Engagement remains at the heart of the Child Poverty work in Angus which has been restricted due to the pandemic but there has still been a lot of work to co-design services with local people using new tools like Service Design and utilising the Community Council network more effectively. Key activity to highlight includes:
As part of the Social Renewal Advisory Board there was a series of Angus Listening events. These events were delivered to increase local engagement, hear from and learn from as many individuals, community groups and organisations as possible. In total 68 local people participated in the sessions and this included representatives with lived experience of poverty and/or inequality. This included those with protected characteristics - age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil, partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. Local groups engaged namely Breast Buddies, Syrian Refugee Families, Woman’s Aid, Care experienced groups, LGBTQ groups and the Disability Awareness Forum.
Based on the listening events Angus Community Planning Partnership have agreed a service design approach moving forward. This aligns to the Audit Scotland’s Report: Digital Progress in Local Government which was published in January 2021. Within it, the Good Practice Guide highlights a digital strategy that goes beyond IT to focus on people, transforming services, and developing new ways of collaborative working.
The workshops delivered by Dundee and Angus College Service Design Academy begin to address the key characteristics of future service delivery requirements:-
133 participants have already progressed through the initial sessions and the next stage is to identify key projects to further develop this new way of thinking. Child Poverty will be one of them and help to embed local people in the heart of service design and delivery now and for the future. Alongside service design the Promise Plan 2021-24 will be part of the planning as it is responsible for driving the work of change demanded by the findings of the Independent Care Review. The recently published The Plan 21-24 covers five priority areas and key milestones with poverty featuring throughout.
Next: Appendix 1