| Programme | So far, we have… | This year we will… | Well-being goals |
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Council Tax and Benefit Support
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- Helped people avoid poverty through £23,981,833 in rent benefits
- Provided £10,218,389 in council tax support
- Helped people avoid rent arrears or losing their home through £551,408 of discretionary housing payments
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- Administer £23million to help with on rent
- Administer £10million to help with council tax
- Help people avoid rent arrears or losing their home through £324,938 of discretionary housing payments
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Cohesive
Equal
Healthier
|
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Cost of Living Discretionary Scheme
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- Helped people with the cost of living crisis by making £1m in winter fuel payments
- Helped parents with school clothing grants
- Promoted the Council Tax Relief scheme to increase take up
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- Continue making Winter fuel payments and allocate £855,734 for discretionary cost of living payments
- Promote council tax relief scheme to eligible households
- Make £500 payments to eligible unpaid carers
- Make £150 cost of living payments to occupiers of properties in council tax bands A, B, C and D and people who receive the council tax reduction scheme
- Help residents access Discretionary Assistance Funds
- Support the Welsh Government’s Warm Homes Nest scheme to provide energy advice and efficiencies for the home
- Provide almost £400k in additional £150 payments to support families who are accessing free school meals
- Provide around £160K in support for energy costs through energy vouchers with our partners
- Work with Citizen’s Advice Bureau to provide advice and support around financial inclusion and to ensure residents maximise incomes
- Develop a dedicated cost of living page on the council website
- Send a monthly Nifty Thrifty e-newsletter with updates on the latest benefits, grants and support available to help save money
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Cohesive
Equal
Healthier
Resilient
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Children and Young People’s Services Development Plan
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- Developed a cross-service multi- agency plan aimed at improving early intervention, improved services to children and families
- Through Positive Futures we have worked with internal and external partners to deliver purposeful activity and engagement for those young people identified of being at risk
- Secured a partner to provide our Schools Counselling Service and made additional resource available to enhance the level of support available to children and young people to access high quality counselling services in a way they feel most comfortable with
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- Continue to work with internal and external partners to identify and work with young people and families to ensure that they are supported and engaged to prevent anti-social behaviour and exclusion
- Review the impact of the core counselling service and the additional resource to determine if we need to maintain the enhanced level of support to children and young people
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Cohesive
Prosperous
Healthier
Equal
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Children and Young People’s Services Development Plan
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- Supported 36 young people with additional needs and disabilities to access a year-round social skills and life skills programme.
- Supported 12 young parents and their children to access training, social support networks and fun activities that promote family bonding and relationships.
- Supported 11 young people care experienced/young carers with access to activities to encourage well-being, independent living, support with training and employment and access fun activities that would otherwise be out of reach
- Developed the young carers ID card in order to support children who are carers to access service and be suitably identified as having caring responsibilities. We distributed 176 ID cards
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- Develop a social network programme for young people 16+ affected by isolation and loneliness as a result of disabilities and additional learning needs
- Work in partnership with local groups increase spaces for young parents wanting support
- Ensure that young carers continue to be identified and assessed and that communication with key agencies is effective to enable services to be provided
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Cohesive
Healthier
Equal
Prosperous
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Food and Fun Camps
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- Supported Children and Young and People to access holiday provision while providing free nutritious breakfast and lunch
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- Continue to take a partnership with Torfaen Catering to deliver the Food and Fun project to schools throughout the summer holidays
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Healthier
Equal
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Domiciliary Care Strategy
Ty Glas y Dorlan
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- We have continued to work with partners and colleagues in ABUHB to manage the delayed transfer of care for people over 75 awaiting care packages.
- We have reviewed domiciliary care packages in an attempt to manage the continued level of demand.
