Tackling Poverty Together Strategy 2026-2036

The Tackling Poverty Together Strategy 2026-2036 sets out a ten-year, borough-wide commitment to tackle poverty. Our vision is for Gateshead to be a place where poverty is prevented, dignity is upheld, and root causes are tackled through collective action and lived experience. This principle guides every aspect of our strategy. It is a partnership strategy for Gateshead, aligning the work of the council, public services, the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector,businesses and residents around a shared ambition to reduce poverty and inequality over the next decade.

Context and case for change

Poverty in Gateshead has intensified in recent years due to the combined impact of COVID‑19 and the ongoing cost of living crisis. While crisis support remains essential, the strategy recognises that long‑term solutions are required to reduce reliance on emergency responses and enable people to move out of poverty sustainably. Poverty is understood not only as low income, but as a multidimensional experience that affects people's health, wellbeing, choices, confidence and ability to participate fully in society. Many residents face structural barriers, in‑work poverty and fragmented support systems, which require coordinated, whole system change.

The strategy adopts a shared definition of poverty as a lack of material resources to meet basic needs and participate fully in society, driven by inadequate income and rising household costs. Drawing on extensive engagement with residents, the strategy recognises poverty as structural and systemic, closely linked with poor health, digital exclusion, insecure work, stigma and geographic barriers to services. Particular attention is given to groups and areas experiencing the highest levels of inequality, including lone parents, disabled people, care leavers, larger families, minority ethnic communities, unpaid carers and residents in both deprived neighbourhoods and rural areas. Consideration is given to the specific support required for residents facing in-work poverty, which continues to rise. 

Principles, core aims, and strategic commitments

Our principles set out "how we behave" and all activity is guided by them:

• treating people with dignity and respect
• a focus on prevention, protection and pathways out of poverty
• delivery through systems change, partnership working and shared accountability

Our commitments and considerations set out "What partners promise to do differently"

• tackle poverty together as a strategic priority
• consideration of poverty in all decision making
• borough-wide and partnership driven approach
• tackling stigma, blame and judgement
• placing living and lived experience at the centre of design and decision-making
• prioritising the most affected communities and groups 

Core aims set out: "What change residents should see": five interconnected core aims that provide a clear framework for action: 

1. Protection - addressing immediate needs and preventing harm from deepening
2. Prevention - tackling the drivers that push people into poverty
3. Pathways - creating sustainable routes to stability and independence
4. Participation - ensuring people experiencing poverty have genuine influence over services and decisions
5. Partnership and systems change - delivering a coordinated, accountable and continuously improving response across organisations

Priority themes for action 

The strategy focuses delivery through five thematic work areas, each supported by an annual action plan:

• financial resilience and inclusion - strengthening financial security, increasing access to ethical financial products, and removing digital, literacy and language barriers
• better skills, good jobs and an inclusive economy - improving digital and language skills, enhancing employability support, and creating clearer pathways into learning and decent work
• participation and voice - embedding lived experience in service design, maximising income, promoting inclusive employment, and campaigning for wider systemic change
• access high-quality, holistic and localised services - developing joined up, trauma‑informed and locally accessible support, including "tell it once" approaches and improved service navigation
• strategic focus and systems change - embedding poverty as a strategic priority across organisations, building workforce capability, undertaking poverty audits and developing innovative, cross system solutions

Delivery, governance and accountability 

The strategy is intended to be a living document, responsive to changing needs and external conditions throughout the ten-year period. Implementation will be led through an annual, coproduced action plan and overseen by a Tackling Poverty Together Sub‑Committee of the Gateshead Health and Wellbeing Board. This governance structure will ensure shared accountability, transparent progress monitoring and strong alignment with the borough's health and wellbeing agenda. 

Monitoring and evaluation will balance quantitative data with qualitative evidence from residents lived experiences, enabling learning, adaptation and continuous improvement. 

The Tackling Poverty Together Partnership

We want to work together to tackle poverty in Gateshead.

The organisations that have joined the Gateshead Tackling Poverty Partnership Statement of Intent so far have agreed to the joint strategic commitments underpinning this strategy and action plan, alongside a commitment to support the delivery of actions to realise its aims.

Commitment 1: Tackling poverty is a strategic priority

Partners commit to making tackling poverty a key priority for their organisation alongside everything else they do - embedding it as a core consideration in all decision making, policy development and service design.

