Agenda item

The Committee had before it a report by the Chief Officer – Early Intervention and Community Empowerment, which responded to the decision taken by Council at the meeting  on 13 July 2022, to approve that the £1,000,000 Fuel Poverty Fund be considered in the wider Cost of Living Support report.

The report recommended:-

that the Committee –

(a)          allocates £430,000 to Community Food Initiatives North East for investment in food procurement, development of food pantries (300 memberships, weekly food shops, management and admin); and Support, Advice, Finance and Education team support;

(b)          allocates £300,000 to the Scottish Welfare Fund provision to reinstate medium priority applications to the end of March 2023;

(c)          allocates £100,000 to SCARF to assist in alleviating fuel poverty through distribution of fuel vouchers and trialling a ‘cash first’ approach;

(d)          allocates £100,000 to ABZ works to support 100 lone parent families through existing employability programmes;

(e)          allocates £45,000 to the provision of insulation measures for 500 homes;

(f)           allocates £25,000 to establish a Family Wellbeing Fund, to support families through the provision of advice and to develop a support plan;

(g)          instructs the Chief Officer – Early Intervention and Community Empowerment to make arrangements to distribute the funds as required; and

(h)          instructs the Chief Officer – Early Intervention and Community Empowerment to report to a future Committee on the outcomes achieved by the allocation of funds.

The Convener moved, seconded by the Vice Convener:-

That the Committee:-

(1)          approve the recommendations contained in the report;

(2)          instruct the Chief Officer – Early Intervention and Community Empowerment to report to the relevant committee on the provision of warm spaces within Aberdeen and explore any support that can be provided to communities visiting them; and

(3)          should additional resources be made available by either the UK or Scottish Government for fuel and the cost of living crisis, to instruct the relevant Chief Officer to report to the relevant committee with options for the best allocation of these funds;

Councillor Grant moved as an amendment, seconded by Councillor Thomson:-

That the Committee:-

a)            Agrees that inadequate cost-of-living support presents an immediate and serious risk to people, communities and businesses in Aberdeen;

b)            Notes that the available £1million fund was only made possible as a result of decisions taken by the previous Labour-led Council administration within the approved budget in March 2022;

c)            Notes the “Working in Partnership for Aberdeen” policy statement, approved on 18 May 2022 aims to, “devolve at least 1% of the council’s annual budget to communities, allowing them to decide their spending priorities through participative budgeting.”;

d)            Instructs the Chief Officer – Early Intervention and Community Empowerment to bring an urgent report to the City Growth and Resources Committee on 21^st September seeking approval of a proposal to create a special Participatory Budget focussing on the cost-of-living to enable residents and communities to work together to develop solutions and fund community-led cost-of-living initiatives and approval to commit up to £100,000 from the 2022/23 General Fund contingencies budget for this purpose, with the Chief Officer reporting back to the appropriate committee on the outcomes achieved and seeking the views of the Fairer Aberdeen Board in preparing this report; 

e)            Notes that as the Cost-of-Living crisis worsens, hard pressed families will struggle even more to make one off annual purchases such as winter clothing items for children. Notes that in November 2021, local charity AberNecessities, reported a 200 percent rise in demands for help for, among other things, winter clothing such as winter jackets, hats, gloves, scarves and footwear. Notes that Aberdeen City Council already provides school clothing grant;

f)             Instructs the Chief Officer – Early Intervention and Community Empowerment to bring an urgent report to the City Growth and Resources Committee on 21^st September seeking approval of a proposal to create a winter clothing grants scheme to help struggling families be able to apply for some funds to help with these one- off winter costs and approval to commit up to £50,000 from the 2022/23 General Fund contingencies budget;

g)            Notes that recent surveys commissioned by the Liberal Democrats show that 27% of families with children at home plan not to turn their heating on this winter, with 33% of parents surveyed saying they will use credit cards and increased debt to pay their bills. Notes research commissioned by the University of York which reported that pensioners and larger families will be worst affected by rising energy costs with 90% expected to be in fuel poverty by January 2023;

h)            Notes that many community facilities are anticipating an increase in demand for help and support over the coming winter. Agrees in principle that the Council should support these community facilities, such as community centres, libraries and community flats to help them cope with increased demands;

i)             Instructs the Chief Officer – Early Intervention and Community Empowerment to bring a report to the soonest appropriate committee with proposals on making extra provision available to support community facilities to cope with rising demands regarding energy costs, additional demand for their food bank provision and an increase in demand for support and advocacy for struggling people. Agrees that any financial costs of such extra provision should be referred to the appropriate Committee with a recommendation that such costs be funded from the 2022/23 General Fund Contingencies Budget;

j)             Notes that section 3.5 references the commitment to provide free school meals for all Primary school pupils in Scotland and that this policy will play an increasingly important role in ensuring Primary school pupils receive at least one healthy and nutritious meal per day, as the cost-of-living crisis worsens and child poverty rates rise. Notes that at present, free school meal entitlement only extends from pre-school to primary 5 and that the Scottish Government has intimated this will not be extended to P6 and P7 until “later in the parliamentary term”, that is after the cost-of-living crisis of winter 2022/23;

k)            Instructs the Chief Executive to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills requesting an urgent update on the status of the policy and for this policy to be implemented as a matter of urgency in light of the Cost-of-Living crisis;

l)             Instructs the Chief Officer – Early Intervention and Community Empowerment, following consultation with the Chief Officer – Finance, to bring a subsequent report on the Cost-of-Living Crisis to the November 2022 Finance and Resources Committee reporting on any additional cost-of-living support that is announced by the Scottish and UK Governments. This report will consider officer assessment of remaining risk to vulnerable and hard-pressed families, communities and businesses and make recommendations on where and if the Council can provide added value and support to those most at risk of continued vulnerability;

m)          Agrees that the previous Labour-led administration helped over 22,000 council tenants by freezing their rents for the last two years; and

n)            Agrees that the cost-of-living crisis will impact adversely on the majority of Aberdeen citizens and calls upon the UK and Scottish governments to urgently bring forward more support packages to help citizens cope.

On a division, there voted – for the motion (7) – the Convener, the Vice Convener, Councillor Cameron, the Lord Provost, Councillor Delaney, the Depute Provost and Councillors Hutchison, McRae and Nicoll – for the amendment – Councillors Ali, Brooks, Grant, Massey, McLeod and Thomson.

The Committee resolved:-

(i)            to adopt the motion;

(ii)          to request that in relation to the money allocated to Community Food Initiatives North East, to send information to members by way of email, the breakdown of the costs of administration and management; and

(iii)         to request that the Chief Officer – Early Intervention and Community Empowerment, investigate if there had been any requests from tenants to switch off their gas supply, following press coverage regarding Langstane Housing and tenants asking for their gas supply to be turned off due to the soaring fuel costs, and to advise members accordingly of any such requests.