(i) Councillor Temperton to Councillor Bettison OBE, Leader of the Council
Can we have an update on what the Council is doing to welcome and support our refugees to Bracknell Forest?
(ii) Councillor Bidwell to Councillor Heydon, Executive Member for Transformation and Finance
Energy prices are increasing adding to a steady increase in inflation, currently 5.1%. Commentators suggest that family costs are going to increase by £1200 per annum and that the lowest income families will once again suffer:
What is the Strategy for supporting those that are most vulnerable? Is there sufficient money in any existing hardship fund to support those in need and if not, can more be added to this year’s budget?
Minutes:
1. Councillor Temperton asked Councillor Bettison OBE, Leader of the Council the following published question:
Can we have an update on what the Council is doing to welcome and support our refugees to Bracknell Forest?
In response Councillor Bettison reflected that local authorities across the United Kingdom had played a vital role in the success of the resettlement efforts following the events in Afghanistan. The Locally Employed Staff Relocation Scheme supports people who had served the United Kingdom in Afghanistan to relocate and rebuild their lives safely. He advised that Bracknell Forest Council had welcomed three such Afghan refugee families to Bracknell over recent months. The Council had worked to secure three privately rented properties which were affordable for the families. The homes were fully furnished and equipped by the Council, ready for occupation, including white goods and soft furnishings.
He added that the Council had used Government allocated funding to employ an additional officer in the Early Help service to be able to offer dedicated support to these families. Support workers were making daily contact with the families to help them to get to know the area, adjust to their new location and settle in safely.
He advised that Education, Health, Early Help services, Housing, engagement and equalities teams had all worked together with charitable/faith organisations to ensure that the refugee families have been able to quickly settle into their new homes. This support had included helping them to register with a GP surgery; finding school and early years places for their children; accessing English language courses if needed; setting up bank accounts and direct debits for utilities; help with registering for benefits initially and then support in accessing the Job Centre and finding work.
He concluded that he had been humbled by the local response and kind offers of help and donations by local organisations and residents. Involve community services had worked with the Council and other charitable organisations to bring together a community support offer for Afghan refugees who had recently been welcomed to Bracknell Forest - this has included providing toys for the children and televisions for the families. Bracknell Islamic Cultural Society had offered to greet families and offer cultural support and information as required.
Councillor Temperton was pleased to hear about the range of support on offer and enquired whether this extended into the schools welcoming the children due to any language or mental health issues which may arise.
Councillor Dr Barnard was invited to respond. He responded that support was given to schools from before the places were allocated starting with ensuring that the schools were fully briefed on the needs of the children. He understood that the children were doing well, were making friends and were supporting their families with developing English language both formally and informally.
As with other children requiring additional support their progress was being tracked by the relevant teams. He concluded that there would be a proactive approach to following their progress and he would be happy to report at future Council meetings to keep colleagues informed.
2. Councillor Bidwell asked Councillor Heydon, Executive Member for Transformation and Finance the following published question:
Energy prices are increasing adding to a steady increase in inflation, currently 5.1%. Commentators suggest that family costs are going to increase by £1200 per annum and that the lowest income families will once again suffer:
What is the Strategy for supporting those that are most vulnerable? Is there sufficient money in any existing hardship fund to support those in need and if not, can more be added to this year’s budget?
In response Councillor Heydon advised the meeting that although there was a strategy it was not fixed and instead adapted to respond to changing pressures such as covid. He stated that the administration recognised that there were ongoing significant financial pressures for many households in the borough due to multiple factors. He reflected that the Council had provided a broad range of support during the current financial year to those most affected and would continue to do so in the coming year. He described the Local Welfare Scheme (https://www.bracknell-forest.gov.uk/benefits/bracknell-forest-council-local-welfare-scheme), which had a budget of £20,000 per year for emergency crisis support. This was when family, friends, charities, or insurance could not help with the essentials needed to keep safe and well such as fuel costs, food supplies and essential furniture. He explained that the Government had also provided a range of additional grants since the Covid pandemic started and these had been used to support a wide range of targeted initiatives which were aimed specifically at the lowest income households for example:
· £82,000 funding from DEFRA was used to increase the provision available within the Council’s local welfare scheme including specialist agencies like Foodbank and the Citizens Advice Bureau, to provide help directly to local people most in need.
· £575,000 funding from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had been distributed to low-income households in the borough through schemes such as school holiday supermarket vouchers for children who receive free school meals. He added that this funding would continue for the next three years supporting the Holiday Activities and Food Programme, totalling £248,000 for next year.
He continued that the Local Council Tax Support Grant of £0.8m announced in the Finance Settlement for 2021/22 helped fund the one-off Covid-recovery package included in the 2021/22 budget. £300,000 was used to fund initiatives to address financial hardship such as additional funding to children’s social care for emergency support for families, the Imagination Library scheme targeted at vulnerable households with young children and to top up the value of school holiday supermarket vouchers last Summer. He explained the remaining funding would be carried forward to continue to target instances of financial hardship, offering financial support where it was most needed as well as helping households to develop plans to achieve longer term financial resilience. Granting a £150 reduction in council tax bills for a second year for 3,000 low-income households was already receiving support through the Council Tax Reduction Scheme, at an overall cost of around £0.5m.
He continued that the administration proposed to maintain their local welfare scheme at its current level, recognising that there were a range of other funding sources also available to support vulnerable households. He advised that they were also intending to propose to offer a further reduction in council tax bills to help low-income households, following on from the £300 in reductions they had received in the past two years. He added that officers had been asked to undertake a needs analysis to provide the Council with a more comprehensive understanding of the extent of current and potential financial hardship across the Borough and had invested in additional staffing resource and specialist software to progress this.
He concluded that the exercise would map the full range of existing support available to individuals and households from the Council and its statutory and voluntary sector partners by the end of the current financial year. An action plan would then be developed to include short-term and longer-term preventative work to address immediate needs and to help residents and communities become increasingly financially resilient in the years ahead.
Councillor Dr Barnard was invited to respond to a supplementary question regarding how residents were able to tap into these initiatives. He advised that throughout the pandemic there had been a Members’ Welfare Steering Group that looked at how to use the grants provided in a targeted way to support families. He stated that the Council had looked beyond the categories set out to maximise the amount of payments which could be made by broadening out the definitions as far as possible to try to catch all families in significant financial hardship. He concluded that one of the challenges was that in addition to signposting residents to local provision it was about finding ways to connect with hard to reach families who were in need.