When the pandemic became more than just a passing reference on the international news and began to spread across this country I imagine many of us, like the Government, thought that it would pass in a few weeks. The first lockdown, starting in the middle of March, saw people making arrangements where they could, stocking up on necessities, postponing travel arrangements, rearranging rooms at home to make space for work. It still seemed likely that things would be back to normal for Easter. Some individuals were expected to shield; staying at home and avoiding all contact with people outside their households. It was clear that some sort of local arrangements would be needed to make sure that they were able to get supplies delivered. Town and parish councils responded speedily, often with support from other community groups including churches. There probably isn’t a public noticeboard in the country that doesn’t have details of local arrangements for getting food and medicines to those who could not go out.
Nine months on and we live in tiers, growing used to arrangements for socialising, social-distancing, masking, and the ways of life in a time of pandemic. The virus has not gained the depth and spread across our area that it has achieved in other parts of the country but even so we have had about 16,600 cases. In Wiltshire we have seen over 5400 cases, and 411 deaths recording Covid-19 on the death certificate. In Dorset there have been some 3500 cases and 203 deaths have been recorded. In the BCP area there have been about 7700 cases with 272 deaths.
Unemployment has increased significantly. In August the claimant count rate for Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole, was 6.6% – up from 2.4% a year earlier. In Dorset the rate was 2.4%, up from 1,6% a year earlier. The rate in Wiltshire is 4.2% compared with 2.8% a year earlier. Wiltshire Citizens Advice reports that they have seen a doubling of enquiries about employment and pay-related issues this year due to concerns related to the furlough scheme and redundancies.
Across Dorset and Wiltshire church-members mobilised to offer neighbourly support and care for households with concerns especially around self-isolation or shielding. It was particularly pleasing to see that this work was often done in partnership with parish or town councils. In setting up these projects churches had the benefit of being able to deploy both buildings as hubs and storage space, and a network of volunteers who had already been vetted and were known in their communities.
Four examples
Devizes Churches Together was one of the first to set up on a large scale, working in partnership with the Town Council. They received a grant of £3000 to provide IT support and food as they mobilised an army of more than 260 volunteers to deliver food parcels, collect prescriptions and check on the welfare of more than 500 people. That initial effort is now taking more permanent form as a new charity, Love Devizes.
A speedy response was also seen in Potterne, a village on the A360 just south of Devizes. The parish priest, publican, and parish council clerk, met early on and created a community support network. The local pub provided meals with a special £4 lunch menu that were distributed to those who needed them. As in Devizes this initial scheme has settled into a longer-term network, Potterne Good Neighbours, that continues to provide support where it is needed, including the offer of dog-walking for people who are shielding.
In Wyke Regis, one of the most deprived parishes in the Diocese, a new pop-up foodbank was started in association with the local school to provide deliveries of food to families where children would ordinarily have had free school meals. The extent of need, however, means that this project continues and functions more like other foodbanks. Grants from the Diocesan Social Welfare Fund have helped with some costs, and they have also had donations of food from nearby foodbanks that have a surplus.
St Thomas’s Ensbury Park in Bournemouth committed to supporting twenty families linked to a local primary school by providing food. They delivered 150 boxes in the first half of the year including food for three days, games, suggestions for family activities, and homemade cake donated by parishioners.
Mapping provision
In the Dorset Council area a map was set up by the Alacrify Foundation, the pro-bono arm of a digital marketing company, under the name Help and Kindness – available here: coronavirus | support in Dorset | Help and Kindness listings for ‘coronavirus’ in Dorset
An online referral service for advice and support in Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole is managed by the council here: Help, advice and support (bcpcouncil.gov.uk)
Wiltshire Council provides an updated directory of community groups offering support: Directory_v47_-_SL_10-12-2020.pdf (wiltshire.gov.uk)
It may be worth noting that to assist in connecting people to the right support there is some duplication of foodbanks and foodbank service points.
The future
What happens next? While community groups and charities have risen magnificently to the challenges of lockdowns and the pandemic, it is clear that many local organisations have drawn deeply upon cash and goodwill reserves to the extent that there must be concern about their viability into the future. Local charities are, as Rosemary Macdonald comments, teetering on a financial cliff-edge. “Throughout this crisis we’ve seen funders across the sector adopt the flexible approach needed. Existing grants have been repurposed, application processes have been streamlined, and deadlines have been extended. If we are to build any kind of medium-term financial resilience for local charities, then this common sense philosophy needs to be the norm moving forward. Alongside that, there needs to be a sector-wide shift towards longer term funding that focusses on building organisational capacity and the ability to respond to similarly unexpected crises in the future. “
The nation cannot hope to continue depending on emergency food-aid and charitable giving to deal with the ravages of poverty that arise from low-paid, casual and insecure employment, or from a benefits system that seems designed to force people into destitution. That is why the Trussell Trust and the Independent Found Aid Network have joined together with others to lunch the Hunger Free Future campaign. The Trussell Trust – Stop UK Hunger
Some changes that could be made to being about an end to this kind of poverty are outlined in last week’s report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on destitution in the UK. Destitution in the UK 2020 | JRF
- Make the £20 weekly uplift in Universal Credit (UC) and Working Tax Credit (WTC) permanent and extend this lifeline to those claiming legacy benefits.
- Work in partnership with people with lived experience of the social security system to ensure that debt deductions from benefits are not drivers of hardship and destitution. In particular, the minimum five-week wait for the first UC payment is a core driver of destitution, with many people forced to borrow UC advances to survive this period, leaving them facing unaffordable repayments.
- Invest in local welfare assistance, ensuring that every English local authority has a scheme that provides direct support, including cash, to keep added pressure off households when a crisis threatens to push them into destitution.
- Establish a targeted grant programme to support private and social renters who have fallen into arrears which they will otherwise struggle to pay back.
- Use the upcoming employment bill to reduce insecurity for low-paid workers by extending employment rights and investing in strong and effective enforcement.
Backing the Hunger Free Future campaign may be the best thing we can do right now to ensure that the causes of poverty and destitution are addressed, and churches and local groups can be freed to serve their communities in ways that are more positive and life-enhancing.
Colin Brady 