Tackling Poverty Today and Turning the Tide to Create Lasting Change: A Strategy and Strategic Action Plan for addressing Poverty in York 2025-2035
You can read the Tackling Poverty Today Strategy here.
On 6 November 2025 (Executive Recommendation in relation to Tackling Poverty Today), Full Council adopted a new ten-year strategy for tackling poverty in York on behalf of the city. This followed Executive approval and endorsement of the strategy at its meeting on 4 November 2025 (Decision Report: Tackling Poverty Today).
The strategy replaces the previous interim financial inclusion strategy 2023-2025.
It is informed by the Poverty Truth Commission’s Organisational Standards, adopted by the Council’s Executive in March 2025. These standards are:
- We listen
- We are understanding
- We are respectful and friendly
- We are responsive, honest, and care about getting you the right support
We define poverty as “When a person’s resources (mainly their material resources) are not enough to meet their minimum needs, including social participation.”
The reality is that poverty is a real issue for more and more people who live in York, with the issue exacerbated by a high cost of living that is felt acutely in the city.
Whilst the council cannot tackle poverty alone, it does have a key role to play in seeking to create the conditions that support people to move out of poverty and prevent people from falling into it in the first place.
With this in mind, the strategy focuses on three objectives:
- Tackling poverty today – Helping people who are struggling right now
- Preventing people from falling into poverty – Making sure fewer people end up in poverty in the future
- Creating long-lasting change – Making York a more equal and affordable city for the long-term
The strategy includes an action plan outlining what the Council, together with partners, will do over the next ten years against these three objectives. It does this by identifying activity that responds to the causes of poverty informed by those proposed by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
These are:
- Unemployment and low-paid jobs
- Education and skills inequalities
- Challenges preventing access to benefits
- High cost of housing
- High cost of essentials (food, gas, electricity, water, telephone, broadband etc)
- Increased and complex needs
- Poverty premium
- Discrimination
- Lack of family stability
- Abuse, trauma and complex lives
Engagement and approval
The strategy has been informed by extensive consultation with the public and different stakeholder groups. A public consultation ran from 4 August 2025 until 13 October 2025, here, you can find an overview of the feedback of Consultation on Tackling Poverty Today. Full consulation responses can be cound in the Anti-Poverty Strategy Consultation 2025 webpage, which is on our open data platform.
The strategy has also been informed by feedback from the Council’s Corporate Scrutiny Committee. It was approved by Council Executive on 4 November 2025 and recommended for adoption by Full Council on behalf of the city at Full Council on 6 November 2025 .
Measuring progress
The Financial Inclusion Steering Group, comprised of representatives from a number of key voluntary and community organisations, will play a key role in monitoring progress against the actions listed in the strategy. Progress will also be reported to Executive Members on a regular basis.