terms of reference are available in the background links of the report. And the new proposed terms of reference are set out in appendix one. Thank you. Thanks very much, by the way. Any questions from from members? So we have to pass those on for recommendations. Okay, so I'll propose that from from the chair and Sarah, do you mind taking us to a vote on that, please? Yes, certainly. So if members could please vote using your green ticks and red crosses or raise your electronic hand if you want to abstain, please. Okay, thank you. So we have five green ticks in favour, Chair. Thank you. So that's, that's passed. So move on to gender item six, which is template Poverty Working Panel work programme for 2024 2025. And it's down to me to, to introduce this. So this is looking at the work that we will be doing over the subsequent year. And it's really just to ask members whether they're happy with what's getting put forward, whether we'd like to see anything else included, and really how we how we shape the Poverty Panel moving forward with the work that we're doing. I think I amongst all other councillors are very keen that this isn't just a talking shop, and it is focused on outcomes and benefits. And so really, it's just over to members to really feed into that and say what you'd like to see happen. Yeah, I agree. I think it is one of the most proactive panels on par, but I can see we need to be present and using this forum as actively as we possibly can. Thanks, Councillor Smith, Councillor Erickson, over to you. Of course, it would be nice to be able to hand out more money to help people really in distress. But we really don't know what the situation is going to be or how this is going to pan out after September because I think that's when the money runs out. We just don't know what the next government will be doing. No, I think that that is an issue. There is a there's an unknown with with election being how many days now? 10 days time. We don't know what the next government's going to do, and whether there will be funding there is. I know Libby and her team have been distributing many different funds over the past couple of years and we just don't know whether they will be coming to an end and whether the same level of support will still be out there. So that will have a real impact on our proxy strategy and how we can implement it moving forward. So are there any other comments from members? Libby, do you have anything you want to add on this point? No, thank you, chair. No, we're happy to sort of keep it under review and work with members. Obviously, the next thing on the agenda is about updating the poverty strategy and that might help to inform some of this work moving forward anyway. Thank you. So members, if we can just take a vote on that again, I'll just propose that we accept the template poverty working panel programme and that it will just be under review. So over to you, sir. Thank you. So members are voting now. And we have five green ticks in favour, chair. Thank you. Agenda item seven is timelines for updating the poverty strategy and this is presented by Libby. Over to you. Thank you. So the current strategy runs until the 1st of July. So there is a need to update it. We've set out here the sort of timelines we're looking to do so we can bring a draft of that to the next poverty panel meeting in October. Obviously, updating the strategies key that we're engaging and consulting with not only members of this group, but also the voluntary sector and we can use VCSC to help with that consultation process. So some of the drivers for why we need to update. Obviously, we have a new council plan. So it's important we're reflecting the key priorities within that. To then look at the delivery plan that sits as part of that. Obviously, it's important we've got an evidence based strategy. We need to reflect on our learning over the past four years. And for for what some of the things that we've identified through our work about the importance of working collaboratively with our partners, both in the voluntary sector, but also other organisations that support people who are struggling. There's also an aspect around place based financial resilience with very person centric response to poverty, but actually looking at things through the lens of a place based and we're looking at kicking off our pilot shortly around that by understanding in rural one of our looking through rural poverty and looking at one of our rural areas about how what that resilience is in that community and that will hopefully inform our learning moving forward. And it's something that some of the other organisations like Devon County Council are also looking at sort of taking more of a place based approach as well. So that's hopefully going to help to feed into this. Also about one of the things we've not really actively looked at is about how communities through corporate social responsibility can, can help local businesses. And that's an area we need to look at as well. It's very keen that those sort of things are reflected in our next situation of the poverty strategy. And obviously, what the chair touched upon for the past two, three years, we've been supporting residents through emergency financial help. And that has become a bit of a crutch for people. And as we're seeing that being withdrawn, then it's about understanding. And of course, we've got an election. So we don't actually know how long or whether there will be further funds, but about how we can help to support residents who will no longer have