Commitment 2: Impact assessment in all decisions

Partners commit to considering the positive or negative impacts of all policies, strategies and services they develop, and to using this to inform their decision-making at every level. The socio-economic duty is widely adopted acknowledging the intersection with other protected characteristics.

Commitment 3: Borough-wide and partnership driven

Strategic action on poverty is embedded as part of a borough-wide, partnership driven approach to address inequality and disadvantage, improve people's standard of living, health and wellbeing, increase engagement in services and support growth of the local economy.

Partners joining the Tackling Poverty Together Partnership have made a public, accountable commitment to embed these principles in their work and to contribute actively to the collective effort to tackle poverty across Gateshead over the next decade.

A message to Gateshead

Poverty in Gateshead has worsened in recent years due to the combined impact of Covid-19 and the ongoing cost of living crisis. As a result, the council and partners have had to focus heavily on crisis support to help people meet basic needs and prevent families from going without essentials. This strategy aims to re balance that work. While crisis support will remain vital, we also want to take action that helps people move out of poverty for good - by building long-term resilience and tackling the inequalities that limit people's opportunities. 

Poverty is not only about low income; it also reduces people's choices, confidence and wellbeing, leaving many feeling trapped and powerless. With global and political uncertainty likely to continue, we need a stronger, collective approach. Many families in Gateshead have been affected by poverty for too long and have struggled to access the joined-up support they need. Although some causes of poverty are outside local control, sustained, coordinated action can still make a real difference.

National and regional alignment

Th UK Child Poverty Strategy aims to raise incomes,reduce essential living costs and strengthen local support. The North East Child Poverty Action Plan brings regional investment to address both immediate needs and long-term barriers.

Local integration

The refresh of strategies across housing, health and wellbeing, skills, economic development and children's services highlight the strong links between poverty, poor health and reduced life chances. The Crisis and Resilience Fund 2026-2029 delivery plan for Gateshead will strengthen financial resilience support and the coordination of community based services.

Tackling poverty requires a whole-system effort across all organisations.

Our Tackling Poverty Together Partnership is a key strength, and involving people with living and lived experience will be central to shaping better policies, services and decisions. Insights from the Poverty Truth Commission and the Tackling Poverty Together Summit show the importance of sharing power and working differently with our communities. 

This strategy sets out the shared priorities and actions partners across Gateshead will take over the next ten years, recognising that tackling poverty requires cultural and system change, supported by ongoing learning, evaluation and flexibility.

This strategy has been developed through an extensive, collaborative process involving representatives from the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) sectors, public services, education, health, businesses and council officers. Together, we have built a strategy that reflects a deep understanding of our community's challenges, existing strengths and shared aspirations for change.

Our engagement with residents - including those with living and lived experience - identified specific needs and experiences of poverty in Gateshead, as well as opportunities for better collaboration and coordination. This collaborative process emphasised the importance of building on existing good practice while exploring ways to better connect available assets and resources.

Crucially, this strategy is a living document, subject to change as we respond to the external environment and emerging community needs across all ten years. 

This strategy creates a new opportunity to align and focus the efforts of organisations across the public, private and VCFSE sectors to tackle poverty together in a sustained, targeted and coordinated way. We have a strong foundation on which to build; key services provided by Gateshead Council to support our residents throughout their lives, alongside the diverse and focused work delivery by our wider partners.

The achievements since 2023/24 demonstrate what is possible when organisations work together with communities at the centre:

• 90+ Warm Welcome Spaces supporting approximately XXX number of people each year
• £651k Gateshead VCSE Fund invested in community organisations and charities to support our residents to thrive
• 21,191 children and young people participated in Holiday Activities and Food programme
• 3,500 households supported per year with homelessness interventions
• £12.1m financial gains via debt management support across CAG and housing teams, and 3,500 people supported with debt issues
• 75% childcare take up - average take-up of Early Learning for Two Year Olds enabling more parents to work
• 7,176 children and 6,087 families supported through early help and our network of Family Hubs
• 1,495 job starts supported by Working Gateshead, supporting residents into work
• XXXX residents supported by the Money Max campaign via our key advice, information and guidance partners
• 7/7 Citizens Advice Gateshead open 7 days per week, enabled by additional Gateshead Council funding
• £272k Funding for new community projects to reduce reliance on food banks and increase health and wellbeing impacts

Understanding who lives in Gateshead, and which communities face the greatest disadvantage, is essential to directing our collective effort effectively. The data below presents a clear picture of the scale of need and the diversity of our population.

