Council Size Submission Local Authority Profile • Oldham is a local authority within the Greater Manchester conurbation. Though predominantly urban, Oldham benefits from a high-quality rural and semi-rural environment, including a quarter of the borough lying within the Peak District National Park. This means Oldham has more countryside than other GM local authorities, with a less complete transport network than that seen in urban areas. • Economically, Oldham has many challenges, stemming largely from its history as a cotton town. As the cotton industry declined jobs were partially replaced by those in heavy industry and manufacturing, although not on the scale of places like Warrington and even Tameside owing in part to the limited availability of flat areas of open land. Oldham is home to several national and international brands and companies including the Trinity Mirror Group, Diodes Incorporated, Ferranti Technologies, Seton Healthcare Ltd, Park Cake Bakeries, Innovative Technologies, Ambassador Textiles, and Nov Mono Pumps. • Demographically, after 100 years of population decline Oldham has now returned to population levels last seen in the early 1900’s, with further increase expected. Oldham has a high proportion (22.5%) of residents aged under 16 and proportionally fewer (15.7%) aged 65 and over. The age distribution of the borough is as follows: Page 2 of 48 • The overall structure of the population has shifted downwards due to the growth in Oldham’s Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, which have younger age profiles. The expected future population increase will be driven both by the growth of relatively young ethnic minority populations and programmes of new house building opening-up more suburban areas for development. • Oldham has a higher proportion (22.5%) of non-white Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) residents than in Greater Manchester (16.3%), the North West (9.8%), and England (14.6%). This proportion has increased from 13.5% in 20012. The ethnic composition in Oldham currently stands at 77.5% White, 10.1% Pakistani, 7.3% Bangladeshi and 5.1% ‘other’. Oldham’s Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities are primarily concentrated around the Oldham town centre wards of Coldhurst, St Mary’s, Alexandra and Werneth as illustrated on the map below: Page 3 of 48 Population Forecasts • The population of Oldham is growing, after a period of decline in the 20th Century, following the closure of many of Oldham’s mills: Page 4 of 48 Sources: 1801-1991 Vision of Britain, 2001 Casweb, 2011 Nomis, 2021 Oldham 2020-based projection • There are two population projections available: the official ONS Sub-National Population Projection (SNPP), and the council’s own projection. The latter uses data available within the council and puts our population as slightly higher than the official projections. • Both have the population of Oldham continuing to grow for the foreseeable future: Oldham Council's Year ONS SNPP-18 own projection 2018 235,623 241,860 2019 237,112 243,540 2020 238,525 244,930 2021 239,878 246,200 2022 241,176 247,440 2023 242,395 248,600 2024 243,495 249,730 2025 244,539 250,860 2026 245,551 252,010 Page 5 of 48 Deprivation • Deprivation in local authorities is usually measured by the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). Levels of deprivation directly impact on the caseload and community working of elected members, with higher levels of deprivation leading to increased intervention and need. • According to the Office for National Statistics Oldham is one of the most deprived boroughs in the UK. Oldham currently has four areas within the borough which are among the top 1% of the nation’s most deprived areas. Most of these areas are centred in and around the town centre, particularly within the wards of St Mary’s, Coldhurst and Alexandra. Only the wards of Crompton, Saddleworth North and Saddleworth South do not contain any areas that fall within the nation’s top 20% most deprived. In Oldham, 33 per cent of children are in absolute poverty. Page 6 of 48 • As can be seen below, Oldham’s IMD rank has worsened over time. Of perhaps particular relevance is the worsening in the extent rank, which would imply that more elected members will be seeing a greater workload associated with deprivation. • Our local councillors are on the front line when it comes to supporting families and individuals who are in crisis. Individually, councillors often encounter constituents in distress either at surgeries, or through referrals, emails and telephone calls. We know that many people who come to our councillors for help – whether for housing, financial or family issues – are struggling with their mental health too. This often means elected members are supporting these individuals on an ongoing basis to get the support they need, placing a significant demand on their time. Higher levels of unemployment, and