Fairness

Challenge Poverty Week is designed to show that a society without poverty is possible, and to showcase solutions we can all get behind.

Poverty Alliance are driving the national Challenge Poverty Week movement. Challenge Poverty Week will highlight that:

• Too many people in our society are locked in the grip of poverty, restricted from playing a full role in society.
• But in Scotland, we all agree that poverty can, and must, be solved.
• By redesigning our economy to reflect our shared values of justice and compassion, we can unlock poverty’s grip.
• Action must be taken to boost people’s incomes, reduce the cost of living, and create the just and green Scotland we all want to see.

Each day throughout Challenge Poverty Week we will focus on a different theme and we will be highlighting some of many local organisations that Dundee City Council collaborates with through our various funding streams, including funding from the Dundee Partnership Team.

A number of local organisations will be hosting their own events in which residents can take part in for free. Please download our calendar of local events and activities.

Stay tuned to our social media over the week to see what we are up to.

There ways the council can help you:

• Social security benefits and help with debt
• Housing advice and support
• Employability Services

We are also part of the national Cost of a School Day (CoSD) campaign, where a range of activities take place aimed at reducing Child Poverty. You can read about all the activities in the first Cost of a School Day Newsletter.

As a Local Authority Dundee City Council is committed to tackling poverty and inequality by collaborative working with others through the Dundee Partnership. You can read more about our approach to fairness in the Dundee Fairness Action Plan/Child Poverty Annual report 2020/2021.

The first Fairness Commission brought together members with a wealth of experience from a range of settings including partners in the public, voluntary, community, private and academic sectors. Together the Commission members: 

• Considered the nature, extent and impact of poverty in Dundee
• Identified and investigated the key causes and consequences of poverty along with policy and practical measures to address these
• Considered evidence of what has worked elsewhere to combat poverty and inequality
• Assessed the effectiveness of the efforts to date of Dundee City Council and the broader Dundee Partnership through the Fairness Action Plan for Dundee
• Sought the views and involvement of those experiencing poverty first hand
• Prepared a report for the Dundee Partnership and Dundee City Council with recommendations on additional priorities for action to tackle and reduce poverty in the city

In order to achieve the above, the Commission met on a monthly basis. The first meeting in April 2015 established the group, considered a range of evidence around poverty in Dundee & Scotland, and began to examine the approaches being taken by the Dundee Partnership and the Council. Council officers and community partners provided ongoing support to ensure that appropriate evidence and perspectives were available to the Commission.

Further meetings focused on collecting evidence in relation to key factors associated with poverty. This took the form of reports and presentations from local and national speakers with research or practical experience of:

• Child Poverty and levels of Educational Attainment
• Welfare Reform and the impact of changes
• In-work Poverty and the Living Wage
• Employability and Youth Employment
• Food Security and Fuel Poverty

The final report of the Commission 'A Fair Way To Go' is available here.

The Second Dundee Fairness Commission has brought together twelve 'Community Commissioners' with lived experience of poverty, and twelve 'Civic Commissioners' who work in the public, political and business sectors. They have called themselves 'Dundee Fighting For Fairness' and identified three key areas that they focussed on through working groups; Stigma, Money, and Mental Health. The recommendations of the second Dundee Fairness Commission can be found here. More information on the group is available here.

The Third Dundee Fairness Commission also brought together twelve 'Community Commissioners' with lived experience of poverty, and twelve 'Civic Commissioners' who work in public, political and business sectors. They identified three key areas to investigate through working groups; Disability, Food & Fuel Insecurity, and Mental Health & Wellbeing. The recommendations of the third Dundee Fairness Commission can be found here. 

At the heart of creating long term results, the Dundee Partnership endeavours to undertake work on prevention as well as tackling existing inequalities. To help with this, a Prevention Framework was agreed, which can be viewed here.

In order to inform the activities undertaken, a range of information is needed to help target actions, and also monitoring where change has been brought about. While the City Plan focuses on five strategic priorities, broader information is contained in the documents held below.

Ward Profiles 2020

Coldside - East End - Lochee - Maryfield - North East - Strathmartine - The Ferry - West End

Archive: Ward Profiles 2016

Coldside - East End - Lochee - Maryfield - North East - Strathmartine - The Ferry - West End

Annual Citizen Survey - 2017

Metadata relating to the City Plan is also useful, and can be found here.

A briefing paper discussing the key findings from the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020 can be accessed here.

During the pandemic three different surveys of Dundee citizens were carried out, asking about the range of impacts they felt and the supports they used. The results of each of these surveys can be found below:

• Engage Dundee's report
• The Food Insecurity Network's report
• Dundee Fighting For Fairness' report