Edinburgh Covid-19 Food Programme: Lessons Learned. (November 2020)
This report reflects the shared experience of voluntary and statutory partners delivering a city-wide programme. It provides an overview of this partnership work and takes into account the views of representatives from City of Edinburgh Council, third sector food providers and community transport providers, Volunteer Edinburgh, community link workers and EVOC staff on the delivery of the programme.
EVOC worked in partnership with the City of Edinburgh Council and third sector organisations to support vulnerable people to access food and other critical support during the Covid-19 pandemic to date. The City of Edinburgh Council initially received £1.651m from the Scottish Government Food Fund to support food provision for vulnerable people in Edinburgh between April and September 2020.
Key learning:
The majority of the conversations/interviews with partners reflected upon the immediate term, local, operational detail of the programme and the practical relationship with EVOC and City of Edinburgh Council;
Our own learning, guided by colleagues and partner interviews about the programme aims to look at what learning could be applied in the event that we need to start similar work again – either in the event of further immediate challenges to community resilience due to Covid-19 or other challenges which might arise – e.g. as a result of the UK’s exit from the EU;
Taking these together and looking forward, we have learning which aims to look at more strategic planning for the future – existing structural challenges such as food insecurity and health inequalities have been thrown into sharp focus since March. How can we work together to address these?
