EAMONN O'BRIEN: Tackling inequality is a council priority

I know for myself, and my Labour colleagues, tackling inequalities is front and centre for why we did so. These inequalities present themselves in different ways.

They may be economic, such as the growing levels of child poverty in our borough (23 per cent in 2023, up from 19 per cent in 2015), or they may present in certain health measures, like the seven-year gap in average life expectancy between the riches and poorest.

For some, these inequalities will also be seen through a lens of race, religion, disability or gender.

However you view inequality, I believe we must tackle it if we are to give people opportunities to succeed and have everyone share in that success.

Tackling inequality also speaks to a basic commitment in this country towards fairness.

When I speak to residents about the challenges they face, or their problems with politics, it often comes down to this idea that the current set up isn’t particularly fair.

They recognise that not everything can be fixed overnight or be perfect all the time for everyone, but they at least want people to be given a fair chance to succeed.

This is why tackling inequality is one of our top three priorities for the council to deliver on.

Council leader Eamonn O'Brien (Image: Eamonn O'Brien)

It’s not about shifting data sets or trends, it’s about changing lives.

The more we can do to remove the barriers to opportunity the better for everyone.

Our recent efforts have shown how we plan to do this.

We recently got the council to adopt a new social value strategy.

Social value is how we draw out maximum benefit for our borough by influencing what the council and its partners spend or provide locally.

A good example of this has been our successful effort to provide more jobs, work placements and mentoring for our young people who have left care.

By getting the council to commit more opportunities across the range of services it provides, we were then able to work with local businesses to add even more to this.

The young people were brought into this project to help design and shape it, which proved invaluable, and led to a whole raft of new opportunities that were soon taken up.

Another example, which I visited for the second time recently, is the community construction skills academy in Radcliffe.

This is a direct outcome from the work being done to regenerate Radcliffe and engages 16-24 year olds who are not in education, work or training to learn new skills around construction and gain them the first step on the skills ladder.

There is a lot of work being done around how we tackle health inequalities in the wake of Covid and years of lower living standards but that is a much bigger topic.

However, if we can make progress here, we will certainly be a better borough for it.