Population

Total population: 202,760

• Age 0-15 - 17.58%
• Age 16-64 - 62.04%
• Age 65+ - 20.38%

Ethnicity

• White British - 90.3%
• Non-White British - 9.7%

Certain groups have higher prevalences of poverty, the current numbers within these groups in Gateshead are set out below. Many households fall into more than one of these groups, so face additional challenges and inequalities.

• Veterans - 7,358
• Households with at least one disabled person - 33,133
• Unpaid carers - 18,802
• Non-white households - 12,662
• Carer leavers - 400
• Asylum seekers - 634
• Families with 3+ children - 2,775
• Lone parent households - 10,842
• Children and young people with SEND aged 0- 25 - 4,859

Key Gateshead statistics

• 30.7% children live in poverty
• 10% population in rural areas in high deprivation areas
• 9,500 workless households
• 1 in 6 residents aged 16% claiming Universal Credit and
• 1 in 3 Universal Credit claimants are in employment - low paid or low hour jobs
• 41% of working age people have no or low qualifications
• 16.4% of residents in private rented sector/ 25.1% of residents in social rented sector (generally lower income households)

Households in poverty

The Indices of Deprivation 2025 highlight the percentage of our population living in the top 10% and top 20% of areas of deprivation in England, with a concentration in the central and eastern areas of the borough.

• 19% of Gateshead's population lives in the top 10% of areas of deprivation in England
• 31% of Gateshead's population lives in the top 20% of areas of deprivation in England

Gateshead households / UK poverty line

• 32,899 households (37% of total households) are below the poverty line of which....
• 24,321 households (27% of all households are in deep poverty, of which....
• 15,600 households (17% of all households are in very deep poverty)

The poverty line is defined as household income below 60% of the UK median.

Deep poverty is below 50%, and very deep or extreme poverty is below 40% of the UK median household income.

In developing this strategy, residents, organisations and strategic partners told us what matters most to them and what change they wish to see. Their valuable insights have shaped our vision, mission and core principles — ensuring that everything we do is grounded in the real experiences of people across Gateshead.

Our vision

Gateshead is a place where poverty is prevented wherever possible, addressed with dignity when it occurs, and tackled at its root causes.

Our mission

By working together with communities and people with living and lived experience, we will transformsystems, strengthen incomes, create real opportunities to thrive, and ensure everyone can participate fully in the life of our borough.

Our principles

The principles provide a clear golden thread from the vision and mission through to action and accountability:

How we treat people:

Dignity, respect and lived experience

Poverty is addressed in ways that uphold dignity, challenge stigma and are shaped by people with lived and living

What action looks like:

Prevention, protection and pathways

Action focuses on preventing poverty where possible, protecting people from harm when it occurs, and enabling sustainable routes out of poverty.

How change is delivered:

Systems change, partnership and accountability

Poverty is tackled through collective action and systemic change, with shared accountability across partners and sectors.

This strategy does not exist in isolation. It seeks to complement, inform and reinforce ambitions from other local and regional strategies and plans, and to maximise opportunities for Gateshead and our people and families.

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As a key component of the Gateshead Health and Wellbeing Strategy, local partners recognise the importance of tackling poverty and ensuring a healthy standard of living for all as a fundamental driver of health and wellbeing.

As the strategy and action plans evolve, we will continue to incorporate insights from local, regional and national work and flex our approaches in response to external pressures and opportunities.

Key strategies to align with at local, regional, sub regional and national level

Gateshead Council strategies

Housing Strategy (PDF, 815 KB)

Gateshead Economic Development Strategy

Climate Change Strategy

Children and Young People's Partnership Plan

Care Leavers Strategy

Best Start in Life Strategy

Education Strategy

Community Cohesion Strategy

Sub-regional/regional strategies and strategic plans

NECA Child poverty Action Plan

NECA Local Growth Plan

NECA Local Transport Plan

Local Get Britain Working Plans

NENC ICB including Prevention Plan and Neighbourhood Health

National strategies/strategic plans

Child Poverty Strategy

Financial Inclusion Strategy

Fuel Poverty Strategy and Warm Homes Plan

Get Britain Working and Plan to Make Work Pay (including Fair Pay Agreements)

Renters Rights Act 2025

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Education White Paper

National Youth Strategy

NHS 10 Year Plan

Defining poverty is essential to help us identify and understand our communities' challenges, our residents' experiences, and ensuring who and how people are impacted by poverty. This shared understanding enables us to develop actions and direct resources and support to those who need it most, where it will have the most impact.