that sort of crutch that they potentially got used to or become dependent on. So they're things that we're very mindful that we need to sort of reflect in the updated strategy, but I'm happy to answer any questions on it. I've set out a rough timetable of what we're looking to work to in order to get this updated to the next poverty meeting, but I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has. Thank you. Thanks very much for that. Just before we go out to members, I know that we've had a number of people join the meeting. So just for those who have joined, do you have any declarations of interest? Not me, thanks, chair. Thank you very much. OK, so I'll pass it over to members. Any comments from anyone? Councillor Wreckson, can we go to you, please? Well, I'm particularly interested in the comment about addressing rural poverty because I think this is hidden in much of our society, and so I think it's very important for us to try to find out exactly what the extent of this is, particularly as we are a rural economy here. Do you want to comment on that? I can do. Sorry, I ended up getting thrown out, but I'm back in. So if I miss the start of that, apologies. But yeah, I think, Councillor Wreckson, what we're interested in doing by taking this place-based approach, and we've been in conversation with our VCSE dev and communities together about running this pilot, where we will look at one of our rural areas to understand both the formal support as well as the voluntary support that community has to understand how resilient and how we, if there are gaps, how that potentially could be addressed. And in particular, the area we're looking at is where they're not also on mains gas, so they will have extra costs around, potentially around fuel poverty as well. Thanks very much. I think another area which is important is relating to transport, because those who do not have very much money, well, if you're out on a stick and you don't have your own transport, this can be a huge drawback. Thanks, Councillor. Councillor Martin, over to you, please. Thank you, Chair. I guess what I would like to know if we're talking about developing strategies in the future, and especially with the changes ahead, both budgetary and political, is how can we, as elected members, help develop this? I mean, can we help with the collaboration with these external bodies, fact-finding, liaison with partners, getting the message out there? Can the officers let us know what part we can play to help develop a strategy going forward? Thank you. Thanks very much. I think we're going to touch on it on the next agenda item. We've already previously touched on it in the last one, but it is really having, I think from this group in particular, is having that scrutiny function that we are really scrutinising the strategy that is actually having outcomes. I've been very well aware that in certain meetings in the past that we've talked, we've had presentations, but we need to be focused on outcomes and actually it being a benefit to our residents, and that's what I want to see moving forward, especially this year, with the new strategy coming forward. We'll touch on it a little bit more within the next agenda item, but Libby, do you have anything else that you want to add? No, I'm happy to take on that issue, and if members have any particular areas that they want to include, we are going to be consulting with yourselves on this, and that's part of the timeline, so that will be your opportunity to feed in and help shape that. We're very keen that that also, obviously with working with the VCSC, that actually we're taking a really sort of, you know, reflecting what the issues are on the ground within the voluntary sector as well. So hopefully we will get input from both sources. Councillor Fitzgerald, I'll go to you next, please. Thank you, Dan. Yeah, I guess my question is sort of a follow-up to Councillor Martin's request. It occurred to me that there are small, well, certainly in the village that I live in, there's a charity called Otterton Relief in Need, which it's really only advertised, I believe, quite locally through the community shop and so on. It's a charity which is, I think it's mostly a sort of trust fund kind of arrangement, and they provide grants to people in the village for things such as help with fuel and food and all sorts of things, but it's a very small grant-making charity. And I imagine that it's probably not alone, there are probably other very small charities like that in rural areas. So I just wondered how the team, has the team thought about reaching out to some of those charities for its information gathering purposes and how it might do that and whether it might want to use the members who, the ward members to help understand where those charities are and be able to reach out to them. If it's okay, Charlotte, can we cover that in the next agenda item? Because I think that's going to... Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no, it's, we haven't really got much information on it, but I think that all of those kind of questions will be answered when we move on to this next event that we're going to talk about. Okay, thank you. So Councillor Bloxham, over to you. Thank you, Chair. Libby, you mentioned earlier about the people who are not on mains gas and whether they're in fuel poverty. Obviously the west end of the district heating network. Are you in discussions with the provider there to see what impact that's having on fuel poverty so you can compare it with other areas? We're not at the minute, but I'm happy to take that away. And obviously we've got funds to help people who are struggling and Sharon would know more about those that are, you know, whether we're seeing an increase from people in the Cranbrook area who are needing that financial help and that work but will also is informing us in where those pockets are of, you know, where we're seeing a higher need. Thank you. I do have some figures that I've received from the provider, which I can share with you if that helps just to give you some, you know, some information anyway. Yes, please. Yeah. Thanks very much. Councillor Barlow, over to you, please. I just wonder, again, I know you, you're handing out money for people with difficulties like this, but are you sort of joining it up with the housing side, the grants on insulation to actually try and solve the problem? Because the trouble is with handing money out people, as you said, become reliant on it. It's a crutch that they use and nobody ever wants to give money up if they've got it. So yeah, are you solving the problems? Libby, I'll leave that to you to answer. I know that the financial resilience team is doing some fantastic work here. Yeah. Yeah. So for those that don't know, we have a financial resilience team where they are looking to do, they're doing that wider work with residents that are where we're seeing that repeat need for emergency help. And that will be them working with other organisations. You know, a lot with Devon County, it could be Department of Work and Pensions, also with eco about what sort of retrofit items that they can help with, because the whole, you know, if we can help reduce someone's energy costs by providing them with some things to help reduce their bills, then that works going on as well. And of course, these organisations also connect have have access to different funds. And so we're trying to not just, it's not about just giving out emergency, you know, keep feeding that sort of sort of sticky plaster. And it's about doing that wider work. And there's been some really good successes on that and how, you know, we've we've lifted people out or been able to increase their incomes around budgetary people, maybe not accessing all their entitlements, how we can reduce outgoings as well. So they're doing that wide work. And that is quite, that's intensive work. And that's not something that can be done quickly. And obviously, there is a lot of need for that. And so our focus this year is to just keep sort of developing that and Sharon will happy for Sharon to come in on this and about some of the work done. I know she's talking about on later on the agenda, but that's key to us. That's always been part of our recognising that actually, you just keep giving emergency, you're not solving the underlying cause. And actually, we want people to become financially resilient, so they don't have that dependency. And is that something that perhaps, you know, talking about what Charlotte was talking about, then the local groups can get involved with passing on more information, certainly in Sydney, I know there are groups. But again, it's a matter of joining up this silo working, sorry, not working in silo. You're sharing that information of people that might need assistance. Yeah, absolutely. We can. We are working with a huge number of organisations already. There's always more we can do. I mean, if Sharon's happy to come in, she can sort of go into more detail about the sort of organisations that they're working with and local voluntary groups as well. And I know we have referrals in from Sidmouth and Sharon's team will work closely with the food banks as well. So we are trying to join those dots as well. But if you're happy, for Sharon to just talk about some of that work. Yeah. Hi, hi, everyone. Yes, we do exactly that. So we work with a lot of different voluntary organisations as well. So the team also go out and do surgeries in different places. So they attend Exmouth Food Bank, we work opposite to Citizens' Advices Devon, so they'll do one one week, we'll do the next. There's a lot of voluntary groups that are set up that do offer funding as well. And trying to know of all of them is difficult. We do know of quite a few, you know, more of the big, bigger ones rather than the small groups that are set up. Because they change, they can change quite a lot as well. So it's actually hard to keep a register of them all. But we do. If somebody was to come up, say, in Fennerton or Otterton, the team will look in that area to see what's available as well so that they can try and feed into that if needed. But at the moment, because we've got funds available, we don't need to go down that route as much. Obviously, if funding does come to an end, that might be something we need to explore a lot more of, that we can get people into those local groups. But yes, team also works with housing, the housing officers know a lot of what's going on as well. So it's kind of everybody all together, private sector housing as well, they know stuff that's going on in different communities. So we link up with different teams in the council, but also outside as well to try and resolve some of those issues when we need to and get people local support as much as we can. That reassures you a bit more. No, that's excellent, obviously. But again, just going back to what Charlotte said, I think that's something that perhaps members could put forward. And you could certainly have a page with all of the different charities, whether you check them out or not. But where people can also go to help, because it's all very well saying, wait until the money runs out, it's always better to be prepared for these sort of things. And again, it's an extra thing you could do, not just you, but people could have access to, it's always better to try and help yourself as well, I always believe. Thank you. Thanks very much. Councillor Smith, do you want to come in? Yeah, I need to encourage the committee and officers really, because we're working at the community of Waffle House and Axminster. We've piloted a project since January working with a range of different organisations to have this kind of whole approach and preemptive approach to working with individuals, especially targeting families at this point. And the idea is that we work with two different departments from East Devon, we have the housing team and the resilience team, as well as working with DWP, the NHS, and the local schools as well. So we meet the families, we meet the parents at Waffle for 30 minutes, the grant funding we've been given incentivise that visit, and then off the back of that visit every fortnight, and my team come together, statutory team come together, and we work together to try and work out how we can support that family to preemptively tackle any issues that may come up and also to put out any fires that currently exist. And that also involves organisations that were mentioned previously, like Eco as well. And so that's a whole part approach. And I have to say, I'm really enjoying the process. It's a really valuable and collaborative working process. So just to encourage you in as well that there is it is being piloted and it's working really well. And I would like to see that kind of approach more widely used if we can, can do it. Thank you for that time. And Libby or do you want us to just note this item or do we need to approve it? Entirely up to you, chair. I'm happy we've noticed it. I mean, a lot of the work, what is being described, we are building that so and this sort of place based resilience approach that we're taking in poverty in a rural area will help to sort of give us an insight into taking a slightly different approach. And again, work and that will involve the members for that area will be part of that that team when we look at a particular area to help shape that learning as well. So entirely down to you, chair. Okay, well, we'll note it in just two seconds. Councillor Arnold will go to you for that. Thank you, chair. Sorry for coming in slightly late. Can you hear me? Okay, I'm on a new different laptop. Thank you. So I was really interested in the points that were being made by I think Ian and Simon and Melanie as well. I'm really pleased to see this really comprehensive list of other voluntary sector organisations that we're aware of and that we're clearly working with. And I think Mel's got a really good point. It's about what we can do as Councillors also to help to help bridge that. So just sort of for information of the panel, I had a conversation with the CAB in Exmouth a month or so ago. And I thought it was really important that they come in and meet Tracey. It wasn't actually about poverty. It was about another aspect of our work. So Dan, you were there as well, chair. And it was a fantastic meeting last week. It just, it helped us to understand each other's positions, which is really, really important going forward. I think sort of a tangential point is, you know, as discussed in an earlier item, what are we going to have to be able to dispense or spend or assist with in a discretionary way after July the 4th? And we just don't know, we genuinely don't know. But I think the more we can keep these organic connections with the people more on the ground than us, so to speak, although I think Libby and her department are fantastic at the levels of awareness we have as a Council, I think the better, particularly for the next six months, we need to sort of monitor what a new government, and I'm not being political here, but what a new government is promising to do, and how that immediately affects what we may be able to do, or those groups may be able to do, in order that we might be able to effectively lobby, and I say that in a in a small way or not political way, to make sure that the work we're already doing doesn't get undermined. Thanks, chair. Thank you very much for that, Councillor Arnott. So if we just note that item, and everyone's happy with that, we'll move on to a gender item eight, which hopefully will cover off a lot of the things that members have been asking today. So the whole point of gender item eight is the voluntary sector anti poverty event, it's about having a well potentially having an event subject to members approving today, which will take place this autumn, it will provide an opportunity for networking between all of these different community groups, the voluntary, the voluntary sector, and trying to work with members to feed into that on trying to get as many different anti poverty groups in one room together. And that feeds into Councillor Fitzgerald's points of knowing these smaller, more ward based charities that we can feed into to officers to get to this event, where it will give them the opportunity to not only network with each other, and it will will have key speakers on on each topics will be able to raise awareness for the updated strategy that we'll hopefully have at that point. And just in general, the work that the council is doing to try and reduce poverty across the district. And it will tie in with