This meeting of the Edinburgh Partnership included updates on the city's efforts to reduce poverty and progress updates on a number of ongoing schemes and programmes, including an update on proposals to transform the governance and delivery of Community Planning in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh Partnership Transformation and Improvement Programme

The Board were asked to note the feedback received during a recent engagement exercise on the future of community planning in Edinburgh.

This engagement, which took place between June and October 2024, included representatives from a wide range of organisations across the city. Attendees included those from the Edinburgh Association of Community Councils, community councils, the Edinburgh Tenants Federation, and Neighbourhood Networks, as well as those from strategic partnerships, existing Locality Community Planning Partnerships, and local voluntary sector organisations.

A report produced for the meeting includes a list of the common themes identified in this feedback and suggests that the new Edinburgh Partnership model should focus on five key changes:

• Simplify structures with less hierarchy, focusing on collaboration and place-based themes. • Clarify roles, responsibilities, and governance structures, and ensure transparency in funding and decision-making. • Ensure that community voices are genuinely heard and involved in co-designing services. • Emphasise outcomes rather than inputs, ensuring flexibility and responsiveness in addressing issues. • Build trust and collaboration with third-sector organisations, recognising their ability to respond quickly and effectively.

The report also sets out a detailed high-level implementation plan, with a timeline for these changes to be implemented in 2025.

Housing and Homelessness

The board were scheduled to receive two reports relating to the housing emergency in Edinburgh.

The first, a progress update from the Housing Partnership, a subgroup of the Edinburgh Partnership Board, focused on a recent meeting with the Scottish Government, and the outcomes from the Housing Partnership’s first meeting, which took place on the 12th of November 2024.

The report notes that attendance at the first meeting was good, but some members were unable to attend. These included representatives from Social Security Scotland, The Department for Work and Pensions, and the Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership.

The meeting included an update from City of Edinburgh Council on actions taken in the year since the declaration of the Housing Emergency.

The report notes that the Council has brought over 500 void properties back into use during that year, and that it is working with other social landlords to reduce the number of empty homes available for rent in the city.

The meeting also included discussion on the reasons behind the recent increases in homelessness in the city, with attendees suggesting that relationship breakdowns are a key driver, alongside immigration from other parts of the UK and from overseas.

The Housing Partnership report also notes that attendees discussed plans to reform the Council's allocations policy, and plans to provide access to a greater range of data, which will allow the Council to understand how people manage their finances.

A separate report for the Edinburgh Partnership Board meeting provided an update on the city’s progress in tackling food poverty.

The report included a summary of the findings from a recent mapping exercise of emergency food provision in Edinburgh, which was carried out by the Diffley Partnership.

This mapping exercise found that at least 99 separate food projects were being offered to citizens across the city, by 38 different organisations. These projects include foodbanks, food pantries, and community cafes, with attendees at the meeting noting that this means the landscape of available support is highly fragmented.

This report for the meeting also notes that the provision of this support is threatened by a number of factors. These include reliance on volunteers, unstable funding arrangements, and a heavy reliance on food donations from organisations like FareShare.

The report lists five recommendations arising from the mapping exercise. These include:

4.1.1 Working with organisations to create a standardised data set to allow there to be a clearer understanding of need to inform evidence-based decision making. 4.1.2 Supporting service development and quality improvement, with a focus on dignity, nutrition, hygiene, and climate action. 4.1.3 Services to connecting with one another to cooperate on plans, pool resources and build connections with additional supports. 4.1.4 Encourage longer-term funding decisions to allow for strategic planning, innovation, and development. 4.1.5 Integrate the sector with wider poverty alleviation and prevention work.

The report also describes the work of the Cash First coordinator, a role funded by the Scottish Government’s Cash First Fund. The coordinator’s work will include engaging with groups of citizens who have direct experience of food insecurity, with a focus on:

...seeking their views and awareness of existing referral pathways to crisis supports, barriers to accessing supporting and Cash First.

The coordinator’s work will also include supporting a number of ‘test of change’ projects, including a trial of a cash first approach within the Council’s Family and Household Support teams, and a separate test of change to improve access to emergency support for families with babies who need help with feeding.

End Poverty in Edinburgh Annual Progress Report

This report is the fourth annual report since the Edinburgh Partnership and City of Edinburgh Council committed to taking all local actions possible to end poverty in the city by 2030.

The report, which also fulfils statutory requirements for the Council and NHS Lothian to co-produce an annual Local Child Poverty Action Report, notes that the latest available data shows that 17% of people in Edinburgh were living in poverty in the period to spring 2023, including 20% of all children.

The report also states that over the last 12 months, local partners have collaborated to support over 20,000 low income people in Edinburgh to achieve financial gains of almost £24m, and to support almost 5,000 people into work or learning.

The report also notes the Council’s investment of £500,000 in additional support to help alleviate poverty in the city. This funding has been used to provide extra capacity in the Council’s welfare and benefits team and to provide additional support for money and debt advice services.

