Local authorities in Wales are struggling to tackle poverty because of a wide variety of approaches and a ‘complicated partnership landscape’, auditors find.
A new report from Audit Wales found that Welsh councils are prioritising work on poverty and have significant levels of funding available to them, but struggle to eliminate child poverty because of a lack of coordination across all levels of government.
According to the auditors, the short-term nature of grant programmes, overly complex administration, weaknesses in guidance and grant restrictions, and difficulties spending monies means that funding is not making the impact it could.
Audit Wales’ report found that due to the complexity of the issue, the total level of spend is unknown, and no council knows the full extent of its spending on alleviating and tackling poverty.
Adrian Crompton, Auditor General, commented: ‘I acknowledge that scale of challenge that poverty presents. It is essential therefore that Welsh government and councils maximise their efforts and address the weaknesses identified in my review.
‘We need to ensure all tiers of government work together to help people in need and my recommendations are targeted at supporting improvement.’