Our definition: Poverty is fundamentally about a lack of material resources to meet basic needs and fully participate in society, primarily driven by inadequate income and increasing household costs.

Central to the development of this strategy has been ensuring that the voices of residents with living and lived experience of poverty have informed its content, focus and direction. Gateshead Council's Lived Experience team engaged directly with nearly 200 people, and Children North East conducted a further 86 conversations involving children, young people, adults and older people in schools, Family Hubs, community venues and libraries.

When Gateshead people explain "what poverty is," they emphasise:

• lack of agency and ability to plan
• being shut out from opportunities, social mobility, or decision-making
• isolation and disconnection from society
• feeling judged or invisible
• being unable to participate fully in life, even when working

"Poverty is a lack of resource that results in significant additional pressures where individuals and families feel locked outside of a life above the poverty line."

"Loss of pride, feeling guilty, struggling to see which fork in the road is the correct one to take."

 

"Poverty is not just a financial thing; it has lifelong implications which affect not only financial opportunities, but also directly impact physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing." 

They shared the real-life impact of poverty and financial stress, highlighting how low income restricts choices and opportunities. Many reported struggling to afford basic living costs, with some resorting to rationing food or avoiding heating to reduce expenses. They emphasised the desire to thrive with dignity, the importance of local support and community connections, and a clear understanding of how they want local services and support to work better for them.

Dimensions of poverty

This strategy builds upon the work of ATD Fourth World's report 'Understanding Poverty in the UK in All Its Forms', which engaged with groups of people across the UK with living and lived experience to better understand how poverty is experienced by people. The report highlighted six dimensions of poverty:

• disempowering systems, structures and policies
• financial insecurity, exclusion and debt
• damaged health and wellbeing        
• stigma, blame and judgement
• lack of control over choices
• unrecognised struggles, skills and contributions

We know from the conversations we've had across Gateshead this is how poverty feels to people experiencing it which goes far beyond not having enough money to make ends meet. The dimensions of poverty and the following nine local key insights have shaped our priorities, our cross-cutting commitments, and the design of our action plan. They will also be a guiding influence as we monitor and evaluate the impact of this work. Together, they paint a detailed picture of how poverty is experienced - and what must change.

1. Poverty is structural and systemic: Immigration status, language barriers, digital exclusion and systemic instability prevent access to essential support. People feel trapped in systems that are unresponsive.

2. Emotional and psychological weight: Chronic stress, shame, guilt and hopelessness. Poverty feels permanent - a cycle that people describe as impossible to climb out of.

3. Daily hardship and unmet basic needs: Constant trade-offs: skipping meals so children can eat. Families working full-time are still struggling - highlighting the scale of in-work poverty.

4. Barriers to accessing services: Digital exclusion, unreliable and costly transport, childcare costs and geographical barriers mean many people simply cannot navigate the systems designed to help them.

5. Reliance on informal networks: People often survive because of each other — family, neighbours, community hubs and faith centres — not formal support. These groups report insecure funding that limits what they can do.

6. Experiences of discrimination, stigma, and social tensions: People report stigma, racism, and blame as part of their experience of poverty.

7. Communities feel unsafe, disconnected, and let down: People describe their housing and local environment as contributing to stress and a lack of belonging.

8. A single crisis can start a downward spiral: A fragile safety net means minor incidents can have significant impacts. Accessing the right support quickly is key.

9. People want dignified, human and local support: Compassionate services, delivered in local places by organisations they know and trust.

Poverty is everywhere, and looks different to everyone

We know that certain neighbourhoods and areas across Gateshead are more acutely affected by poverty. Some of these areas also lack the community level support, where it is most needed. Those living in rural areas often struggle with transport costs and reliability and other barriers to accessing services and support.

Some groups within the community are disproportionately impacted by poverty due to a combination of various socio-economic factors, such as lone-parent families, larger families, disabled people, care leavers, minority ethnic groups and unpaid carers who face distinct barriers to financial security, increasing the likelihood of financial hardship.

