‘Beyond me’: Only nine councillors sign up to donations hub helping 160,000 residents

Only nine of a county’s 75 councillors have registered with a large donations hub where thousands of free items per week are delivered to people in need, a meeting heard.

One Swansea councillor said she was “quite amazed” given that all elected members had been sent an email about it. Another said the figure was “beyond” them.

The Cwtch Mawr Multibank is stocked with a range of household and hygiene products and was opened by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2024. It is run by Swansea charity Faith in Families with support from online retail giant Amazon and has already moved to a larger premises.

The basic idea is that companies like Amazon have surplus goods and local groups know the people who need them.

Swansea Council is a founding partner of Cwtch Mawr Multibank and help funds it. Several council teams are signed up as referrers meaning they can request items for hard-up residents.

Dozens of other organisations are also signed up as referrers and a report before a council committee said 763,273 essential items were delivered from the multibank to 160,825 Swansea residents during its first full year.

The report gave examples of its impact including items provided to a father of two young boys who was setting up a new home. Without this support, it said, “he would have struggled to have had his children start staying overnight as he had absolutely nothing”.

Other items was donated to a victim of domestic abuse, referred to as mum, who was struggling to manage the family finances. “With the support of Cwtch Mawr, mum was able to replace a lot of items such as clothes, beddings, basic items for the kitchen, bowls knives and forks and a few treats for the children,” it said.

Council officer Mark Gosney told a meeting of the social care and tackling poverty service transformation committee that in its very early stages Cwtch Marw Multibank couldn’t be rolled out to all councillors but this had changed and they could register as a referrer. He said an email was sent to elected members about how to do it.

Cllr Mandy Evans, who said she’d gone to the multibank warehouse several times seeking help because of difficulties she said she’d experienced with the referral service, said: “I am quite amazed there are only nine of us.”

Involvement

The meeting heard that Cwtch Mawr Multibank’s systems had changed. Mr Gosney said the feedback from three council teams he’d spoken to was that things were working very well.

Cllr Alyson Antony, cabinet member for wellbeing, said there had been “a bit of a hiccup” but she’d never had a problem requesting items. She said bulk deliveries of things like washing powder, toilet rolls, and clothes had been despatched to her ward.

“Why only nine councillors take up this offer is beyond me,” she said. “We have got families in dire need of things. People can get so much.”

Cllr Antony said when she put in a request for a pair of trainers, for example, she’d also request essentials like toothpaste and washing powder so there’d be a “car-full” of items for delivery by the multibank.

Cllr Evans said she and fellow Bon-y-maen councillor Paul Lloyd were registered referrers “and we can’t get nothing”.

Cllr Mair Baker said she couldn’t recall the email saying councillors could register while Cllr Allan Jeffery said he had no idea he could get involved.

Quality assurance

Mr Gosney said the email could be resent to councillors and added the council held monthly quality assurance meetings with Cwtch Mawr Multibank to ensure performance measures were being delivered. He wasn’t sure, when asked, how many delivery vans it had.

Cllr Evans, who is chairwoman of the committee, said having vulnerable people involved at the multibank as volunteers was proving “a massive plus”.

The comittee proposed visiting the warehouse, whose location wasn’t disclosed, to see how things worked.

The committee report said Faith in Families was liaising with other local authorities to become referral partners. “This could improve the sustainability of Cwtch Mawr but it has to be monitored to ensure it does not reduce the service we receive,” it said.