Report sets out devolution plan to combat North East child poverty

A new report into child poverty has highlighted North East devolution powers as a potential opportunity to confront the issue.

The North East Child Poverty Commission (NECPC) has today (February 16) called for a ‘public health approach’ towards child poverty and identified strategic priorities needed to address the issue in a report today.

The report highlighted the need to maximise family incomes, ensure work provides a route out of poverty, ensuring the future of the next generation, and most importantly securing a region-wide commitment to addressing poverty.

The report found that more than one third of all babies, children and young people in the North East (35 per cent) are currently living in poverty.

Report author and director of the NECPC, Amanda Bailey, said: “We know that the most important levers to tackle child poverty still rest with national Government – and nowhere is a national child poverty strategy more needed than here in the North East.

“However, devolution provides us with an opportunity to determine what sort of region we want to be: one in which ever-increasing numbers of children are going to school too hungry to learn, or to college too tired to concentrate – or one that takes a collective decision to invest in children and young people now, to support the social and economic outcomes we all want for the North East tomorrow.

“Our research indicates this is not only urgent, but that there is real enthusiasm from organisations across all sectors – as well as parents, carers and young people impacted by poverty themselves – for ambitious, regional action to tackle child poverty to be a priority for our elected mayors and combined authorities, and to be involved in this work.

“We look forward to seeing our blueprint for action implemented, and to supporting our elected mayors, combined authorities and other organisations to deliver this, in partnership with local communities.”

The report said the issue of child poverty limits the life chances and outcomes of tens of thousands of children and families, and is holding the region back.

It highlighted the child poverty gap in the new North East Mayoral Combined Authority (NEMCA) area, comparing Newcastle’s wards with the highest and lowest child poverty rates – Elswick (57 per cent) and North Jesmond (two per cent), which have a staggering difference of 55 per cent.

Figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) showed that the average child poverty rate in the North East was 35 per cent, while the UK average was 29 per cent.

Additionally, the report showed the gap between the best performing areas in the Tees Valley Combined Authority area was wider - standing at 62 per cent when comparing Newport in Middlesbrough (66 per cent) and Mowden in Darlington (four per cent).

The report is made up of data sourced from more than 150 cross-sector organisations, parents and carers, and young people across the North East.

Figures in the report also showed that:

• The proportion of North East children in poverty that are from working families has risen from 56 per cent to 67 per cent in less than a decade.
• More than one in five (21.5 per cent) children in households with all parents in work are in poverty in the region – a figure that has doubled since 2014/15.
• One in five (over 100,000) of all children in the region live below the ‘deep poverty’ line. This includes more than one in ten (c.60,000) of all children that are living in ‘very deep poverty’.
• 63 per cent of children living in poverty across are estimated to be in ‘work-constrained families’ – who face at least one significant barrier to boosting their income through work, or by taking on extra work.
• Almost one in five (18 per cent) of the region’s children are living in households that are ‘food insecure’, meaning they do not have access to sufficient food to facilitate an active and healthy lifestyle.
• Seven in ten (69 per cent) children in are living in families with zero or little savings to protect them from economic shocks or unexpected bills.

The NECPC have recommended proactive, combined authority-wide take-up campaigns to ensure families receive unclaimed benefits and social tariffs which they are entitled to – with the unclaimed total for the North East sitting at £1.3 billion.

They also called on a living wage for the TVCA area, and said £75 million would be injected back into the region’s economy if a quarter of those earning below the living wage were uplifted.

They also called for the expansion of free school meals to all children and young people in families receiving Universal Credit or legacy benefits.

The Rt Revd Paul Butler, who will retire as Bishop of Durham and NECPC Patron later this month, said: “We all want a North East in which every baby, child and young person is valued, supported to thrive and able to fulfil their potential.