Content

Salford City Council - Record of
Decision
 
I Paul Dennett, City
Mayor, in exercise of the powers contained within the City Council
Constitution do hereby
approve:

 
The 
£3.203m Cost of Living support is allocated as
follows:
 

£612,500
previously agreed to extend and enhance provision of School Holiday
Meal Vouchers for the summer 2023 school holiday
period;

 

£750, 000 to
Salford Assist to extend the Household Support Fund Scheme, this
amount to specifically include up to £32,000 to support
residents of the Duchy Estate with financial resilience and debt
management; 

 

and to agree an
internal audit review of Salford Assist will be undertaken, to
include supporting the work that is already underway to  map hardship funds across the City which will
inform future investment decisions for the service and other
related function;

 

£66,000 to
cover conversion capital costs at the Duchy Estate, with specific
provision within the Salford Assist allocation to support Duchy
Estate residents;

 

£406,521 to
Welfare Right and Debt Advice Service for delivery of a Benefit
Take Up Campaign for People of Pensionable Age, with a review and
evaluation report to Cabinet Briefing at the 18 month
point;

 

£332,000
investment into Salford Leaving Care Service;

 

£23,100 to
support care leavers living in semi-independent living with the
increasing cost of utilities;

 

£450, 000
investment into Salford Credit Union for a range of specified
activities;

 

£164, 932
investment into Salford Community Leisure for a range of specified
activities;

 

£75,000
investment in 2023/24 to create a time-limited ‘tackling
poverty’ fund to support the council’s tackling poverty
and promoting equality priorities; and

 

the balance as
investment into the Rough Sleepers Accommodation Programme (via
Derive RP), reducing the existing 
capital programme allocation.

 
The Reasons
are:
 
The national cost-of-living
crisis has impacted on people and on local authorities across the
country with many households struggling financially and being
pulled into poverty. This increased pressure is predicted to
continue for some time.
 
Salford City Council has a
long-standing commitment to supporting our residents, including
with financial assistance and advice, and through our partnership
work to support residents with the cost of living
crisis. 
 
Building on this commitment,
the City Mayor and Cabinet have agreed to use a recent one-off
£3.203m refund from the GM Waste Levy to provide additional
targeted support to residents impacted by the ongoing
crisis.  Investment is proposed in a
number of support measures:
 

£612,500 to
increase school holiday food vouchers to £15 per child per
week for six weeks (meaning eligible households would receive
£90 per child).  This increased
offer would benchmark Salford with other local authorities across
Greater Manchester.  This allocation was
agreed separately by the City Mayor to ensure delivery for the
summer school holidays.

 

Salford Assist is the
Councils Discretionary Support Scheme which is used to support
residents in emergency crisis situations.  If residents require help with food and fuel,
applications are diverted to the Household Support Fund, with
assessments also managed within the Salford Assist Service. The
Household support fund allocated to Salford Assist is used to
support residents that are struggling with the costs of living
– in round 3 and 4 this was for support with food and
utilities only.

 
Cabinet have previously agreed to cover 13 weeks of food
vouchers for children on free school meals from this allocation,
leaving a potential shortfall of £750, 000 to the HSF Round 4
Salford Assist Service (when compared to previous 6 month
allocations).  This shortfall equates to
3750 single person households or 1875 families being unable to
access the scheme due to insufficient funds and could potentially
lead to closure of the HSF funded Salford Assist programme before
the scheme end date, if the shortfall is not met.   Investment of £750, 000 is proposed to
cover the HSF shortfall within Salford Assist.
 
·                    
The day-to-day running costs of the Duchy Estate
site for repairs, maintenance and housing management has
significantly exceeded income since the site was brought back
in-house in April 2021. This has since been intensified by
inflationary pressures during the cost of living crisis. The
installation of 25 domestic supplies to the residents of Duchy Road
Caravan Park to cover electricity fees is proposed to augment the
financial pressure facing the city council on a long-term basis.
Additional funding of £66,000 will top up a £150,000
capital budget allocation to cover the costs of the work which have
been priced at £215,062.  
 