particularly youth unemployment, are also linked to anti-social behaviour and community tensions, which also add substantially to councillor caseloads. Councillors have reported rarely taking the full recess to which they are entitled owing to the ongoing demand of residents, which can increase during holiday periods when issues like hunger are more prominent, particularly for young people. • Examples of support provided by councillors include helping constituents to access advice and support through our Welfare Rights, Revenue and Benefits Team to resolve issues in relation to Council Tax arrears. • While it should be added that these figures are relative rather than absolute, we would still expect relative deprivation increases to impact on workload, as they will at the very least affect lifestyle expectations versus national norms. Domain 2019 Rank (of 317 2015 Rank (of 326 2010 Rank (of 326 2007 Rank (of 354 2004 Rank (of 354 LAs) LAs) LAs) LAs) LAs) IMD Score 19 34 37 42 43 Income Scale 39 44 44 39 48 Employment Scale 46 45 48 49 44 Concentration 22 28 25 23 26 Extent 18 29 30 34 36 • Child poverty is another important marker. According to recently released DWP/HMRC calculations, 38% of Oldham children are now in relative poverty, up from 28.7% five years ago. Oldham has the highest child poverty figures nationally, and one of the highest rates of increase, so we might expect deprivation to remain high over the next five years and beyond. Page 7 of 48 • Our Councillors also work to support residents through their knowledge of and work with local voluntary and charitable organisations in their area. Councillors have, for example, worked to support local charities by making them aware of potential sources of funding from within the Council and across Team Oldham. This has helped to ensure the longer-term sustainability of organisations that provide frontline support is some of our most disadvantaged wards. • The Council has established a focused long-term strategy to tackle poverty in the borough, including establishing a commitment to support every school to reach a “good” Ofsted rating. This strategy does, however, recognise that tackling poverty can only be achieved sustainably over the long term, meaning that the negative impact of deprivation on councillor workload will remain for the foreseeable future. Impacts of Covid-19 • The impacts of Covid-19 are likely to further increase elected member workload. • Covid-19 has exacerbated many of the challenges we have been facing in Oldham, especially when it comes to high levels of unemployment. Between 12th March and 13th August, unemployment claimants in Oldham rose by 6,515 to a total of 13,985 claimants. Since the beginning of Covid-19, Oldham’s monthly Claimant Count has increased by 108.7%. Since the beginning of Covid-19, Oldham’s monthly youth Claimant Count has increased by 136.5%. 40,900 employees are on furlough schemes such as the CJRS and SEISS, which gives Oldham an estimated furlough rate of 40.94% (July 2020). Based on the path of the last recession, and Oldham’s levels of economic resilience, we would expect at a minimum that there would be significant unemployment impacts for at least 3 years (as was seen last recession), and perhaps 5 years or more (given that the economic impacts this time appear to be significantly more severe nationally). Hence there are likely to be caseload implications for members. • This significant increase in unemployment is going to lead to additional pressure across the system, especially across crisis support services. Our elected members are already seeing a huge increase in workload due to people losing their jobs, being made homeless, or requiring emergency support and provision. Members report increasing enquiries for support accessing welfare, with business support, on council tax and greater levels of door to door engagement alongside officers. Elements of this caseload increase are likely to remain for a considerable number of years to come. Page 8 of 48 • Over the past six months we have seen a 5-fold increase in the use of food banks, with many of our elected members volunteering to distribute essential food and medicines through our emergency hubs. Our District Teams who support our local councillors have been redeployed to support our crisis response, meaning that there is a backlog of core casework that will need to be completed. • Through our Place-Based approach, we will be better able to support our elected members to complete this work, though it’s important to recognise the challenges that Covid-19 has presented, especially to our most deprived communities. • We are aware that Covid 19 has impacted disproportionately on our diverse communities in Oldham and our local Councillors, as community connectors, have played a pivotal role in working with their local community contacts and networks to ensure information about Covid19 is accessible to everyone.