Labour councillors have told Durham County Council to “go back to the drawing board” to address spiralling poverty levels.

The authority’s Poverty Strategy and Action Plan (PSAP) today (November 16) goes before Cabinet for ratification, but Labour claim it goes nowhere near outlining the scale of support required by individuals and communities currently in the teeth of the cost-of-living crisis.

The report also fails to mention Government austerity or provide any reason why the Council formed a Poverty Action Steering Group, created as a direct response to the Welfare Reform Bill in 2012. Labour say the Coalition running the County Council continues o reject austerity as a major contributing factor to the hardships across our communities.

In 2022 County Durham had 16 ‘left behind neighbourhoods’, but the strategy fails to offer any actions to address the findings of that report until 2023, before going on to evaluate a devolution deal many councillors weren’t aware the authority had agreed or secured.

County Durham Labour’s Shadow Member for Communities & Social Inclusion, Cllr Angela Surtees, said:

“This document is a disgrace from start to finish. The Council must go back to the drawing board and deliver something that reflects the scale of the poverty crisis people currently face, outline the real reasons behind it AND offer real solutions to it.

“It’s appalling to open such a serious document and be “welcomed” with smiling faces! This strategy is meant to focus on people in freezing houses with empty kitchen cupboards and detail what we are doing and can do to help.

“For far too long our community and voluntary sectors have picked up the slack for the government. We heard from his own lips how the PM diverted funds from deprived areas to bolster affluent areas…actions like this and over a decade of austerity and mismanagement of the economy is why we have such devastating poverty, but anyone reading strategy would think it was solely down to Covid19.”

County Durham child poverty increased over the last 12 years by 13%. Between 1997 and 2010, however, child poverty fell, but began to grow when the Tory/LibDem Coalition Government threw out the Poverty Plan and implemented its Welfare Reform Bill.

Cllr Jake Miller said:

“Last September at Full Council, I requested a co-ordinated effort to tackle food poverty. This included working directly with communities, long before the cost-of-living crisis hit, but at a time when families were struggling – it was rejected by the Coalition. I was told that my concerns would be addressed in a revised Poverty Action Strategy.

“Here we are over a year later and I see no reference to a food poverty strategy or tackling food poverty, other than promoting healthy food and existing schemes. When people are hungry and desperate, they aren’t thinking about how healthy it is, they just need food!

“The plan talks of removing the stigma of poverty, rather than address its root cause. It talks about next year when people need help now, and it excuses the government of its role in creating a poverty crisis that will inevitably cost lives this winter.”