In developing the strategy and action plans we have considered how different groups of people and areas are impacted, their distinct needs and their barriers to accessing support. We will take a targeted approach and prioritise and deliver the actions to proactively address deep rooted inequalities.

Three cross-cutting considerations will be embedded across what we plan to do, as well as the how we intend to do it.

• Tackling stigma, blame and judgement - challenging negative perceptions and promoting dignity and respect in all services, communications and decisions.
• Living and lived experience at the centre - ensuring people with living and lived experience are meaningfully involved in shaping services, policies and decisions that affect them.
• Focus on target groups and communities - prioritising the most impacted communities and residents experiencing the highest levels of inequalities, including minority ethnic groups, lone parents, disabled people and care leavers.

The Tackling Poverty Together Partnership has agreed five core aims to guide the focus and priorities in the strategy and action plan. These aims provide a clear and coherent framework - from immediate protection through to long-term systemic change - ensuring that our collective effort is purposeful, coordinated and measurable. Together, they represent the full ambition of this ten-year strategy:

• protect people in poverty
• prevent people falling (further) into poverty
• provide pathways out of poverty
• ensure participation in communities
• build partnership with impact

The five aims are intentionally interconnected:

• protection addresses immediate need and prevents harm from deepening
• prevention tackles the conditions that push people into poverty in the first place
• pathways create sustainable routes to stability and independence
• participation ensures that people experiencing poverty are not passive recipients of support but active agents in their own lives and in shaping the borough's future
• the Partnership aim ensures that all of this is delivered through a coordinated, accountable and continuously improving system

The five thematic work areas identify where we will focus our activities to have the most impact locally, in direct response to what our residents have told us. Under each theme, we have set out priority actions to deliver meaningful progress in the short term, whilst developing more strategic and innovative actions for the longer term to address root causes and reduce inequalities. These themes and priority actions form the framework for the accompanying annual action plan.

1. Financial resilience and inclusion
   Strengthening people's financial security, building their financial resilience and removing barriers to accessing support

2. Better skills, good jobs and an inclusive economy
   Increasing digital skills, improving access to employability support and creating clearer pathways into learning and good jobs

3. Participation and voice
   Enabling meaningful resident participation in shaping services, maximising income, and campaigning for systemic change.

4. Access to high quality, holistic services and localized support
   Ensuring services are accessible, trauma-informed and person-centred, with increased localised support in underserved areas

5. Strategic focus and systems change
   Embedding poverty as a strategic priority across all organisations, driving cultural change and ensuring accountability

Theme 1: Financial resilience and financial inclusion

Financial resilience is about ensuring that residents have the knowledge, skills, resources and access to support that helps them manage their money effectively, weather financial shocks, and avoid or recover from crisis.

Financial inclusion ensures that everyone - regardless of background, circumstance or digital access - can participate in the financial systems that support stability and opportunity. This theme is foundational to much of our wider work on poverty prevention and protection.

Earlier intervention

Getting people to seek appropriate help earlier - before crisis hits - and improving the promotion, communication and signposting of support services so that people know what is available and how to access it.

Ethical financial options

Promoting ethical, affordable financial products such as Credit Unions as alternatives to high-cost credit and helping residents build financial resilience over time.

Community champions

Creating a network of community champions and local leaders who can provide trusted, accessible signposting and peer support within communities.

Removing barriers

Reducing geographic, digital, literacy and language barriers so all residents can access financial resilience and inclusion support, regardless of their circumstances or background.

Indicators of success:

• fewer residents experience crisis before accessing help
• increased referrals into specialistic support
• increase in Credit Union customers
• proactive addressing of barriers to access support

Year 1 priorities:

To add

Theme 2: Better skills, jobs and an inclusive economy

Better skills, good jobs and an inclusive economy are central to tackling the root causes of poverty. This theme focuses on ensuring that all residents - regardless of background or circumstance - can access the skills, opportunities and support they need to participate fully in the local economy and workforce. We want to see more opportunities for people to move into well paid and secure work, and opportunities to progress to further build financial resilience.  Working with local employers, anchor organisations, education, skills and training providers is key to the delivery of this theme.

Increased support for basic digital skills and digital inclusion

Supporting residents to develop the digital skills needed for everyday life, employment and access to services, with targeted provision for those most at risk of being left behind in an increasingly digital world.

