Agenda item

The PDG will consider the draft Lincolnshire Child Poverty Strategy.   (Enclosure)

Lincolnshire County Council had produced a draft Child Poverty Strategy, which was undergoing consultation. The strategy was based on the joint strategic needs assessment and the child poverty needs assessment. The PDG received a presentation on the draft strategy:

·         The definition of poverty on which the strategy was based came from the Child Poverty Act 2010.

·         The strategy used the number of families with children 0-19 where parents were in receipt of out of work benefits to calculate  a baseline for child poverty.

·         Of the 15 wards in Lincolnshire ranked with the highest proportion of Child Poverty, two were in South Kesteven: Earlesfield and Harrowby.

·         Green Hill Ward had the lowest percentage rate of child poverty in Lincolnshire.

·         In Lincolnshire 63% of children living in poverty were part of lone parent families; in South Kesteven this was 69.8%

·         Drug and Alcohol Action Team data showed that 5 of the top 10 wards in Lincolnshire for young people seeking treatment for substance misuse were in South Kesteven.

·         Based on 2009 figures, 17.4% of households in SK were living in Fuel Poverty.

·         Two of the worst ranking Wards for young people achieving 5 GCSEs A*-C grades were Earlesfield and Harrowby.

·         Grantham St. John’s Ward had the highest percentage of young people not in education or employment.

As part of the consultation, Lincolnshire County Council wanted stakeholders to identify any completed activities or projects that could help address child poverty.

The LSP Co-ordinator summarised some projects that the district council supported that would help meet the agenda (directly and indirectly), including Foodbank, funding the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, drop-in sessions in partnership with the Jubilee Christian Fellowship. 100 new affordable homes were also achieved. SKDC had carried out a lot of work to address fuel poverty by promoting Warm Front and providing decent home grants; the Council was also part of the Lincolnshire Home Energy Partnership.

Other aspects of the strategy tied in with council priorities through the growth point and promoting economic development opportunities within the district:

•         Increasing the number of apprenticeship opportunities for young people

•          Increasing the availability of well paid employment opportunities

•          Improving work readiness by providing high quality work experience

•          Increasing number of young people setting up their own business

Discussion ensued around provision of affordable homes and people’s ability to access a home the appropriate size for their family. Provision within the Localism Act would give district councils measures that could prevent under-occupation of larger properties.

Councillors expressed concern about the way the level of child poverty was calculated; they suggested that only looking at families in receipt of unemployment benefits did not give a true picture of the number of families living in poverty.

Members of the PDG stated they did not feel they had sufficient knowledge of the subject area to submit a response to the consultation and suggested a different approach might be more appropriate.

Recommendation:

The response submitted through the Portfolio Holder should include the following points:

1.    The PDG did not agree with the way the baseline for child poverty was calculated.

2.    The consultation was not appropriate for elected Member stakeholders with no specialist knowledge of child poverty.