Briefing: Fairness Commission

Purpose

To provide Professor Alan Walker with some background on the council’s approach to establishing a Fairness Commission, in advance of the meeting on 22ndDecember with Cllr Julie Dore and Lee Adams.

Background

Poverty, inequalities and social justice are important issues to the Administration.

The Council’s new corporate plan outlines four priorities:

  • Standing up for Sheffield
  • Supporting and protecting communities
  • Focussing on jobs
  • Business friendly

It also outlines the organisations values:

  • Fairness
  • Spend public money wisely
  • Long term view
  • Prevention
  • Enabling individuals and communities
  • Aspirational
  • Working better together

More detail on these priorities and values is in Appendix A. The Corporate Plan also sets out eight outcomes that the Council will seek to make progress towards over the lifetime of the plan. One of these is ‘Tackling Poverty and Increasing Social Justice’. An extract from the Corporate Plan relating to this outcome is also set out at Appendix A As part of its approach to Tackling Poverty and Increasing Social Justice, the Council is exploring how it can move from doing indirect work to alleviate poverty towards direct work which tackles both root causes and addresses short term problems.

As part of this overall approach, the Leader of the Council has requested the establishment of a “Fairness Commission” for Sheffield to inform the way the city should address poverty and advance equality of opportunity. ‘Fairness Commission’ is a working title and we may want to consider different names. Other possibilities could include ‘Tackling Poverty Commission’ or ‘Anti-Poverty Commission.’

Current picture in the city

In Sheffieldjust over a fifth of households (approx 50,000) are living in poverty. We know more parts of the city have become more deprived and the gap between the worst off and best off people across Sheffield has increased. We also know there are significant inequalities in the city. Appendix B has further details. Therefore poverty and social inequality are real, increasing and pressing problems for the city, that needs some new and radical thinking to make inroads – this is one of the things that we are hoping the Fairness Commission will be able to provide.

Aims and objectives of the Commission

The purpose of the Commission will be principally concerned with thinking about tackling poverty and inequality in Sheffield. Based on an analysis of need the Commission will provide an opportunity to shape strategic approaches and interventions, and be a key driver in the future allocationof Council (and potentially other)resources. The Commission will examine the building blocks of human, social, environmental and fixed capital to identify where effort can most effectively be targeted and make the biggest difference on prevention and intervention. It will use evidence to consider how we can get better and more effective results from the resources we have at our disposal.Because of the need to take a long term view of the issues, an aim will be for the Commission to have the backing of the main political parties in the city.

The objectives include:

  1. To influence and inform the 2013/14 budget of the Council and other bodies and to help set the context for longer term financial planning. This would involve having some immediate impact in terms of doing things differently and how to distribute the Council budget in a way that makes the biggest difference.
  1. Testing existing and new policies. This would include reviewing the impact of current activities and the potential impact of new activities
  1. Tackling long-term inequalities. The Commission would look in detail at the evidence in the city and what has worked elsewhere in considering what recommendations might be best for Sheffield. This would need the involvement of the other public sector agencies in the city.This would include addressing gender and ethnicity issues as well as poverty across the whole population.

Because of the timescales for the Fairness Commission to report back, it is likely that the Commission will want to focus its attention on a small number of the most significant issues for Sheffield.

How it would operate

Our preferred option is that the Commission would operate along similar lines to the parliamentary Select Committee model.We are anticipating it would be held over 3-5 months and commence with a call for evidence from organisations and individuals from within, and from outside the city. This would be followed by a series of hearings held over 2-3 week period. The Commission would report back to the City Council with a copy of the report also going to Sheffield Executive Board.

The recommendations produced by the Commission:

  • would include some effective short and medium term measures to alleviate the impact of poverty.
  • would include medium and long term recommendations to tackle root causes, extend wealth and extend opportunity.
  • might not necessarily cost
  • might not be in the gift of local agencies and require lobbying of national government

The financial context and costs involved will be an important consideration within the terms of reference for the commission.

Membership

The Commissioners would include people from a range of sectors including academia, VCS, education, older people, health, housing, disabled, BME, and Faith.

Professor Alan Walker has been approached and agreed to Chair the Commission.