the first anniversary of having a VCSE. So we've done one commute together. And it's thought that either Councillor Arnold or myself could share, couldn't share the meeting or hosted. So I'm just putting you up for a job there leader. And I very much hope still to be here to be able to chair that. We shall see. I would say, well, let's get let's do this now. Whether I'm around or not, I think probably subject to the views of the rest of the committee. I think you should share that Dan. I'll be there, you know, full flags and support and stuff like that. But I think it is incredibly important. But I have total confidence in the use of portfolio chairing there. But maybe that's an offline discussion. But yeah, thank you. Fantastic. So what do members think of that? Very happy for you to get down. And at the end of the day, just in case our leaders got another job. I was just teeing in up really, that's all. Councillor Martin will go to you, please. I think that sounds fantastic, actually. I really welcome it. And I hope that we can play a part in it. You must let us know what we can do. And definitely we'll come along and be there and yeah, just let us know. Fantastic. Anyone else have any other comments? So if I propose that from the chair, that we're happy to proceed on that basis. Sarah, can you take us to a vote, please? Dan, sorry, just before we do. Can I just ask what that looks like as an event? Could we have some input into that from, well, when I say we, I mean, kind of the VCSE sectors have an input into what that actually looks like. So it's the most efficient, most beneficial to groups from all sides attending. Libby, do you want to come in on that? Yes, thank you, chair. Yeah, no, I'd be happy. If you want to feed in to that, you can feed in to me or Sharon, because we're going to be working on sort of getting this, the right programme, that's going to be the right thing for the voluntary sector. So we obviously want to know what will benefit them. The theme will be around sort of obviously to do with anti-poverty. So we're very keen for organisations to help shape what they would want from that day as well. So I'm happy for you to feed that through to me or Sharon, if that's helpful, chair. Yeah, that'd be fantastic. Thank you. So Sarah, could you take us to a vote, please? Yes, certainly. So if members could vote in the usual way, please. Thank you. And we have five green ticks in favour, chair. Fantastic. Thanks very much. Agenda item nine is the housing support fund update, and it's to be presented by Sharon Church, Benefits and Financial Resilience Manager. Thank you, Sharon. Thank you, chair. Yeah, so as we'd already given an update on the spend for April 23 through to the 7th of March at the last poverty panel, and wanted to give members an update as to how we administered the remaining funds. As a quick reminder, we had £646,000 to have administered and as at the 7th of March, which I think was the last panel around that time, we had just under £106,000 left from the April to September period, which we carried over for October to March. And we also had a further £63,000 given to us from Devon County Council by way of an economic vulnerability fund to administer on top of the household support fund, and that needed to go to low income families as well. So there was the same conditions attached to that funding. So we had a good amount of funding over that whole period, which meant that we were able to make payments to 1358 households. And we targeted payments to three different cohorts who hadn't got any cost of living payment from the government directly. And that was the £350 given to those that were getting housing benefit or council tax reduction, they were in one of our monitored groups and they're living in a property that had energy performance, certificate rating of the below. We go 300 to the same monitor groups where they, their EPC was above E. And then we paid £180 to everybody left on our housing benefit and council tax reduction caseload who hadn't got a cost of living payments. So off those 1358 cases, we sent out just over 87% claims their allocated payments. We wrote to all the households and we made follow up calls to those who hadn't made a claim. And during those calls that there were again, a number of residents who told us they didn't want to receive payment. And as what happened in the first half of the scheme, it was those people that to say, we can manage without it, give it to someone more deserving. So, but also out out of those targeted groups, there was 19 residents who also came further and asked for further financial support work. And we they've been referred on to the financial resilience team now. So we're helping to support those residents further with that extra work that we were mentioning earlier. And so on page two of your report, you've got the details of the breakdown of the households who claimed their allocated payment. And you can see that the majority of those households were people of pensionable wage. And that's because those households didn't receive a government cost of living payment if they weren't on pension credit or another qualifying benefits. And but of course, we've got a lot of pensionable wage residents on our housing benefit and council tax reduction caseload where their only income is their state retirement pension. And so we were able to kind of backfill some of that where they missed out from the cost of living payments from the government. So we had 469 households in total who were in one of our monitor groups