Child poverty situation in North East laid bare in new report
The North East Child Poverty Commission want a ‘public health approach’
A major new report published today (16th February 2024) by the North East Child Poverty Commission (NECPC) calls for regional leaders to take a ‘public health approach’ to tackling child poverty, based on the findings of wide-ranging research undertaken over the last year throughout the region.
More than one third of all babies, children and young people in the North East (35%) are living in poverty, with our region having experienced the steepest increases in child poverty over much of the last decade.
Today’s new report – ‘No time to wait: An ambitious blueprint for tackling child poverty in the North East’ – warns that child poverty ‘is not only limiting the life chances and outcomes of tens of thousands of children and families across the North East – and their ability to benefit from everything this part of the world has to offer – it is holding the whole of our region back.’
Whilst the UK Government continues to hold the most important levers available to reduce child poverty in England, NECPC’s research makes the case for using devolution to take a ‘public health approach’ to tackling child poverty in the North East, ‘convened, co-ordinated and driven forward by our mayoral combined authorities, but a collective effort in which organisations across all sectors must pull together and play their part’.
The report sets out a blueprint for what ‘an ambitious, solutions-focussed programme of co-ordinated, cross-sector regional action to tackle child poverty’ could look like, grounded in the findings of NECPC’s research.
Key new findings from our extensive data analysis for this work include:
• Whilst child poverty has risen markedly across all North East local authority areas over much of the last decade, the inequalities that exist within in our region are significant: in the new North East Mayoral Combined Authority area, the two wards with the very highest and lowest child poverty rates are both in Newcastle: Elswick and North Jesmond with a difference of 55 percentage points. In the Tees Valley Combined Authority area, this gap stands at 62 percentage points (between Newport in Middlesbrough, and Mowden in Darlington).
• The proportion of North East children in poverty that are from working families has risen from 56% to 67% in less than a decade. And more than one in five (21.5%) children in households with all parents in work are in poverty in our region – a figure that has doubled since 2014/15.
• The intensity of child poverty in the North East is getting worse – such that one in five (over 100,000) of all children in our region are now living below the ‘deep poverty’ line. This includes the more than one in ten (c.60,000) of all North East children that are living in ‘very deep poverty’.
• 63% of children living in poverty across the North East 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%) North East 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%) children in our region are living in families with zero or little savings to protect them from economic shocks or unexpected bills.
This data analysis is brought to life in today’s report by wide-ranging NECPC research undertaken with over 150 cross-sector organisations, parents and carers, and young people across the North East – with four consistent themes emerging throughout these conversations:
• The vast amount of time, energy, capacity and resources now focussed on dealing with the impacts of poverty.
• The extent to which parents and carers affected by poverty are supporting their communities.
• The way in which families on low incomes can be treated by ‘the system’, and the lack of understanding for people’s circumstances.
• A collective agreement that tackling child poverty must be a regional priority.
Based on all of this research, our blueprint for regional action to tackle child poverty identifies four strategic priorities for the North East:
Priority 1: Maximising family incomes now
Priority 2: Making work a route out of poverty
Priority 3: Supporting the best start in life for the next generation
Overarching priority: Securing a region-wide anti-poverty commitment
Within each of these priorities, a series of complementary, actionable recommendations are set out that will require organisations to pool resources and co-ordinate efforts across systems. Several of these recommendations build on the enormous amount of activity to tackle poverty that is already taking place, at different levels and in different parts of the North East – and include:
• Proactive, combined authority-wide take-up campaigns and significantly ramping up the reach of income maximisation work, to ensure every family is receiving the support they are entitled to – based on our new finding with Policy in Practice that the annual value of unclaimed benefits and social tariffs across the North East is a staggering £1.33 billion.
• Making the North East and Tees Valley combined authority areas Living Wage Places – based on our analysis of the scale and impact of in-work poverty in the region, and research finding that if just a quarter of people paid below the real Living Wage in the North East were uplifted to this rate, it would put an additional £75 million back into the region’s economy.
• Expanding free school meals as an immediate priority to all children and young people in families receiving Universal Credit or legacy benefits – based on our new analysis finding this would benefit around 75,000 primary, secondary and college students at most need of receiving this additional support across the North East.
The report explains that: ‘with relentlessly-focused leadership, vision and determination – we believe our proposed programme of work is achievable, drawing upon our combined commitment, capacity and resources as a region.
‘It is undoubtedly ambitious, but we should be ambitious for every baby, child and young person growing up across the North East. Until we adopt this whole systems approach to tackling the structural drivers of child poverty and its wide-ranging impacts in, and on, our region, we will never achieve the economic and social outcomes we all want to see.
‘Babies, children and young people growing up in poverty across our region deserve better – and they don’t have time to wait.’
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.
‘We all long for there to be truly equal opportunity for every child to be able to flourish. Sadly, the scourge of poverty in childhood restricts this, as is clearly evidenced by this deeply concerning new report.
‘Whilst national action on child poverty is vital, the mayoral system offers a fresh opportunity to bring together organisations across the North East to tackle this together as a regional priority. I hope this report, and its sound proposals, will be heeded.’
Baroness Hilary Armstrong, who chaired a cross-sector advisory group for this project, added:
‘This comprehensive new report contains some shocking truths – but for the families and young people involved in this research, they don’t need a report to tell them their life chances and opportunities are affected by persistent low income and hardship. It’s a set of daily fears and anxieties within their lives.
‘Being overwhelmed by the facts and evidence set out in the report is just not good enough. Our collective responsibility now is to go beyond being shocked, and ensure we all take action towards making the situation outlined by this research better.
‘That work should be driven forward by the combined authorities in our region – but has to be a cross-sector effort, in which every organisation – whether the NHS, local authorities, business or other major employers – plays their part.’
Report author and Director of the North East Child Poverty Commission, 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 broad recommendations for each strategic priority – set out in more detail in today’s report – are:
Priority 1: Maximising family incomes now, through:
• Proactive, combined authority-wide take-up campaigns
• Expanding the reach of income maximisation – and making it the norm
• Making better use of data
• Reducing costs and barriers to services for families
• Using our collective purchasing power to ‘disrupt’ the status quo
Priority 2: Making work a route out of poverty, through:
• Making the North East and Tees Valley combined authority areas Living Wage Places
• Strengthening and expanding the reach of ‘good work’ commitments
• Ensuring all communities can benefit from economic opportunities, inward investment and good work
• Expanding existing anti-poverty work with employers
• Funding tailored employment support programmes for parents and carers
• Mapping and filling childcare gaps
Priority 3: Supporting the best start in life for the next generation, by:
• Expanding free school and college meals to all families receiving Universal Credit or legacy benefits
• Addressing the shortfall in the 2-year-old early education offer
• Expanding the Baby Box scheme across the region
• Widening the reach of the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme
• Creating a North East and Tees Valley ‘Youth Guarantee’
• Establishing Mayor’s Funds to support this work
Overarching priority: Securing a region-wide anti-poverty commitment, that involves:
• Adoption of the Socioeconomic Duty by organisations across the region
• Taking all decisions through an anti-poverty lens
• Making poverty prevention and reduction ‘everybody’s business’
• A collective agreement to do things differently here
• Elected mayors vocally advocating for North East children and families