In response to the growing pressures residents in Hertfordshire are facing, Hertfordshire County Council has established a ‘Cost of Living Taskforce’ which brings together representation from various service areas to coordinate how the organisation is supporting residents.
Background
Many programmes of support that have been in place for families throughout the pandemic, with others being established in response to the recent rises in inflation. This will help to mitigate some of the effects of the increased cost of living. Hertfordshire County Council is developing, alongside partners, a universal response which focuses on the helping all Hertfordshire residents, and a targeted response which focusses support and signposting on specific resident groups most in need.
Cost of Living Taskforce
In response to the growing pressures residents in Hertfordshire are facing because of inflationary pressures, council officers have established a ‘Cost of Living Taskforce’ which brings together representation from various service areas to coordinate how the organisation is supporting and can support residents.
Representation on the group in the initial stages has included officers from Human Resources, Health Inequalities, Money Advice Unit, Corporate Communications, Community and People Wellbeing (ACS), Family and Health Services Commissioning (Children’s Services) and Corporate Policy, chaired by the Deputy Chief Executive.
It is intended that once the necessary governance structure is in place, the Taskforce be widened to include District and Borough Councils, who will likely be represented through their Local Strategic Partnership, as well as other key partners including Citizen’s Advice. This collaborative multi-agency response will utilise the specialist knowledge, experience and access to residents of partners to ensure a comprehensive and coordinated suite of support measures for residents.
Signposting campaign
The Council have also created a landing page on their website which signposts visitors to a range of helpful national and local information. The page also highlights the support available locally from HertsHelp. Officers regularly update this landing page to ensure it has the most relevant and accurate information and that it reflects any changes in national policy and support.
To date, a suite of social media messages has been developed to promote the webpage, including specific messaging asking people with older and less digitally able friends and relatives to let them know how they can also access support. In addition, the Council shared links to the landing page and social media through relevant communications channels.
They have also created a communications toolkit for key partners within the Strategic Coordinating Group (SCG) Comms Cell featuring a range of digital and offline assets, to help them reach those people who are not online. They have already seen good support from Parish Councils, the OWL network (run by Hertfordshire Police and with a subscriber base of over 100,000 Hertfordshire residents) and health partners, who have shared information on their GP information screens.
The ambition of the Cost of Living Taskforce is to bring all sources of information from partners across Hertfordshire together, to maximise the reach of messaging and provide a clear and consistent offer of support across the county.