that got one of those payments of 300 and 350. We had 360 households where someone living in the property was disabled, and 127 where they were carers residents. And the number of households where the children were present, it was lower. And that's what we were expecting, because most of those households would have got a qualifying benefit that that meant they did get that government cost of living payments. Now, it's conscious that we haven't given a full breakdown of details for the open application, sorry, at the last poverty panel. So in this report, we've included a table to cover the whole of the financial year. And they'll be made 1462 awards across the whole year, which in total came to 268,000. And the vast majority of those awards were made to help with food costs. Now, sometimes we we give that money to help with food so that it frees up their money for something else. If that's something we can't fund under the household support fund. So that's why that's as high as what it is. Now, the energy and water costs, they come out of more households than the essentials linked to energy and water. So although the cost for essentials is higher, it's because it is containing items like the white goods and the carpets that we linked to our partnership work with Exeter Community Energy. So obviously they cost more than helping with energy and water bills. So that's why those costs are higher there. So from our monitoring data, we do see less pensionable aged residents making direct applications and working age. And we know that they're less likely to come to us through the open application rate. But of course, as we target support at them, that could also be one of the reasons why less came, come in via that route. Having said that, the financial resilience team, they've been out, they've been attending events to raise awareness. And we're also working in benefits on a take up campaign for housing benefit and council tax reduction for pensionable aged households as well. So we are trying to continue to raise awareness for that cohort to make sure that they know that the funds are there and they can get help from us if they need it. And our benefits and council tax staff, and I know housing staff as well, they also let residents know of the household support funds and the financial resilience team service, whenever they identify that that there's possibly a need there. So our total spend overall for household support fund was 706,000 or just over that a quick, quick update on household support fund five for you all is we've sent the letters to for printing last week, they should be arriving with a residence this week. And unfortunately, we've only been allocated able to allocate, sorry, we've only been able to allocate 100 pounds to any household who receives full housing benefits or council tax reduction, if they have under 3000 pounds, and they have someone living in their household who's disabled or a carer. And we're also giving the same amount to any care leavers in the district as that was a condition that county wanted. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough money to help more households. And as there's not a government cost of living payments this year, we do have our entire caseload to consider, which means that there's a lot more households that meet the conditions and all of our previous schemes. But open application process, it's still open, and it's still available to apply for support. So residents will still be able to get something there. And again, we'll be providing the same support to make the application as we've done previously, and we'll continue with reminder calls, as that helps with take up as well. And I think as as what's been already mentioned, we don't know what's going to happen beyond the end of September. We have been told it's the final scheme, it could change. So we are continuing on the basis that it ends. And we are working at how we can continue to help support low income households with emergency support, once that funding goes. And yeah, we'll continue doing that working jointly with voluntary sector, and the financial resilience team. So I'm all in linking up together. I think that covers it all. I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you so much for that, Sharon. So I'll pass over to members. Can I just say the Household Support Fund has been a brilliant resource to have, and it's it's helped so many families who would be defined as kind of in hidden poverty. And being able to have that resource has been a great asset. Yeah, thanks to the team for administering it. Thanks for that, Councillor Smith. Councillor Arnot, I'll go to you next, please. Thanks, chair. I'm just wondering, Sharon and Libby, this is amazing work, as Simon has said, do we know when we last sort of passed this over to Andrew Hopkins to do a, you know, a sort of release on this? Obviously, I don't mean before July the 4th. But it is such a great story. It's such a great piece of work. I genuinely don't know when we sort of promoted this as central to our work. But you may well not know now, quite understandably, but it'd be really nice to get something out there about this because we, A, should be proud, but B, it should offer reassurance to local people that we know that we've got their back on this. Libby, come in at any point. Thank you, chair. I'm a happy leader to have a conversation with Andrew around the comms. We probably are due to do something. So yeah, I will take that away until, and do something post-election. Thank you. Councillor