South Lanarkshire Council has made progress in working with partners to reduce poverty targets in the area.
As part of the council’s community plan, which was approved in October 2017 and sets out the priorities and outcomes for the council and its partners until 2027, the local authority has outlined its successes in the past year.
A significant amount of work has been undertaken by the council and partners across South Lanarkshire to reduce poverty, deprivation and inequality. The council has met targets in relation to some of the key areas of work.
A range of success has been achieved including inclusive growth, for example 1943 residents with multiple complex barriers were supported into work, education or training. This is a significant increase from 477 in 2020 .
The council has also made progress in financial inclusion, as South Lanarkshire Credit Union adult membership has increased by 3.3 per cent to 24,385 members.
There’s also been success in supporting parental employment and childcare, and the council has continued to increase the uptake of nursery places through Early Learning and Childcare for two-year-old children, rising from 471 children to 795.
The council has also improved housing standards, as 98 per cent of the housing stock has met the Energy Efficiency Standard for social housing, which is an increase from 93.88 per cent.
Success has been made in education as 925 GradU8 opportunities were made available in the past year compared to only 500 in 2020 to 2021, and 331 young people took part in the Foundation Apprenticeship Programme.
The council has also seen progress in tackling health inequalities through the integrated care fund, which is a partnership approach which funded 12 projects identifying a range of positive outcomes including health and wellbeing improvement and greater resilience and independence.
Another target which has seen progress is safeguarding from risk or harm. This has been achieved through partnership working with Police Scotland and Medics against Violence, who delivered 25 drug education workshops to a total of 2074 young people across target schools and areas in South Lanarkshire.
For improving the local environment and communities, targets were met through partnership working with Get Walking Lanarkshire who delivered 4786 health walks during 2021 and 2022.
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