Equality and Social Justice For All: Tacking Poverty in Lancashire 14
VCFSE Sector Manifesto for Lancashire 14 (PRIORITY 1)
We should work with partners to develop ways of tackling and addressing poverty in Lancashire 14. There is a clear need for an anti-poverty strategy and we should play a leading role in convening and driving this.
As a sector we propose:
1.1 Welcome Programme: Develop an effective network and system to support Asylum seekers across Lancashire 14.
1.2 Lancashire Commission to Address Poverty: Identify partners, including MP’s, and appoint a cross sector Lancashire Commission to Address Poverty (Lancashire CAP) to review three fundamental areas of policy and life in Lancashire 14: Welfare, Work and Education. The potential role of the VCFSE sector should be a key line of enquiry throughout.
1.3 Equality Panels or Partnerships: Identify mechanisms to voice and address Lancashire 14 equalities challenges. We should promote Equality Partnerships or Panels (like the Independent Race Equality Panel [IREP]) as a first, essential step to understand and focus on social, economic and health inequalities lined to communities of identity, experience and geography. We know that COVID has disproportionately affected our BAME communities, learning disability communities, deprived networks, etc.
1.4 Poverty and Equalities Framework: Agree a common framework (set of metrics) for understanding poverty and inequality across Lancashire 14 with annual reporting on a specific day each year (eg Lancashire Day, 27th November). This should be a fundamental part of our cross sector partnership and ambition to drive change.
1.5 Community-based answers to the 3 Challenges: Look to develop mechanisms to address and build community-based answers to these three key challenges: 1.5.1 Digital Exclusion: explore the potential for freely accessible broadband where it is most needed and link to new broadband roll out. This could be coupled with a young entrepreneur programme. 1.5.2 Fuel Poverty 1.5.3 Food Poverty