Expectations of all Commissioners would include:

  • Being knowledgeable on a particular issue or set of issues facing the city
  • Bringing a particular perspective eg political, business, voluntary sector, academic but not include current officers from statutory agencies
  • Experience of tackling complex issues
  • Committed to poverty/exclusion issues

We will need to ensure that there is diverse membership on the Commission as a whole, so that for example there is an authentic Sheffield 'voice' within the Commission's work but an external perspective on the city is also included, ie a mix of local and national people.It will be important that the Commission is broadly representative of the city as a whole in terms of ethnic make-up, disability, age, gender etc. We could also consider having a member who has personal experience of living in poverty.Possible Commissioners are listed in Appendix C.

Engagement and openness

This work provides an opportunity to get local people involved, in both helping the Commission understand and analyse needs and influencing recommendations. We will need to have appropriate communication and engagement strategies, that maximise involvement and ensure the Commission reaches into seldom heard communities, potentially encompassing events (city and neighbourhood based), online (social media), surveys, focus groups, open calls for evidence etc. We might want to set up a special website and could look at publishing all the evidence.

The new Tackling Poverty and Increasing Social Justice Group will be responsible for implementing the Commission’s recommendations.

Timescale

This timescale below is based on using the Select Committee model:

Recruit Commissioners / 22nd December – 31st January
Report to Cabinet / January
First meeting* / First half of February
Call for Evidence / 4 weeks following first meeting
Public Hearings / March
Write report
(draft; circulate to Commissioners; amend; re-circulate for approval) / April
Publish Report / May (post election)

* The first meeting of the Commission would be an introductory meeting. The purpose would be to:

  • agree the Terms of Reference
  • narrow down the areas the Commission wants to focus on
  • launch the call for evidence

There may be some benefit in having this first meeting as a facilitated session.

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Council’s Priorities

Standing up for Sheffield

We will always stand up for what we believe is the right thing to do for the people and businesses of Sheffield. We will provide a voice for Sheffield to make sure we get a fair deal from Government and all of the organisations that work with Sheffield.At the same time, we recognise how important it is to raiseSheffield’s profile – nationally and internationally – to attract business and tourists into our city. We must not lose sight, in the face of budget cuts, of what makes people want to come here: our fantastic theatres, our great sports facilities, our history and heritage, our festivals and events, all the things that make us stand out from the crowd.

Supporting and protecting communities

We need to make the best possible use of our resources to meet the needs of Sheffield and its people. For the services that we provide to everyone in the city this means making sure that we are only investing in efficient services that people and local communities really need. For the services that we provide to those that need extra help and support from the Council, like the older people we care for, or the young people with disabilities that we help get to school, we need to make sure that we are targeting our support at the people and families that need it most - whoever they are and wherever they live. We recognise that the Council has a role in tackling inequalities.

Focusing on jobs

Sheffield people want more jobs in the city and they want jobs that reward them decently for their work. As a Council we will encourage and support businesses to grow, so that more jobs are created in the city. We will build strong relationships with businesses to encourage wealth to stay in Sheffield and we will attract new organisations into the city. We will encourage enterprise, and support people to develop the skills that the city requires. And we will work particularly hard to support young people into work.

Business-friendly

If we want to continue to build relationships with businesses to encourage jobs and growth in the city then it’s important that we’re seen as a business-friendly Council – an organisation that business can work with. Being business friendly is not just about what we do but how we do it. We need to demonstrate, through everything we do, that we want businesses to succeed in Sheffield. It is also about being a business-friendly city. This includes getting the basics right, such as the infrastructure, skills and transport in the city.

Council’s Values

  • Fairness is at the heart of the Council’s values. We believe that everyone should get a fair chance to succeed in Sheffield. We recognise that some people and communities need extra help to reach their full potential, particularly when they face multiple layers of deprivation. We will provide extra help where it is needed to improve the well-being and resilience of local communities. We will also make sure that a ‘core offer’ of services is available to everyone in the city. Tackling inequality is crucial to increasing fairness and social cohesion, reducing health problems, and helping people to have independence and control over their lives. It will underpin all that we do.
  • We have a responsibility to spend public money wisely and get the best outcome. We recognise that the cheapest services and products might not always provide the tax payer with the best value. We will be an enterprising council that seeks out, and finds opportunities to generate income by selling services and products. This will help us maintain services to Sheffield people.
  • When making decisions we will look beyond the short term and take a long term view about what is the right thing to do. Our approach will involve considering the long term economic, social and environmental impacts of our actions on the city and its communities.
  • Linked to this is our approach to prevention. Whilst we strive to get better at tackling issues we will now have an increasing focus on how we can prevent problems arising in the first place. Preventing problems from occurring is clearly much better for the individuals and communities concerned and can also reduce costs in the longer term – a preventative approach will also help lead to a fairer city.
  • We will enable individuals and communities to have more of an influence, get more involved and have the responsibility and ownership for doing some of things that need to happen in our city.
  • We take pride in the whole of our city and will challenge individuals, communities and the city to be more aspirational and to shout more about the city’s successes.
  • We need to make sure we are getting the right services, to the right people and families, at the right time. This means working better together in partnership with local people and other agencies to find solutions together. In some cases, this means trusting other organisations to help us achieve our goals.

