MCC launches its new Anti-poverty Strategy

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On Monday February 27th, 2023 Manchester City Council launched their renewed Anti-Poverty Strategy as part of their commitment to ‘Making Manchester Fairer’. The launch event held at the People’s History Museum brought together elected members, council officers and partner organisations from across the city to discuss the new strategy. The strategy which builds on its predecessor ‘The Family Poverty Strategy’, has a strong commitment to partnership working and a recognition that collaboration with residents and organisations is key to the successful delivery of the strategy.

The Anti-Poverty Strategy draws upon evidence from residents, organisations and national research to provide recommendations to tackle poverty, its causes and its consequences.

Introducing the strategy, Councillor Bev Craig, leader of Manchester City Council, acknowledged that whilst Manchester is a thriving city, recent economic challenges have exacerbated longstanding inequalities that disproportionately impact certain communities. Cllr Craig said “We recognise that no one person or organisation holds all the levers to address poverty. It is now more important than ever that we work together across our city to take tangible actions to tackle poverty. We all have a shared responsibility to ensure no one gets left behind”.

Dr Cordelle Ofori, Deputy Director of Public Health for Manchester outlined that the strategy has four key themes: preventing poverty, mitigating poverty, pathways out of poverty and inclusive and effective delivery, and beneath these themes there are 50 specific action points the council will be taking as part of this strategy. Dr Ofori encouraged the individuals and organisations in the room to consider their own role in contributing to Making Manchester Fairer.

A panel Q&A session was held and the panel members included GMPA’s CEO Graham Whitham who contributed to a discussion on the role of the private sector in tackling poverty across the city and highlighted good examples such as Kellogg’s funding the GMPA Money Matters programme. The panel discussion focussed heavily on the importance of involving those with lived experience of poverty in the development, delivery and governance of the strategy and councillors urged attendees at the launch to apply to become part of the Making Manchester Fairer Programme Board and the Communities and Power Forum. Closing the Q&A panel, Graham Whitham raised the importance of public bodies such as Manchester City Council voluntarily adopting the socio-economic duty which would require these bodies to actively consider the way in which their decisions increase or decrease inequalities that result from socio-economic disadvantage.

In summing up the event, Deputy Leader Cllr Joanna Midgley, who is the Executive Member with responsibility for Reducing Poverty and Tackling Inequalities, looked forward to delivering this strategy across the city over the next five years. Cllr Midgley recognised the ambition of the strategy but highlighted that by taking collective action, there is much that can be done to make life easier for people experiencing poverty and emphasised the importance of a dual responsive and reactive approach.

A key theme of the launch event was collaboration and it was encouraging to see so many ambitious and optimistic organisations represented in the room. GMPA looks forward to working with Manchester City Council and its partners on delivering the Anti-Poverty Strategy over the next five years.

The report ‘Making Manchester Fairer: Anti-Poverty Strategy 2023 – 2027 can be accessed here.

We recommend that you also check out GMPA’s recently shared report “Local anti-poverty strategies: Good practice and effective approaches.”

i3oz9sMCC launches its new Anti-poverty Strategy