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Child Poverty Map of the UK report published by Campaign to End Child Poverty - 10th of Jan, 2012

*Embargoed until 00.01am, Tuesday 10th January, 2011*

The Campaign to End Child Poverty has today published new figures that provide a child poverty map of the whole of the UK. The figures are broken down by parliamentary constituency, local authority and ward.

The top 10 parliamentary constituencies for child poverty in the UK are:

The top 10 local authorities for child poverty in the UK are:

The Prime Minster’s Witney constituency (7%), and the Deputy Prime Minster’s Sheffield Hallam constituency (5%), are both in the top ten constituencies for lowest child poverty. They are part of a group of 89 constituencies that already meet the headline target for 2020 by having child poverty rates of 10% or lower.

Alison Garnham, Executive Director of the Campaign, said:

“The child poverty map paints a stark picture of a socially segregated Britain where the life chances of millions of children are damaged by poverty and inequality. But it also gives us reason for hope. The child poverty target has already been met in the Prime Minister’s constituency and nearly a hundred others, so never let it be said that the targets are impossible to meet. If we can do it in Witney today, we can do it in Hackney tomorrow.

“The Prime Minister should make a New Year’s resolution to keep his pledge to ‘make British poverty history’ so that not just children in Witney, but children all over Britain can enjoy a childhood free from poverty.”

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that child poverty will rise by 400,000 children by 2015 unless the government takes a more progressive approach to tackling the deficit. Alison Garnham added:

“Child poverty costs us billions picking up the pieces of damaged lives and unrealised potential, so it’s a false economy if we don’t prioritise looking after children today.

“Targeting cuts on families will prove both an economic and a social disaster, with businesses losing billions of pounds of demand and families struggling to keep their kids clothed, fed and warm.

“The Government urgently needs a serious plan to stop the rise in unemployment and to create jobs so that young people and parents can get out of the dole queue and into the workplace. We need a plan to target investment through the family purse to stimulate the economy, so that shops, services and businesses get the customers they need to stay afloat and recruit staff.”

ENDS

1. The full report can be obtained under embargo from the Campaign (see contact details below) and will be published on the campaign’s website on 10 January 2012.
2. Ward level data sheets for English regions can be provided on request during the embargo period. The local data has been produced to correspond as closely as possible to the official definition of poverty used by the government in its regional and national data. However, direct comparisons between the two data sets should not be made (a full explanation of the methodology can be found in the report).
3. Alison Garnham, the Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group and Executive Director of the End Child Poverty coalition, will be available for comment along with the Campaign Coordinator, Tim Nichols. The lead researcher, Donald Hirsch, will also be available for comment. There will also be regional spokespeople available in some areas. For more details see the contacts section at the end of the notes.
4. Case study guidance: Member organisations of the Campaign to End Child Poverty can sometimes support in the provision of case studies, but it is highly dependent on their current project work and whether families themselves are happy to put themselves forward. A list of End Child Poverty member organisations can be found on the website: www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/who-are-we/members. It is often small local charities giving on-the-ground support in a particular community that have the most direct contact with families, so we recommend trying to find out what local charities may be operating in the area you are interested in. In general we encourage journalists in their use of case studies to show sensitivity towards parents who wish to protect their children from the stigma of being labelled as in ‘poverty’ and associated risks such as bullying.
5. The Campaign is calling on the government to rebalance its deficit reduction measures so that the burden does not fall unfairly on families with low incomes. We are also calling on the government to set out clearly the reductions in child poverty they expect to achieve from the child poverty strategy they published in April 2011.
6. The Government has legal duties under the Child Poverty Act 2010 to reduce child poverty to a series of targets across a set of measures by 2020. Every three years the government must publish a child poverty strategy setting out how it will do this. The government’s current child poverty strategy, for 2011 to 2014, can be found here: www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/CM%208061
7. Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies on predictions for child and working-age poverty from 2010 to 2020 can be found here: www.ifs.org.uk/publications/5372
8. The Campaign to End Child Poverty (www.endchildpoverty.org.uk) is made up of more than 150 organisations from civic society including children’s charities, child welfare organisations, social justice groups, faith groups, trade unions and others, united in our vision of a UK free of child poverty. We campaign to achieve our vision by:
   • Ensuring the voices of families facing economic disadvantage are heard;
   • Increasing understanding of the causes and impacts of child poverty and mobilising public support and action;
   • Promoting to politicians and government the case for ending child poverty by 2020, the actions that will achieve it and holding them to account on the requirements of the Child Poverty Act.

Contacts:

UK media

End Child Poverty contact:

Tim Nichols

020 7812 5216 or 07812 5216

tnichols@cpag.org.uk

Research team contact:

Donald Hirsh

07766 707831

donald.hirsch@googlemail.com