At Greater Manchester Poverty Action (GMPA), we advocate for a “cash-first” approach to welfare across Greater Manchester and all the UK. A cash-first approach calls for the provision of cash payments to people facing financial crises in lieu of in-kind support, such as food parcels or vouchers. Cash is a more efficient, appropriate, and dignified form of support.
By giving people choice and control, enabling them to use support in a way that works best for them, not only does it boost household wellbeing through providing a more humane and dignified approach, but also encourages increased support take-up, prevents individuals falling into high-interest debts (and further spiralling into financial hardship), and allows for a more efficient and cost-effective means of providing support administratively.
This approach particularly emphasises the unsustainable nature of foodbanks as a response to widespread and rising poverty in recent years. With ever-increasing demand of food parcels and the subsequent decrease in food bank capacity, the need to end the normalisation of emergency food aid provision and replace it with cash-based support/grants is essential. Through ensuring household income is maximised, the number of people seeking assistance from food banks can be significantly reduced – after all, food insecurity is not a result of scarcity of food, rather the lack of household income and financial resilience.
In building the foundations of a cash-first approach at the local level, the need for increased access to local advice services to ensure income maximisation of households needs to be given prominence. GMPA achieves this through the distribution of the Money Advice Referral Tool (MART) – a referral leaflet that aims to boost household income and financial resilience – across six Greater Manchester boroughs. The involvement of people with lived experience of poverty in the design and delivery of policies and programmes pertaining to financial inclusion is also key – a sentiment that GMPA champions throughout our work. Building localised relationships between local services and those with lived experience of poverty is important for embedding a cash-first approach, for organisations to achieve faster resolutions based on the specific local needs.
Underpinning the approach, GMPA believes the main drivers for social reform lie with central government and ultimately calls for action for systemic change to the welfare system at the national level. We believe everyone should have an adequate income, be it from social security or wages. Adequate and stable wages – such as those stated in our GM Living Wage Campaign – have to be demanded, especially with the rise in people from working households using foodbanks, alongside benefit payments in line with cost of living and the without restrictive benefits caps and sanctions, to ensure the cycle of using crisis support comes to an end.
For more information on the work GMPA carries out, including on cash-first, please contact aisha@gmpovertyaction.org.
