Swansea Poverty Truth Commission

About the work

The Poverty Truth Commission is an innovative involvement tool. It brings together Community Commissioners and Civic Commissioners to discuss lived experiences of poverty and to help craft solutions to tackling poverty in Swansea. Our role is to evaluate the Commission as it operates.

What we did

Our work is to undertake an evaluation of the Commission that considers both the process of the Commission and the outcomes it achieves. We started by involving the Community Commissioners in an evaluation framework session to help us understand what they hoped the outcomes of the Commission would achieve. We are also undertaking a mid-point evaluation. This is allowing the Commission to reflect on the progress they have made to date and the process that has led to this. But it is also helping to set a benchmark of what Commissioners now hope will emerge from the Commission. Throughout the evaluation we will be holding Learning to Action sessions to support Commissioners to take action as a result of the evaluation findings.

The difference we made

The evaluation is capturing valuable learning about this approach to Involvement. It is already helping to show how the strong involvement of community commissioners is helping to inform decision makers in Swansea. The Commission is also showing how much time can be spent doing involvement well. There is also important learning about the timing of the Commission. The meetings take place outside of work time and this is, perhaps surprisingly, helping to facilitate buy-in from senior people across the public sector.