In addition, this funding has been used to support data analytics work and the creation of information toolkits to improve the targeting of benefits uptake and help frontline workers provide more effective support to citizens.

The report also describes the Council’s work to address the acute housing shortage in Edinburgh. This includes:

• The completion of 934 new affordable homes in the year to March 2024, including 177 new Council homes, and 208 other social rented homes.
• The delivery of projects in Murrayburn, Dumbryden, and Hailesland to make over 900 homes more energy efficient.
• The creation of the new Regenerative Futures Fund, which aims to bring £15m of new investment to help communities shape solutions to poverty in the city over the next decade.
• The launch of a new roadmap to accelerate and improve the city-wide actions needed to prevent poverty in Edinburgh, which will be developed in line with the emerging findings of the Edinburgh Poverty Commission Interim Review.

Joint Strategic Needs Assessment Update

This report is an update on plans to create a children and families focused Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA), as well as on plans to collate all of the existing JSNAs produced by the Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership into a single, online location.

It notes that the new children and families focused JSNA will aim to:

• Use the Health Foundation’s ‘Building Blocks of Health’ framework to describe levels of need in relation to each of the building blocks. These building blocks are: Our individual characteristics, Money and resources, Education and skills, Work and conditions, Housing and the local environment, and Our relationships, our community and the wider society.
• Make reference to wider frameworks and indicators, including the Scottish Government’s Children, young people and families outcomes framework core wellbeing indicators, SHANARRI, and UNCRC.
• Focus on three specific topics in depth: Homelessness; Additional Support Needs; and Universal access to healthy environments and opportunities (including youth work).
• Use a storytelling approach, to inspire readers that change is achievable, even within current financial constraints, including case studies of success where possible.
• Commit, not just to describing current needs and challenges but also to making recommendations for specific changes that the Edinburgh Children’s Partnership could commit to in order to better meet these needs.

Community Learning and Development (CLD) Plan 2024-27 Update

The report provides an update on the work done to implement the recently approved Community Learning and Development (CLD) Plan, and a summary of the work done by the CLD Partnership.

The CLD Plan, which has been published on the Education Scotland website, focuses on adult learning, youth work, and community engagement, with the report noting that the Partnership is creating an Implementation Plan for each area.

The report notes that the Partnership has begun to develop key performance indicators, and that two Working Groups have been created to lead the work on implementing the adult learning and youth work parts of the plan.

The report states that community engagement activity will not be included in a separate plan, and will instead be reported to the CLD Partnership through the existing networks of community groups.

The report also highlights some of the challenges faced by the Partnership, including the recent closure of People Know How, the lack of a digital inclusion strategy, and the impending end of the Multiply programme.

Local Employability Partnership – October Summit

The report summarises the discussions that took place during the first in a series of summits held by the Edinburgh Local Employability Partnership (LEP).

This summit, which took place on the 2nd of October 2024, focused on the challenges faced by the 9,600 citizens in Edinburgh who are claiming Universal Credit but are not in work.

The report notes that Edinburgh is performing well as a city, with an employment rate of 82%, but continues to experience high levels of child poverty, and that many people are claiming out of work benefits despite the existence of a comprehensive employability support offer in the city.

The report sets out some of the barriers that prevent people from working, which were discussed at the summit. These include the high cost of childcare, the housing emergency, and issues around health, particularly mental health, with attendees at the summit noting that the number of support needs experienced by people who are not working has increased year on year.

The report lists the key recommendations made during the summit. These include:

• A commitment to use the Local Outcome Improvement Plan process to track the number of Universal Credit claimants who are not working, and a commitment to create a sub-group to understand the data trends.
• A commitment to ensure that the needs of this group are reflected in the work being done by the Edinburgh Partnership Transformation Programme.
• A commitment to review the commissioning process for employability support and explore the benefits of using a consortium approach to better align support with other services.
• A commitment to link closely with Thrive Edinburgh to ensure mental health issues are properly addressed.
• A commitment to embed the needs of people who are not in work within the work being done to deliver the Housing Emergency Action Plan.
• A commitment to monitor the outcomes from a number of innovative pilot projects that are seeking to improve the support available.
• A commitment to ensure that all providers of employability support, and their staff, are trained and made aware of additional financial support for childcare services.

Community Justice Annual Activity Return 2023/24

This report describes the work undertaken by the Community Safety and Justice Partnership (CSJP) to produce the Annual Activity Return, a statutory return which must be submitted to Community Justice Scotland.

The report notes that the Activity Return will describe work done in Edinburgh to support the aims of the revised National Strategy for Community Justice, with a focus on:

• Ensuring justice services embed person centred and trauma informed practices • Working across public services to improve outcomes for individuals focussing on prevention and early intervention

The report provides some examples of activity that will be included in the return, including the provision of ‘prison gate pick-ups’, and the provision of free transport to prison visitors who may otherwise be unable to visit friends and family who are serving prison sentences.

This report for the board meeting also includes a summary of some of the challenges faced by the CSJP, including the impact of the Housing Emergency and the difficulties encountered in delivering services when funding is awarded at short notice.