Jackson, we'll go to you now, please. It's very concerning to see the levels of money that's having to be spent on food. I mean, this is a staple of life. Are these people or these residents using the community larders and food banks and still needing a top-up as well? Sharon, please just come in whenever. Yes, we use a mixture of both for some residents. Some residents do actually access larders, food banks, and we'll also pay something towards them so they can go and get their own shopping. It depends on the person and their needs. Sometimes people need special diets as well, so yeah, it varies. Just at a grassroots level, what's happening is that we're finding people really struggling with their energy bills. So the energy bills would take a chunk of their monthly income up and then food would then take a hit, and so therefore they'd run out of money to spend on food and they'd kind of feel like they could sacrifice that to a point where they actually are missing meals and things like that. So that's what's effectively happening in it. And that's kind of trickled through and the damage of two, three years' worth of high bills has started to really show. And so lots of the referrals are coming through with basically huge energy debts and organisations like Eco have got a full capacity load of people and CAB as well are working really hard. And mostly, the big chunk of that is to do with energy debt. Thanks for that, Simon. Councillor Rickson, we'll go to you, please. Well, regarding energy, I just find it incredible that nobody wants to address the, you know, the daily talent, the standing charge, that everybody pays the same. I just wish that the government would introduce a social- Councillor Rickson, Councillor Rickson, we are in the pre-election period. I'm sorry. Apologies. Just moving swiftly on, I think we just thank Sharon and the team again for all their work in this area and we'll just note that item. And we'll move on to agenda item 10, which is the East End District Council's public health strategy and it's over to Helen Wareham to present. Oh, thank you very much, Councillor Ledger. Good morning, everybody. I know that probably most of you have already come across the new public health strategy at overview in March and certainly at the full council meeting in April. So really what I wanted to do today was just take the opportunity to sort of do some dot joining up with you, please. So the aims of the public health strategy are to support healthy people in leading their healthy lives in healthy places. And the World Health Organisation defines public health as the physical, mental and social wellbeing. I think the social wellbeing has become increasingly important. So the public health strategy has got 12 priorities and I think the first six are really pertinent to your panel. So cost of living crisis is the first, is the uppermost of our priorities. And that of course is completely different from when I wrote the previous public health strategy a few years ago. So cost of living, mental health, unpaid carers, loneliness and social isolation, dementia and homelessness housing and indoor environment factors. So they all really sort of feed into the work that you're talking about. With public health, I really like using the river analogy. So if people fall into ill health, then you've got the traditional health services, NHS and healthcare, helping to fish people out further down river. Public health is all about trying to stop people falling in to ill health in the first place. And of course it's just the same with poverty, isn't it? So a lot of Sharon's team's work is to do with the people already in crisis of poverty, but at the same time, the work done upstream to help stop them falling into poverty in the first place. So several of you have mentioned energy, working with eco. So I think, you know, the mirrors, the parallels are very, very striking. So I suppose what I was hoping to flag up with you today is the opportunities, you know, perhaps when you're in other committees as well, what you can do to simultaneously support our priorities for the public health and also feed into the poverty work. So for instance, you know, is there anything that could be done to influence good employment opportunities? Health access to healthy food is really important. And it's, it's well known that the more deprived an area tends to have more fast food outlets. So people are really ill placed then to access healthy food for themselves. So you, I suppose what I'm hoping this morning is to just encourage you to, to use the public health strategy as a tool to help influence decisions that you're making, which I think, you know, work very closely in parallel with the poverty activities as well. So the point of the public health strategy is primarily to support our officers and our members. And I, you know, I really hope it's, it's helpful for you. May I, before I forget, Councillor Ledger, just reflect on something I thought of earlier on this morning's meeting. So somebody mentioned about having a directory of local charities and voluntary groups and so on, just to flag up, you know, this is something that's cropped up quite often, and it's something that's really difficult to do partly because the numbers you know, if you just take one town as an example, the numbers of organisations. So I just wanted to flag up that there's a thing called Devon Connect, which has already invited organisations to put their details in that. I think there's another similar function with sort of, which