Strengthened ESOL provision with extended reach

Expanding English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) provision to reach more residents, removing language as a barrier to employment, services and community participation.

More clear pathways in to learning and good employment

Creating clearer, better-signposted routes from education and training into good quality well-paid employment, with joined-up support at every stage of the journey.

Increase engagement of employability support needs across all interactions

Embedding awareness of employability support needs across all touchpoints - from health to housing - so that opportunities to connect people with skills and employment support are never missed.

Indicators of success:

• digital skills and digital inclusion provision is increased
• routes into learning and work feel clearer and more joined up
• ESOL provision is increased
• routes into employability support are increased and strengthened

Year 1 priorities:

To add

Theme 3: Participation and voice

Enabling meaningful participation and voice is central to tackling poverty with dignity. This theme ensures that residents - especially those with lived experience of poverty - have genuine influence over the services, systems and decisions that shape their lives.

Basic needs

Enabling meaningful participation in developing services to ensure basic needs are met, such as quality food and affordable warm housing.

Accessible services

Ensuring services are accessible and inclusive for all, especially groups who are at increased risk of poverty and face specific barriers to accessing support.

Maximising income

Shaping services that maximise income through access to benefits and welfare rights advice, and improving the communications and information provided to promote and access these services.

Campaigning and lobbying

Campaigning and lobbying at a local and national level to amplify the voices and insights of Gateshead residents, ensuring their experiences shape policy and practice beyond our borough.

Inclusive employment

Enabling residents to influence approaches to inclusive access to good quality jobs and reducing discrimination.

Indicators of success:

• more services and support are designed or reshaped by people who use them
• residents influence inclusive recruitment and employment practices
• services are more inclusive and accessible
• Gateshead voices are amplified in campaigning and lobbying activities

Year 1 priorities:

To add

Theme 4 - Access to high quality, accessible, holistic services and localised support

Ensuring that residents can access the right support at the right time is fundamental to tackling poverty effectively. This theme focuses on making services more joined-up, trauma-informed and locally accessible - so that no one is left without help because of where they live or how services are organised.

Tell it once

Test a "tell it once" approach, sharing information across aligned services to reduce the burden of retelling personal circumstances and getting people to the right support sooner.

Connected roles

Developing and aligning roles and resources such as social prescribers, link workers and other local connector roles to provide personalised financial resilience support and referrals into services alongside holistic support.

Trauma-informed practice

Embedding consistent, trauma-informed, person-centred support practices across organisations through training and support to staff and volunteers.

Localised support

Increasing the localised support offer by providing key services in communities, especially in rural and underserved wards where access to the civic centre and wider services is most challenging.

Improve service navigation

Establish digital and print tools for individuals and organisations to direct people to the most appropriate financial support services according to their needs and situation.

Indicators of success:

• people report feeling respected and listened to when accessing services
• new tools enable more people find the right support first time
• data and information sharing between partners in enhanced to support the 'tell it once'  approach
• increase in locally delivered support services

Year 1 priorities:

To add

Theme 5: Strategic focus, organisational and systems change

Lasting change requires more than individual interventions — it demands that organisations across Gateshead embed poverty as a strategic priority, build their capacity to respond, and create genuine mechanisms for people with lived experience to shape the systems that affect their lives.

Partnership development

Continuing to build and support the Tackling Poverty Together Partnership and organisational commitments to tackle poverty as a strategic priority and through decision-making processes.

Control and choice

Work to ensure families and residents in financial hardship have more control and choices over the support and services available to them.

Borough-wide training

Developing a borough-wide training and development offer including Poverty Awareness training, Unconscious Bias and Stigma, and Socio-Economic Duty for all organisations, staff and volunteers.

Voice and influence

Creating robust mechanisms to ensure that the voices of people with lived and living experience can influence all policies, strategies, services and decisions affecting them.

Poverty audits

Conducting poverty audits of key services, systems and processes and undertaking improvements on the key issues identified.

Innovation

Cross-system design sprints, informed by and involving those with living and lived experience to develop future actions to address the root causes of poverty.

