Agenda item

The Board considered a report of the Principal Policy Officer which informed of the initiatives and strategies that had been put in place in Oldham to tackle child food poverty. The author of the report attended the meeting to present the information and address the enquiries of the Board Members.

A short video was displayed which outlined the extent of the issue in the Borough and how it affected children and their families. 

It was reported that during the summer holidays, a pilot was introduced to provide locally sourced healthy food for families and children. This involved delivering food where there were existing activities planned and working with existing activity providers and community partners organisations. The pilot was jointly funded by Oldham Education Partnership and Growing Oldham: Feeding Ambition Partnership. Incredible Future Oldham were commissioned to deliver the food for the pilot. The model followed to deliver the pilot was outlined. It was reported that 3,684 healthy meals had been provided during the six-week summer term, across 19 different sites in the Borough.

In addition to the summer provision, a Christmas Holiday pilot had operated over two weeks in December 2018, in a smaller number of sites. The pilot included a universal central offer of food and activity available in Oldham Central Library for two weeks after Christmas, when the Library was open over eight days. Approximately 40 people (children and families) attended each day, accessing food parcels as well as fresh food.

The next steps would be to develop a wider strategy to address child food poverty in Oldham and to consider links to the Greater Manchester Food Poverty Action Plan, to secure sustainable funding towards key priorities and to deliver additional and improved provision in the future.

The Board Members sought and received clarification / commented on the following points:

-       Evidence that food was provided to those children who needed it the most – It was explained that food had been made available where activities for children and their families had already been planned by partner organisations;

-       Evaluation of the Christmas pilot – It was explained that the pilot had been based at Oldham Library and three other sites outside that. Operating the pilot over this period had been very difficult as many organisations had not been available;

-       Working families were those who struggled the most and needed support;

-       How to engage with families with chaotic lives to ensure that they were aware of this offer;

-       Tackling the stigma associated with food poverty;

-       Strong correlation between deprivation and crime;

-       Schools offering breakfast clubs for free and links to the overall agenda of children being fed consistently throughout the year;

-       Use of Individual Councillors’ Budget to support the action to reduce child food poverty;

-       Some of the summer projects on food poverty were linked to the work of the Integrated Care Teams;

-       Need to link geographic poverty to an action plan; to look at social value of commissioning and involve private contractors to invest in these activities. 

The Chair of the Board and the Cabinet Member for Education and Culture commended the actions taken so far on child food poverty and the importance of access to local, healthy food.  

RESOLVED that the content of the report be noted.