Caerphilly County Borough will get £2.9 million in funding from the Welsh Government to help tackle poverty.
The funding is part of a £31.7m package announced by the Minister for Communities and Tackling Poverty, Lesley Griffiths, for the Communities First programme.
The funding will benefit 52 areas across Wales, known as clusters, and will go towards promoting education, health and economic prosperity.
Areas across Wales will benefit from the funding between April 2015 and March 2016.
Ms Griffiths, said: “I am delighted to announce this funding today which will make a real difference to communities right across Wales for years to come.
“Providing £31.7 million for our Communities First programme during a time of unprecedented budget cuts shows the Welsh Government is committed to supporting our most vulnerable communities and narrowing the economic, education and health gaps between our most deprived and affluent areas.
“Far too many people’s lives are affected by poverty. Too many families have nobody working and cannot afford basic essentials such as heating their home during this cold weather. Addressing this issue is a priority for me and the Government as a whole. This is why our Tackling Poverty Action Plan sets out our targets for improving the outcomes of families living in low income households.”
Caerphilly County Borough Council will receive £2,902,016 – which will be split between four cluster areas: Caerphilly Basin, Mid Valleys West, Upper Rhymney Valley, Mid Valley East.
Is this really good news? I presume it follows on from similar grants, provided annually, by the Welsh Assembly to help local Councils tackle poverty in thier areas.
In the Case of Caerphilly County Borough Council there exists the area of most poverty in the Country, St James Ward in the Caerphilly Basin, last year it was only the second most poverty stricken area, so it is clear that whatever action the CCBC or others may have taken in the meantime, has not had any impact whatever in respect of poverty markers. How can this happen, when, so many individuals have worked hard, and so much public money is spent in the ward and on issues which effect poverty in the ward?, .
It appears that someone with responsibility for this situation, has failed to get a grip of it, and as a result, perhaps the Council will have to come up with new inovative and `out of the box ideas` to improve the lot of chldren in particular in this ward who are living in abject perverse poverty, it is not sufficient to spend this Welsh Assembly money on much the same ways. which have allready clearly failed that community in the past. It is not rocket science, ask the community!.
Caerphilly Council couldn’t care less about child poverty, if it did it wouldn’t be putting more financial pressure on families by yet again increasing council tax bills way above the rate of inflation. The council will most likely waste the money given to them paying consultants to come up with ‘out of the box ideas’ then they’ll roll out the same excuse that Westminster cuts are to blame for their shortcomings.
The Council have and will probably continue on the failure path they have laid in respect to trying to tackle Poverty in St James, ( which is the area of greatest poverty in the UK) they will not be prepared to think out of the box and will therefore continue to compound the current situation by producing more of the same, , but, time will only tell if St James comes top of the deprivation list next year, after which of course 2016 sees the holding of the next Welsh Assembly elections, and that should be fun!!
“Too many families not working and can’t afford to heat their home and have the bare essentials” there are also working families exactly the same due to low wages….
Yes, the working poor are often the forgotten ones Just because they have managed to find low paid work does no mean they are better off. In fact because of travel to work costs they are often worse off than families who do not work.
Which is why out-of-work benefits need to be decreased, and tax credits for those on low pay increased.
I partly agree with this but working tax credits affect the labour market. Have you noticed that ‘Big Issue’ sellers, who twenty years ago were homeless people trying to make a litle money, are now foreign people who come here to claim working, and family, tax credits?
The biggest favour that could be done for low earners is to abolish National Insurance for both employee and employer for any wage less than £20,000 per annum. It is a little publised fact that NI is a far greater problem than income tax both for the low paid and small businesses.
You will not hear this argument from either Tory or Labour as both parties use NI as a stealth tax, secure in the knowledge that the media never mentions National Insurance charges which have increased many fold over recent years.