Agenda item

The Board considered a joint report of the Assistant Chief Executive, Corporate Director, Resources and Corporate Director, Regeneration and Economic Development that outlined the current thinking on welfare reform and poverty issues as they affect the county, how the council is responding currently and what it and its partners propose to do to maintain an effective approach to welfare reform and build a more comprehensive response to poverty in the county (for copy see file of minutes).

The Head of Policy and Communications reported that the government’s welfare reform programme is having a significantly bigger impact on the county, given the disproportionately large number of benefit recipients in County Durham.  He added that 40 different changes were made to the benefits system with the intention of reducing welfare spending by £18bn by 2015 and highlighted legislative changes.

In response to a query from Councillor R Bell regarding how the Citizen Advice Bureau would manage welfare issues, the Head of Policy and Communication would forward comments to the Head of Financial Services and report back to Councillor Bell.

Councillor Wilkes commented that the Council are doing well with triage systems, however felt that not enough money is used to support the harder to reach groups. He referred to the £1m underspend in welfare assistance money in the Council’s budget and asked if the underspend could be used to assist other organisations and suggested that scrutiny look at those areas. The Head of Policy and Communication advised that the scheme had grown significantly and hard to reach groups would be included in the programme developed for further work.

Resolved:

That the information contained in the report be noted.