dovetails with Devon Connect. So I think my advice would be to recommend any organisations that you know, to get themselves registered on an already existing database rather than us trying to create our own. Thank you. Completely concur Helen, thank you for that. So members, do you have any questions on this item? Councillor Smith, we'll go to you first, please. Yeah, I think this highlights again, the challenge that we're presented with in getting clinical council and the voluntary sector working together in tandem. I think without the proper time and investment in that relationship, we're always going to be working and we'll be working on the things that we think are best, but we'll often be repeating some of the things that we're trying to achieve. And I think yeah, our end use could be well used in bridging those gaps and helping the voluntary sector by building obviously the relationship with us as a council, but also trying to see if as a council we can better link ourselves up with the clinical areas. They're not quite the same, they're frustratingly kind of the eastern area of the clinical team is not quite East Devon, but there's enough overlap for us to really pursue it. Can I comment on that? Yeah, of course. I think historically there's been an enormous gulf between council and NHS services and I think that's bigger with district council. I think county council and NHS have perhaps been used to working together historically for longer. I felt there was an enormous lack of understanding about what a district council can offer. So when I've been to meetings and I've tried to explain about housing, for example, it's not well understood, but the integrated care boards that were created, I suppose a couple of years ago now are starting to work more closely. I think not just with county council, but also with district and also with voluntary groups. So I went to my first integrated care board meeting. I went with Matt Blythe, who's my manager, who's the assistant director of environmental health. And there were representatives from NHS organisations and county and voluntary sector. I think you get to the problem then where if you have everybody included in a meeting, it becomes so big, it's cumbersome to know how to manage. But I think to reassure Councillor Smith, I felt that at last things were going in the right direction, not fully joined up, but not fully integrated. But I think I felt happier that there seems to be more understanding on each side of what the other organisation can offer. I think that's happened from the pandemic really. Thank you, Councillor Iksen, we'll go to you next, please. I just wondered whether anyone else had read a report that I did recently, which seemed to indicate that social isolation and loneliness may be linked to dementia. And as we all know, this is a growing problem, and is creating a huge drain, not just on the NHS, but also on the families who lose their loved ones, literally, right in front of them. And I think this is linked, again, to low incomes and the affordability of public transport, maybe and the ability to get out and interact with other people. Do you have any comment on that? I have started to see evidence that suggests that sort of mental well being is as good a prevention as physical exercise, which has been known for a little while to help. You know, we can't cure dementia, obviously, but there are things that we can do in our lifestyles to, to help reduce the risk. There are certain models across the district already. Honiton is the place I look to for the leading model with regards to dementia friendly work, their cafe and other activities. And that's down in a large part to a particular lady Heather Penn warden, who's done enormous amounts of work to advocate for dementia awareness. And I've often wondered if we can try and help other areas learn from that, so that perhaps we could roll that out or, you know, support the rollouts more widely. With regards to social isolation, things like memory cafes are obviously really helpful. But yes, if you've got people stranded in rural areas, then it's very much harder for, for the person and for their carers to help join up those dots might be worth pushing for a dementia matron, which we have an accident, she's she's brilliant takes on a lot of weight. But it's also worth mentioning that now the 16 to 25 age brackets it's now the biggest bracket for social social isolation. And so it's worth considering that in our work going forward that whilst the older generations shortly follow that it's now the younger generations are experiencing that the most. So they're called admiral nurses, aren't they the dementia nurses, I think? Yeah, I think so as we've just reflected the the health service has divided our patch up differently from the district council boundary. And some areas are funding admiral nurses and others I think are looking at whether they're able to fund it. I'm not sure that everywhere has an admiral nurse. And yes, I agree that young people are experiencing social isolation. That's becoming quite a shocking statistic. Very much so. If there are no further questions from from members, we'll just take that item as noted. If everyone's happy. Yes. Okay. So thank you for that, Helen, just to say, and so that brings our meeting to a close. So I'd like to thank everyone for participating today. Can I remind all those present that the supporting officer will confirm when the meeting is no longer being recorded or going live and then until then your comments may still be heard.