30 July 2015

TO: Councillor Barbara Brownridge, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Co-operatives, and Councillor Susan Dearden Chair of the Health & Well-being Board

 Dear Barbara and Sue,

 A Food Commission for Oldham

The Oldham Liberal Democrats are gravely concerned about the rising instances of food poverty within the borough.  We are sure that you too share these concerns.

A recent Cabinet report; ‘Welfare Reform: Food Poverty and Food Banks’ presented to last Council highlighted that Oldham has an estimated 24,700 people in food poverty (or 10.7% of the population) and estimated that 4,600 accessed the borough’s food bank network.

With a new Tory Government no longer checked by the Liberal Democrats in coalition, we face the frightening prospect that poorer households across the borough will face great hardship over the next five years as welfare reform bites.

We fear this will have a big impact on peoples’ nutrition. As you will be aware, an inadequate diet impacts both on the individual’s immediate and long-term health, but also upon their ability to effectively participate in education, employment or civic society. These risks are exacerbated where that individual is a child, an older person or already has a disability or a long-term health condition.

We have written to the Prime Minister outlining a national plan to address food poverty, but we are also convinced that the local situation calls for a unified response from Oldham’s politicians and agencies to ensure that none of our residents goes hungry.

We note that:

• The Oldham Education and Skills Commission was established “to set out an ambitious, but achievable, shared vision for Oldham’s educational offer”.
•  Part of this offer must in our view be an absolute aspiration that no child attends school hungry, as it has been well-documented that hungry children under-achieve in education.
•  The Oldham Fairness Commission was convened “to define action to address these issues (of inequality) through local partners and beyond”.
•  It is our view that one of the greatest inequalities we must address in Oldham is the inability of many of our residents to access an adequate diet. Yet the final report of the Commission makes no mention of food poverty.
•  We feel that, as yet, food poverty has not featured sufficiently highly in the local policy agenda and we are determined as local leaders to ensure that it does so. 

The Cabinet report presented to Council identified an action to host a ‘Fair Access to Food’ workshop in the summer. We welcome this but we feel that the local authority, as one of the leading stakeholders in promoting public health, needs to be something more dynamic.

The report describes the commendable work already being carried out by many agencies in the borough as ‘extremely disparate’. This is our view also.

It is therefore our recommendation that the Council look to establish a Food Poverty Commission to bring together the agencies already working on this agenda, and those that need to be engaged in doing so, to establish a strategy and a local action plan that is effectively managed to alleviate food poverty.

We have done this with housing and with education, so why not now with food poverty?

The Commission should first and foremost identify those practical measures that can be taken now in our borough, with a particular focus on:

•  Boosting provision by establishing more breakfast clubs and school holiday food clubs, community cafes, lunch clubs for the elderly, and a home delivery service for the housebound.
•  We have already called for the establishment of a Community Shop and we are pleased to see that the Administration is now investigating this.
• Redistributing surplus food by working with local food retailers, manufacturers and suppliers to ensure it is efficiently deployed to support local agencies delivering an emergency food service.
•  Building the resilience of our residents by providing cookery courses and simple, affordable and nutritious recipes; access to cooking facilities for those who do not have them; and budgeting support to those on low incomes;
•  Oldham people and local agencies are resourceful. We have a long and proud tradition of pulling together when faced with adversity. We have a Council seeking to create a co-operative borough “where everyone does their bit”.

We would welcome the chance to work with you, and with other citizens and agencies concerned with food poverty, to ensure that no Oldhamer goes hungry.

We very much look forward to receiving your response.

Yours sincerely

Howard Sykes