Agenda item

Ivan Browne (Director of Public Health, Leicester City Council) and Rob Howard (Consultant in Public Health, Leicester City Council) will give a presentation on the whole council approach which has been taken to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, the key elements of activity being undertaken, and outline the Fuel Poverty Programme.

Ivan Browne (Director of Public Health, Leicester City Council) and Rob Howard (Consultant in Public Health, Leicester City Council) gave a presentation on the whole council approach which has been taken to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, the key elements of activity being undertaken, and outline the Fuel Poverty Programme.

Leicester City Council (LCC) had adopted an incident management team (IMT) approach to tackling the cost-of-living crisis. The presentation looked briefly at key elements of activity being undertaken, and outlined the Fuel Poverty Programme.  The Council had taken a whole council approach to the crisis, aligning with its Anti-Poverty strategy, coordinating activity across the authority, and ensuring that people were able to easily access support. Cells across the authority had been addressing cost-of-living issues, providing support to citizens through a variety of workstreams, and highlighting broader issues within the core IMT meetings.

The Council also worked closely with key external partners and community groups to provide wider support coverage and engagement.  Horizon scanning within cells allowed upcoming issues to be recognised and

where necessary addressed by IMT.  Current upcoming issues included a likely increase in Council Tax, pressure on Commissioned Services, and pressure on Advice Services.  The cost of living support offer continued to evolve, and remains accessible and robust.

The Council were working in partnership with National Energy Action (NEA) and had introduced a Fuel Poverty Programme.  The impacts of fuel poverty on health were widely recognised, and Leicester had relatively high levels of fuel poverty. The Fuel Poverty Programme aimed to tackle the issues at hand through three workstreams; an advice service, training, and education.

The Advice service has been soft launched within the Council’s Housing Division. And a further rollout of the service would be coming soon.

The Training workstream would extend the reach of the programme by embedding energy advice and qualifications into front line services and communities.  The Education workstream would raise awareness of energy efficiency at home and at school, initially targeting children in years 5-11 through tailored sessions delivered within schools.

The presentation set out factors and initiatives on all issues involved.

The asked Board members who were part of large organisations to give thought on how the message out.  There was a need to work with large employers’ workforce to get this message out.

It was suggested that based upon the experience of the Anti-Poverty Strategy organisations should train members of staff to be energy advisors.  The discharge of people to cold home was a massive issue and could be used as a catalyst of conversation for fuel poverty.  It was known that many people were turning off appliance to save fuel and many were now living in cold houses, and this could result in many people being see by all areas of the system as a result.  Many organisations such as the Police had staff who could be entering cold premises and could provide much needed information for possible interventions.

RESOLVED:-            Officers were thanked for the presentation and Board members were asked to progress the issues raised to develop the partnership response.