Free meals to be made available in Blaenau Gwent schools over summer
Free school meals will be available to children over the summer holidays at some Blaenau Gwent schools, councillors have been told.
It will one of the measures taken by the council to help combat child poverty which was discussed at a meeting of Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council’s Corporate Overview and Performance scrutiny committee on Thursday, April 27.
The councillors were having a first look at the council’s Finance and Performance report for 2022/2023 and includes information on the makeup of the county borough population.
The report said that in 2021, Blaenau Gwent has the highest proportion of children in low income families in Wales with 32.2% living in “relative” poverty and 21.9% in “absolute” poverty.
Cllr Carl Bainton asked how “relative” and “absolute” are defined.
Performance and democratic service manager Gemma Wasley explained that the definitions come from Welsh and UK Government and is based on data collected by the Office of National Statistics (ONS)
According to House of Commons library “relative poverty” refers to households who have an income that is less than 60 per cent of the median for that year. ONS say that the figure was £32,300 for 2022.
Similarly, “absolute poverty” refers households with income below 60 per cent of median income in a base year, which means a year when the census takes place such as 2021 or 2011.
ONS figures for 2021 show that was £31,400.
Cllr Tommy Smith said: “How are we dealing with children who are in poverty in Blaenau Gwent, it (report) says we have 4,239 children living in poverty.”
Head of school improvement and inclusion, Luisa Munro-Morris said: “All of our schools are working very hard with their families.
“We extended universal free school meals provision beyond the Welsh Government expectations and that will be extended further in September and will continue to provide a hot meal for our young people in the day.
“We are extending our holiday club provision where young people access free school meals in the summer holidays and more of our schools will be taking part in that.”
Interim director of social services, Tanya Evans explained that the Blaenau Gwent Wellbeing Partnership which “sits” under the Gwent
Public Service Board is working on a plan “specifically around poverty” which will be presented to councillors soon.
Ms Evans explained that work to address the cost of living crisis has seen a cross party working group and an operational group set up to help those in need.
Ms Evans said: “Some key actions in there to ease the impacts of poverty around food and warmth and supporting families with benefits which has a direct effect on easing the effects of child poverty in Blaenau Gwent.”
“It’s a huge agenda it’s not about the quick fixes it’s about the longer term things that we have to do as a local authority in relation to education and improving employment opportunities.”
The report will be discussed by the cabinet at a future meeting.
By BBC LDRS
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