During 2025/26, Fife Council strengthened its approach to tackling poverty by embedding lived experience within its workforce and decision-making processes. Through the creation of dedicated lived experience roles, the initiative aimed to ensure that services are shaped by the real experiences of people facing poverty and inequality, helping to make support more accessible, relevant and effective.

Using inclusive and progressive recruitment approaches, three lived experience staff members were successfully appointed, bringing valuable insight and perspective to service design and delivery. From the outset, the recruitment process was designed to be accessible and supportive, helping build trust and confidence in the approach. This was reflected in feedback from staff, including one individual who noted that the process showed the Council was “actually serious about employing a lived experience person rather than ticking a box.”

Since joining, lived experience staff have played an active role in community engagement activity, including Café Inc and Warm Welcome spaces. They have supported the promotion of Get Help Fife messaging and worked closely with local communities across North East Fife to gather insight, listen to experiences and feed these directly into anti-poverty work. This has helped ensure that services are informed by real needs and reflect the day-to-day challenges faced by residents.

To strengthen this approach further, a Rural Voice Panel was established in 2025, bringing together lived experience staff alongside additional community members to ensure representation from across all wards. Using a structured and inclusive selection process, the panel was designed to reflect a broad range of experiences while maintaining clear expectations and support for members. Those not selected were signposted to other opportunities, ensuring wider participation was still encouraged.

The panel has already made a meaningful contribution to shaping policy and practice. Members played a key role in the Rural Art Exhibition, which featured at the Rural Poverty Conference and toured across North East Fife, gathering additional insight along the way. Their input has also informed the development of the next three-year Rural Poverty Plan, highlighting issues such as housing, employment, transport and the need for better communication of available support—particularly for people in work.

The impact of this work can be seen in the way lived experience is now influencing strategic discussions across areas such as the Scottish Welfare Fund, No Wrong Door and child poverty. By embedding these voices within decision-making structures, services are better able to identify pressure points, respond earlier and design more effective support.

The project directly supports the Plan for Fife priorities of tackling poverty and preventing crisis and community wealth building. It also contributes to ambitions around ensuring communities are more involved in local decision-making and helping to plan and deliver local services. By putting lived experience at the heart of service design, the approach helps create more responsive, inclusive and effective public services.

Looking ahead, there are plans to expand the Rural Voice Panel to include a wider and more diverse range of voices, further strengthening the evidence base for future work. The panel will also focus on key themes such as mental health in rural areas, working with partners across health and social care to support a joined-up response. Continued involvement in monitoring and evaluating the Rural Poverty Plan will ensure that lived experience remains central to shaping services and driving long-term change.