Cost of Living Strategy consultation

Status: Closed

The purpose of this strategy is to ensure that we help to build resilient communities where
everyone in Wealden is engaged and able to live safe and healthy lives. We aim to do this by
ensuring that individuals have the financial help and skills they need, but also to support them
during times of financial difficulties/emergencies.

There are three reasons why the financial wellbeing of our residents is important to us:
• Firstly, the wellbeing of our residents underpins our core aims (see background below) and
research has shown that there are clear links between financial insecurity and poor mental
health.
• Secondly, because of the way our services are funded we need to ensure that residents are
able to pay for council services such as council tax and rent if they are a council tenant or
leaseholder. This is because we rely on this income to deliver our services; and
• Finally, the availability and access to services to support our residents is fundamental to our
core aims (see background below). Therefore, as well as the direct support provided by a
number of our services, we do provide funding to some third sector organisations so that
they can deliver support to our residents.

For key findings and changes made see results below:

Topics covered by this consultation:

Voluntary & Community Sector, Children and Young People, Older People, Budget & Finance, Economy, Customer Service

Consultation Start Date: 03/04/2023

Consultation End Date: 12/05/2023

Results expected by: 14/06/2023

Please note: these dates are subject to change.

Areas covered by this consultation:

Wealden District (All)

Target audience for this consultation:

Wealden Residents, Voluntary and Community Sector Organisations, Service Users, Key Stakeholders

Frequency of this consultation: One-off

Methods of consultation used:

Online Survey (All Public)

What Happens Next?

An action plan will be developed in conjunction with the Wealden Strategic Partnership to ensure that we deliver the vision set out in this strategy. Delivery of this will be monitored and reported back to our Cost of Living Pressures Group and Councillors via Cabinet in June 2023 with information published on our website.

This strategy will be kept under review and updated as necessary.