Indicators of success:

• partners can demonstrate real organisational change and the impact of their commitments
• increase in poverty-trained workforce - less stigma, more dignity
• people with lived and living experience can influence policies, services and decisions affecting them
• longer term work to address root causes of poverty is developed and underway

Year 1 priorities:

To add

This strategy is only as powerful as its implementation. Translating our shared vision into real, measurable change requires clear governance, robust accountability, active partnership and a relentless commitment to keeping the voices of residents at the centre. This chapter sets out how we will move from strategy to action — and how we will ensure that progress is transparent, sustained and responsive to evolving needs.

Annual action plan

Accompanying the Tackling Poverty Together Strategy is a detailed annual action plan, collaboratively developed with residents and partners, which we will continue to refine as delivery begins. The action plan includes priority actions linked to the strategy's key themes, detailing timelines, responsible parties, and monitoring and evaluation indicators. It also sets out links with other strategies, local and regional plans and related programmes, ensuring alignment and coherence across initiatives.

The success of this action plan depends on a coordinated, system-wide effort and the active participation of all stakeholders. It is essential that all partners consider this strategy and action plan when planning any future work.

Governance

A Tackling Poverty Together Sub-Committee of the Gateshead Health and Wellbeing Board will be established to lead the implementation of the strategy and accompanying action plan. The sub-committee will involve existing Health and Wellbeing Board members alongside members of the Strategy Development Steering Group.

It will monitor and measure the strategy's impact while acting as a critical friend, providing valuable insights and constructive feedback to enhance its effectiveness. This governance structure ensures that accountability is shared, transparent and connected to the broader health and wellbeing agenda for the borough.

Ongoing engagement with residents and partners

The Tackling Poverty Together Partnership intends to continue to place the insights and experiences of local people and partners as central to our approach as we build out and deliver our action plans. We want residents to tell us what is working well and what is not, to be empowered to influence decision-making, and to have genuine opportunities to develop solutions based on their own experiences. We will work closely with our VCFSE partners to engage, support and empower people with lived experience to have their voices heard — especially those from seldom-heard groups and those experiencing the highest levels of poverty.

The Tackling Poverty Together Partnership will meet regularly to continue to develop and deepen working relationships between organisations, share learning and good practice, and work collaboratively to develop the new initiatives set out in the action plans. No one organisation holds all the answers; it is through sustained, honest and open collaboration that we will make the greatest difference.

Further detailed work on the monitoring and evaluation framework will take place between April and June 2026.

Progress will be measured not only in numbers, but in people's lived realities - whether they feel more secure, more respected, more connected and more able to build the life they want.

Measure → Learn → Adapt → Repeat 

The monitoring and evaluation approach will be co-designed to ensure it reflects what matters most to communities, not just what is easiest to count. It will balance quantitative data - such as income levels, employment rates and service uptake - with qualitative insight from residents about their lived experiences of change. Annual reviews will provide opportunities to celebrate progress, acknowledge challenges honestly, and adapt our collective approach accordingly.

Our sincere thanks

We give our sincere thanks to everyone who has contributed to the development of this strategy. Your knowledge, insights and ongoing support and engagement have been crucial in shaping our direction and focus. We especially acknowledge the members of the Tackling Poverty Together Strategy Development Group and the Thematic Action Planning Groups, whose input, expertise and commitment have been instrumental in this process. We appreciate your ongoing involvement as we move into the implementation phase.

We also extend our heartfelt gratitude to Gateshead residents - particularly those who shared their personal experiences of poverty with honesty and courage. Your voices are woven through every page of this strategy. This work is for you, and with you.

References

UK Child Poverty Strategy

National framework to raise household incomes, reduce essential living costs and strengthen local support systems.

North East Child Poverty Action Plan

Regional investment plan addressing both immediate needs and long-term barriers to tackling child poverty across the North East.

Crisis and Resilience Fund guidance

Provides the framework for the Crisis and Resilience Fund 2026-2029 to strengthen financial support and build community resilience.

Gateshead Health and Wellbeing Strategy

Recognises tackling poverty and ensuring a healthy standard of living as a fundamental driver of health and wellbeing across the borough.

Gateshead Council Corporate Plan

Sets out the Council's core priorities and commitments 2026-2029, of which tackling poverty is a central and cross-cutting theme.

ATD Fourth World: Understanding UK Poverty

Foundational research informing our multi-dimensional understanding of how poverty is experienced by people across the UK.

Indices of Deprivation 2025

Measures multiple deprivation for local authority areas across England