Improving community resilience

Now more than ever, ensuring the residents and communities of Sunderland are resilient is incredibly important. The impacts of years of austerity compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic will be far-reaching and will affect every community across the city.

Sunderland City Council, in partnership with the voluntary and community enterprise sector, has worked incredibly hard to improve community resilience during the last year, through the implementation of the following:

• Published our Statement of Intent for fuel energy measures to address fuel poverty/energy efficiency in privately owned homes
• Launched an affordable credit solution for all residents and staff
• Recommissioned advice provision for benefits, debt, employment and housing across neighbourhoods
• Developed and expanded 'Making your money go further' toolkit
• Adopted a standard financial assessment by the council and key partners and a coordinated approach to debt support
• Implemented a financial resilience service to support the new Council Housing Service in creating sustainable tenancies
• Reviewed Adult Learning specifications to reflect a better aligned curriculum with meaningful progression pathways for learners to achieve their work and life goals
• Increased resident participation in digital opportunities

Key outputs:

• Over £1 million in financial gains for Sunderland residents achieved by Welfare Rights Service and first tier advice providers
• 15 organisations'  FareShare subscriptions paid for by the council - providing over 78 tonnes of extra food for residents. Up to 18 organisations being supported in 2020/21
• Over 650 Credit Union members
• Over 2000 local welfare provision Crisis and Community Care awards, and Discretionary Housing Payment awards made by the council to financially insecure or vulnerable Sunderland residents
• 33 organisations provided with funding worth £19,500 to purchase essential care items for their own customers
• 34 organisations given 3000 council resilience packs to give to their own customers - which included Tesco cards worth a total of £60,000