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Tackling Poverty & Increasing Social Justice

Context

In Sheffield almost one quarter of households – approximately 58,500 households - are living in poverty. Since 2007 the gap between the worst off and best off people across Sheffield has increased. However, poverty is not only about money. It is also about health, education, community and aspiration – and we know that all of these differ markedly across the city. There are also significant inequalities in the city that limit opportunity. For example people from some ethnic backgrounds have lower average rates of employment. Women also have lower rates of employment, with ethnic minority women having much lower rates of employment than all other groups.

What do we want to achieve?

We have a number of shorter term objectives for this area and some longer term ambitions. Above all we want to make tackling poverty and increasing social justice an explicit element of what we do as a Council. We want to maximise people’s available income and make sure that they have access to banking and other financial facilities, and, if people get into financial difficulties, that support and advice is available for them. We want people always to be able to remain in their own homes, and have the basic skills they need to participate in the economy and wider life of the city. We also want to continue to promote equality and make sure that our approach and service delivery takes into account the different needs of people and communities across the city, with local people and communities actively involved in making decisions about their lives and areas.

Most of these objectives are focused on the individual. However, we recognise that it is not possible for improvements made in tackling poverty at an individual level to be sustained without also improving wider economic, social and environmental conditions. So we also need to tackle entrenched neighbourhood poverty and inequalities at the same time.

How are we going to do this?

We will work to tackle poverty and inequality wherever it occurs to make sure that people are able to play a full part in the life of the city, and to ensure that they have fair access to the skills and opportunities to improve their life chances. Our approach will have two key outcomes: tackling poverty today and addressing some of the root causes of poverty and social exclusion.

Our immediate focus on tackling poverty experienced by individuals has three elements. Firstly we will look to maximise people’s income. We will do this by developing the infrastructure in the city to support people financially, working with organisations like the Credit Union, and potentially other, innovative forms of financial support, so that everyone is able to access appropriate banking and other financial services. We want people to be able to accessuniversal services, such as advice and debt services, which are efficient, integrated and responsive, and appropriate to them when they need them. Secondly, we will invest in improving people’s financial capability, giving them the life-skills they need to participate in the economy, as well as greater self-esteem and mental wellbeing. Thirdly, we will develop a whole household / key worker model, which is described on page 7.

We will look to address the root causes of poverty and social exclusion by having a broader and deeper approach based around the concept of resilient people and families, resilient communities and a resilient system. This means that people are able to cope well if their circumstances change for the worse, backed up by strong communities and effective public services.

Current picture in the city

In Sheffieldjust over a fifth of households (approx 50,000) are living in poverty. This is using the definition of poverty as an income less than 60% of the median income. However, poverty is not only about money. It is also about health, education, community and aspiration.

The Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) take into account income, employment, health and disability, education, skills and training, barriers to housing and services, crime and living environment. IMD shows that over the period 2007 to 2010 more parts of Sheffield have become more deprived – 48 separate city geographies are now in the 5% most deprived in the country. Since 2007 the gap between the worst off and best off people across Sheffield has increased.

There are also significant inequalities in the city. For example BME people have lower average rates of employment. Women also have lower rates of employment, with ethnic minority females having much lower rates of employment than all other groups. Educational attainment for White British children tends to be higher than overall BME, but ethnic groups vary dramatically.

The recession has had an impact with JSA claimants rising from 7,650 (2.1%) in December 2007 to a peak of 16,955 (4.6%) in Feb 2010. At June 2011 there were 16,165, (4.4%) claimants.

The Council and partners are already working to tackle poverty and increase social justice. Some examples include: