Warwickshire News Mine

The Council’s Children, Young People and Families Overview and Scrutiny Committee is scrutinising the draft Warwickshire Child Poverty Strategy at its meeting on Monday (October 20).

The aim of the strategy – the first of its kind in Warwickshire - is to reduce and eventually eradicate child poverty by introducing and developing a series of measures.

The strategy is a commitment to improve opportunities and life chances of the most disadvantaged. It will take forward a number of new initiatives and pull together the existing activities of different organisations. The production of a Warwickshire wide strategy was one of the recommendations made by the Children, Young People and Families Overview and Scrutiny Committee, when it held a single issue meeting on child poverty last December.

Councillor Richard Grant, chair of the Children, Young People and Families Overview and Scrutiny Committee, said: “The child poverty strategy aims to set out Warwickshire’s vision for the reduction and later eradication of child poverty.

“We know that the life chances of children from families on low incomes are adversely affected in a number of ways including health, educational attainment and future employment opportunities.

“Financial inclusion is a major strand of the strategy and the Scrutiny Committee will be examining the proposals to target income maximisation, debt advice and money management.”

The outline strategy also includes working with children to improve their educational attainment and pushing forward sustainable economic development in the form of employment initiatives for young people.

Warwickshire is considered to be a prosperous area on the whole, but there are a number of pockets of serious deprivation in the county. It has 42 locations ranked in the top 30 per cent most deprived areas in England.

Of these, 19 are in Nuneaton and Bedworth, ten in Warwick, seven in Rugby, four in North Warwickshire and two in Stratford-upon-Avon. Parts of Wem Brook, Bar Pool and Camp Hill wards in Nuneaton and Bedworth are in the top five per cent deprived nationally, while areas of Brunswick ward in Warwick is in the top 11 per cent and Brownsover South in Rugby in the top 14 per cent.

Since the Overview and Scrutiny Committee first debated the issue last December, the Child Poverty Strategy Group has been formed to provide clear objectives, targets and milestones in an action plan.

The group contains senior officers from the county council directorates, representatives from borough and district councils, Job Centre Plus and Connexions, and voluntary sector organisations including the Citizens Advice Bureau and Warwickshire Welfare Rights Service.

The Scrutiny Committee also made recommendations in relation to looking at the hidden costs of education, mapping the services available to children, young people and families, and to look at the long term sustainable funding of children’s centres. At the meeting on October 20, the Committee will be reviewing the progress made towards implementing these.

Link to WCC