- We have worked regionally and with partners in order to promote care as a career and reduce domiciliary care vacancies
- Implemented the living wage for carers £9.90 per hour
- Increased the amount of domiciliary care provided in house from 17.08% (2020/21) to 22.64% (2021/22)
- Opened the Ty Glas y Dorlan community enablement facility
- Improved access to care services in the community through community connectors
- Opened the Ty Glas y Dorlan community enablement facility providing 12 short stay flats and 6 extra care long term tenancies
- Provided information, advice and guidance to the community around the clock
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- Increase patch based care services around communities to improve outcomes for residents and capacity in the care market
- Increase provision from reablement services so that residents achieve greater benefit from care and support and gain greater independence at home
- Engage with domiciliary care providers to plan and deliver care services in Torfaen
- Agree fees with Domiciliary Care providers to maintain stability and choice in the market
- Work with the local health board to improve transfers of care, reduce waiting times for care packages and prevent avoidable admission to hospital via services in the community preventing need for greater nursing or residential care
- Increase the use of assistive technology to compliment or replace direct care services in order to support people to maintain and achieve greater levels of independence
- Work, across the council in order develop community resilience and reduce the need for and burden on statutory services
- Review the provision of domiciliary care to ascertain benefits and consider the merits of current or alternative arrangements (i.e. commissioned services vs in house model)
- At least maintain the amount of domiciliary care being provided in house preventing a need for greater residential and nursing care
- Use short stays at Ty Glas yr Dorlan to help residents build confidence and maintain daily living activities to return to their own home and avoid admission to care
- Review the effectiveness and functions of Ty Glas y Dorlan
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Healthier
Prosperous
Equal
Cohesive
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Day Opportunities Action Plan
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- Consulted with residents, young people and their carers attending school and day opportunities to transform the service asking ‘What would a Good Day’ look like
- Engaged day opportunities providers
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- Review and develop the referral pathway into adult social care services to develop community offer and prevent individuals unnecessarily receiving stat services
- Enhance the community offer to enable citizens to have their needs met without the need for statutory services
- Review the front door/means of entry into adult social care statutory services and amend the existing model as necessary and as determined by the review in order to manage demand and ensure that statutory services are received by those with the required level of need
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Cohesive
Healthier
Equal
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Housing Support Grant
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- Received an additional £1.1million towards the Housing Support Grant allocation
- Submitted a Strategy and Delivery Plan to Welsh Government for approval
- Re-tendered contracts and implemented new contractual arrangements for:
- Violence against women and domestic violence support services
- Generic Hostel Provision
- Regional Offender Services
- YP pathway (collaboration with Children’s Services)
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- Develop the Rapid Rehousing Transition Plan (RRH) to support implementation
- Develop the following service provisions as part of the Housing Support Programme Strategy and Delivery Plan:
- Increase supported housing units and realign supported accommodation provision
- Development of emergency accommodation and assessment hub
- Implementation of Homeseeker Policy
- Development and adoption of Move on Policy and processes
- Revision of Housing Support Programme Delivery Plan
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Cohesive
Healthier
Equal
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Social Housing Grant
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- Developed new grant regime based on fairness, quality, and grant VfM transparency and ensuring a continued delivery programme in place
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- Work with other public bodies to identify land in public and private ownership suitable for social and affordable housing
- Continue to engage with Registered Social Landlords
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Healthier
Equal
Cohesive
Prosperous
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Universal Free School Meals
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- We served a total of 496,288 nutritious meals to primary pupils across Torfaen with 253,242 of these being Free School Meals
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- Invest an additional £715,000 in school kitchens and employ an additional 24 kitchen staff to provide Universal Free School Meals for all Torfaen pupils in reception, year 1 and year 2 from September 2022
- Provide an additional 231,000 free school meals from September 2022 with a whole year projection of over 600,000 free school meals provided across the borough
- Serve a total of 818,802 nutritious meals to primary pupils
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Healthier
Equal
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Economy & Skills Delivery Plan
Children & Young People’s Service Delivery Plan
Digital-First Customer Strategy
Communities Approach Delivery Plan
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- Engaged and supported 380 residents into our Bridges into Work and Nurture, Equip, Thrive employability programmes
- Supported 252 residents to overcome barriers to employment
- Supported 430 vulnerable young people to reduce their risk of becoming not in education, employment or training (NEET)
- Supported 100 unemployed or economically inactive young people to improve their prospects of employment, with 47 entering employment directly as a result
- Helped 50 young people at risk of becoming NEET to secure an additional qualification
- Helped 89 at risk young people to progress into further education
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- Create a ‘social capital map’ by March 2023 to help prioritise what early intervention support is put into each community to target capacity building support
- Work with Community Council’s to develop an approach to improving community well-being and early identification
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Prosperous
Healthier
Equal
Cohesive
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Housing Services Grant
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- Provided advice and guidance to 198 individuals and families at risk of being made homeless
- Prevented 98 cases from homelessness and remained in their homes and 89 cases were found permanent accommodation
- Helped 437 individuals and families enter temporary accommodation, with 117 spending more than 6 months in temporary accommodation
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- Aim to prevent individuals and families becoming homeless in 50% of cases
- Reduce the amount of time individuals and families stay in temporary accommodation
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Healthier
Equal
|
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Homelessness prevention (as above) to work with individuals and families who are at
risk of losing their homes through financial difficulties
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- Our financial inclusion team helped 70 clients to reduce or clear debts
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- The team will support up to 100 residents in financial difficulty to maximise their income
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Healthier
Equal
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Crime & Disorder Act through Multi- Agency Pupil Intervention (MAPI) within schools
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- Prevented 30 children and young people from entering the criminal justice system through a range of preventative activities
- This year our Strike Process (graduating levels of intervention) dealing with anti- social behaviour has involved 89 young people, with no individuals escalating into the criminal justice system
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- Use our Anti-social behaviour Strike process to support children, young people and their families targeting positive results in 90% of interventions preventing young people from progressing to injunction or inclusion in the criminal justice system
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Cohesive
Healthier
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Encourage and champion
children, young people and families so they can thrive
Children and Young People’s Development Plan
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- Supported the Torfaen Young People’s Forum to meet 12 times a year to champion the rights of children and young people and promoting youth voice on issues such as Education, becoming Health Ambassadors and training to be climate ambassadors
- Co-delivered a Gwent Youth Question time event to over 50 attendees, in partnership with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner to tackle perceptions of crime
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- Deliver workshops to over 50 young people on training to be an effective youth-representative
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Cohesive
Equal
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