·                   
Current residents of the Duchy Estate continue to
incur utility bills at non-domestic rate levels.  Time limited support for  residents on the Duchy Estate specifically with
debt either directly or indirectly resulting from trying to manage
those higher electricity bills is proposed, with a sum of up to
£32,000 to be set against the Salford Assist HSF
allocation. 
 
·               
£135, 507 from
2023/24 through to 2025/26 (a total cost over three years of
£406,521) invested into the Welfare Right and Debt Advice
service, with a mid-point review and evaluation after 18
months.  Funding will support a new take
up project aimed at people over pension age, undertaking a targeted
campaign with associated welfare rights advocacy and casework
focused on take up of benefits such as
Pension Credit and associated financial support.  Funding will support recruitment of two additional
posts over three years, subject to a mid-point
evaluation.
 
·               
The provision of additional funding  (£331,550 over two years) into the statutory
Salford Leaving Care Service to recruit 4 extra
workers to enable effective management and increase capacity due to
growing caseloads. This will support the service to manage
the increasing demand of duty which potentially will have direct
adverse impact on service delivery, OFSTED and DFE
inspections.
 
·               
Additionally, investment of £23,100 equally
over the next three years to support residents with The Foyer,
which provides accommodation for Salford care leaves, young people
at risk of homelessness, UASC and teenage families. Funding will
ensure new residents pay a service charge (covering Wi-Fi, water, gas, electricity, and admin charges that are
ineligible for housing benefit and are the sole responsibility of
the young person) equal to that paid by existing residents who have
benefits from some of the Government’s discretionary support
payments whilst they were in place.
 
·               
Salford Credit Union’s (SCU) focus on building
financial resilience and providing an ethical and secure
alternative to high-cost lenders and loan sharks has been
highlighted as an important source of support for many
residents.  Five areas are proposed for
additional financial support:
 
a)    Increase the
organisation’s reservices through capital injection -
£80, 000
b)    Increasing brand
awareness over the next two years - £60, 000
c)
   Reduction of interest rates for
one year - £120, 000
d)
   Investment in junior membership
over three years - £90, 000
e)
   Purchase of a new banking
platform - £100, 000
 
·               
SCL have developed a number of proposals for
potential investment.  Swimming: improving the standard of swimming
across Salford by offering free intensive lessons to children from
low-income households in the form of two half-hour lessons during
school holidays for 1 year at a range of swimming pools across the
city.  A subsidised activity programmes
for young people (dance/football sessions).
Extension of the current holiday provision offered by SCL
outwith the Holiday Activity and Food programme (HAF).  This additional funding would open each of the
named holiday programmes to all children and young people
regardless of free school meal status and remove the current charge
in place for non-HAF periods. This would offer 3,960 places
annually. Older people vouchers: the preferred option, is to
provide a discount of 20% for any purchase at an SCL café by
people over the age of 70.  To ensure
the administration is simple (for both the resident and SCL) its
proposed the discount is available simply on proof of
age.   Combined full year funding
of £164,932 would enable all of the above activities to be
supported. 
 
·                   
A core council priority is to tackle poverty and
promote inclusion,  No specific budget
exists to support activity that emerges throughout the
year.  To support the portfolio and
delivery of the councils tackling poverty, inequality and promoting
equality ambitions it’s proposed to establish this fund,
accountable to the Lead Member Tacking Poverty, Inclusive Economy
and Equalities.  Funding of
£75,000 is proposed.
 
·                   
£1.7m has been set aside within the
Council’s capital programme to support additional investment
into Derive RP to support delivery of the Rough Sleepers Accommodation
Programme - 16 homes - and 19 affordable general needs homes at
Eccles New Road and Tootal Grove. It’s
proposed to use the balance of the Cost of Living support fund to
offset the capital allocation. The balance of funding would total
£323,397. 
 
