Decision details

That the Cabinet Member for Health and Communities:

Approves use of Contain Outbreak Management Funding to support food insecurity work across Derbyshire:

·        £0.100m to Foundation Derbyshire for the purpose of supporting food banks across Derbyshire.

·        £0.067m to the 4 Derbyshire Citizens Advice offices to strengthen wrap around support delivered at food banks in Derbyshire, split as follows:

£0.017m to Derbyshire Districts Citizens Advice

£0.017m to North East Derbyshire Citizens Advice

£0.017m to Chesterfield Citizens Advice

£0.017m to Mid Mercia Citizens Advice

To support food banks to provide emergency food to vulnerable people in need.  To improve their nutrition and increase their health and wellbeing resilience to bolster their protection from any future waves of Covid-19.

To ensure that people in food crisis have immediate access to quality advice to tackle the issues that made them vulnerable to hunger and enable appropriate support to engender independence and mitigate continued risk of reliance on the food bank. To increase their financial and health and wellbeing resilience to bolster their protection from any future waves of Covid-19.

Do nothing- this would mean that Derbyshire food banks continue to struggle due to the current low levels of donations and difficulties recruiting and retaining volunteers, whilst experiencing high levels of demand from vulnerable populations experiencing food insecurity and limit the ability of the council to increase the resilience of these vulnerable populations to future waves of Covid-19. It would also mean if the additional wrap around support provided in food banks is not continued, then these vulnerable populations are not supported opportunistically to improve their financial situations, and this will also limit the ability of the council to increase the resilience of these vulnerable populations to future waves of Covid-19.