Is the real issue food poverty. Or is it just poverty?

By Graham Brown CVSCE Food Coordination lead

The Cheshire East Food Alliance (CEFA) is one year old! I’m pleased to report progress... there’s greater cooperation amongst groups leading to food sharing...more projects are benefiting from funding – over £200k in the last round of Cost of Living / Household Support Fund grants alone. But also, from sources including Feeding Britain.   

Yet, some things are all too familiar... one I would argue is the overuse of the phrase food poverty...including, sometimes, in describing my role. Is this just masking the real issue - which is poverty?  

To illustrate this, at the last Food Alliance meeting (part of the wider VCFSE Alliance conference in October) there was little discussion on food related topics beyond the common themes of accessing more food and recruiting more volunteers and specifically nothing about food poverty. That’s because those represented are experts in providing food aid. Instead, the main discussion was around how they can support increasing numbers of people with complex support needs, linked to a wide range of inequalities. 

This isn’t new. The difference is probably the complexity, the scale, a change in the demographics of those who need support...“we’re seeing more older people“ (it’s probably too early to link this to winter fuel payments)... and there are those described as the ‘working poor’, many of whom have no prior experience of navigating the welfare system.  

Research by The Trussell Trust identifies this latter group. The same research highlighted that in many cases little or no support was being offered either in the form of signposting or a more holistic package of support – alongside a referral for food support.  

This rings true locally. But no system is completely fallible - people fall through the cracks.  

What could this mean? It may lead to groups expanding into new areas of support sometimes with limited experience, to try and fill a perceived or experienced void (probably why many started providing food aid, in the first place!). This pressure to expand leads to groups looking for more funding. This of course is time-consuming as well as carrying a degree of risk and dependency: factors which could affect a group's sustainability. The other side of this is that potentially there’s more competition for funding and skilled staff or volunteers, it leads to duplication and dissipation of services, which adds to both confusion and challenges with appropriate signposting. 

So, what should we do about it? My recommendation would be to look at this through the lens of systems theory. Or in other words looking at and understanding all the component parts in the context of the relationships with each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation. So, looking at poverty, not just food poverty.  

Research by charity Resolve Poverty highlights that only 13% of local authorities have an anti-poverty strategy in place. Unfortunately Cheshire East isn’t one of this number. Resolve Poverty make the point that there’s been an absence of a meaningful national policy agenda to address poverty in the UK for well over a decade. The absence of statutory guidance, adequate funding and direction from Westminster, means addressing poverty in localities has been a significant struggle for local authorities. Yet, Cheshire West and Chester have an anti-poverty strategy in place, and Warrington will have one in the next 12 months.  

Clearly developing an anti-poverty strategy is a big task. But putting systems thinking at the heart of it would make considerable sense. It can’t be a task for just one organisation, we would need a collaborative approach with VCFSE organisations at the heart of it. Local leadership is essential, and needs to be Place-based, bringing together colleagues from Cheshire & Merseyside Integrated Care Board, Cheshire East Council, and the VCFSE sector to take a holistic view of the challenges associated with tacking poverty. Of course, anything locally needs to be looked at in the context of the Westminster Government.  

Care Communities would seem the ideal framework locally for moving anything forward. We have the insight and tools from things like the Tartan Rug and the previous Poverty JSNA.  And we have a committed VCFSE sector. We could begin with a pilot in one Care Community, determined by the insight from the Tartan Rug: that way the methodology and approach could be tested and adapted (if necessary) before rolling it out Care Community by Care Community. We would be very interested in picking up these conversations at a Place level. 

This is just food for thought (pardon the pun). But potentially it opens up an opportunity to look at one or a range of collaborative funding bids – something that is coming up regularly in conversations with funders – that might lead to long-term sustainable change.