Options considered and rejected
were:
 
A wide range of options were
considered for funding support.  These
were short-listed through iterative conversations between senior
officers, Lead Members, and Cabinet collectively.  Options that have been prioritised are those that
can be delivered in the short term and will provide direct support
to residents.  Options were also
considered in terms of their longer term impact on the
Council’s budget.
 
Assessment of
Risk: 
Medium.
 
The source of
funding is:  This additional
investment is the result of one off receipts from the Waste
Levy.  Decisions set out in this Record
of Decision do not create any expectation of ongoing funding
support.  Any decision to continue with
the support outlined would create ongoing pressures within the
Council’s revenue budget.
 
Legal
Advice obtained: not applicable
 
Financial Advice
obtained: 
David R Mills –
Interim Strategic Finance Manager
 
The commentary regarding the
financial implications is covered in the main body of the report
itself. I would, however, like to highlight the following
matters:
 

The funding contained
in this report is for ‘one-off’ support
only

 

There can be no
assumption that such one-off support continues beyond the timeframe
indicated, as to do so would impact on the total revenue budget of
the Council and cause a budget pressure; indeed, there should
careful consideration of how such one-off funding might adversely
affect demand which in the long term cannot be met

 

Fixed term contracts
carry with them redundancy rights should such posts be terminated
at the end of the planned funding; such costs have not been
included in the plans and therefore if not covered by the levy will
become a pressure

 

The proposed use of
the levy comes to £2.910m against a receipt of £3.100m,
giving a £0.190m surplus. The suggestion is that this sum,
assuming that all proposals are agreed, is set against RSAP
(Derive). However, the RSAP scheme is already covered in the
capital plan as unsupported borrowing so I would recommend that
careful consideration be made to set this sum aside as a
contingency to support any price/inflationary fluctuations rather
than allocate to the Derive project.

 
Procurement
Advice obtained: not
applicable
 
HR Advice
obtained:  Samantha Betts, Director HROD,
Samantha.betts@salford.gov.uk
 
A number of the investment
proposals for this one-off funding require investment in additional
staffing resources to deliver.  This
will need to be on a fixed-term basis to ensure that those options
will not pose long-term issues where monetary support is no longer
available.
 
Employees working under
fixed-term contracts are protected by the Fixed-Term Employees
(Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2002, which
require that such employees are treated no less favourably than
comparable permanent employees. Expiry of a fixed term contract is
a dismissal in law.  It should be noted
that employees will accrue employment protection rights, including
unfair dismissal and redundancy, if employed continuously for two
years.
 
It is proposed that the
additional staffing will be required to March 2026, providing
postholders with more than two years’ continuous
service.  Therefore, if the contract is
not renewed it would be deemed to be dismissal by reason of
redundancy, the postholder will be entitled to statutory redundancy
pay. 
 
The
costs associated with redundancy pay have not been factored in to
the proposals.
 
By
means of mitigation, prior to the end of the fixed term the council
will deploy its usual efforts in supporting those individuals
affected with seeking alternative employment through our well
established and successful redeployment arrangements.
 
Climate Change
Advice obtained: not
applicable
 
The following documents have
been used to assist the decision process:
 
Report to Cabinet, 8 August
2023, Investment Options for Cost of Living
Support
 
Contact Officer:        Jacquie Russell, Director
Policy and Performance                   
Telephone number: 0161 793
3577
 
(Please delete from the list
below any which are not relevant.)
 
-      
The appropriate scrutiny to call-in the decision is
the Overview and Scrutiny Panel         
 
 

Signed:         Paul
Dennett                                         
  Dated:   14.08.23                                                 
                       
City Mayor
 

For Democratic
Services use only
 
This decision was published on  14.08.23                
                           
This decision will come in force at 4.00
p.m. on 21.08.23                   
                              
unless it is called-in in
accordance with the Decision Making Process Rules.