Cost of 11,000 children in poverty in Plymouth estimated at £120m
The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has published estimates of the costs generated by child poverty rates in every local authority and constituency in the UK.
The CPAG estimates the cost of child poverty in Plymouth to be £120 million per year with 11,085 children in the city falling below the relative poverty line.
The local authority estimates, produced by Donald Hirsch of Loughborough University, are contained in a new report on how local authorities are trying to tackle child poverty at a time of social security cuts and upheaval.
Alison Garnham, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said:
“We always put our children first in family life, and it’s right that we should do so in our local communities too. Every council is required by law to have a local child poverty strategy, and the good news is that reducing child poverty benefits everyone by cutting the costs to local authority services and boosting the local economy through improved skills and qualifications for school leavers.
“Today we are publishing a report to help guide authorities on the challenges they face and the actions they can take to protect families in their area against poverty and many residents will be shocked to hear that so many local children are living in poverty. We hope that local campaigners will be able to use our report to encourage their local councillors to do more to end child poverty in their area and support the families facing the greatest hardship.”
The local cost of child poverty varies in each community. The local authorities with the largest number of children in poverty (with annual economic cost generated by the local poverty rate) are:
Birmingham, £914 million a year
Manchester, £446 million a year
Glasgow City, £395 million a year
Bradford, £360 million a year
Leeds, £340 million a year
The full report can be found here.
Child Poverty Action Group held a conference for local authorities in Birmingham on 18 July 2013. The conference, and the new report, is to aid local authorities in developing their local child poverty strategies to meet the need generated by social security cuts and reforms, and to look at the opportunities they have to make progress on poverty prevention and reduction.
The figures were calculated from a UK national figure of £29 billion a year and are based on the population size and child poverty rate within each local authority area. The full national costs are made up of:
- £15 billion spent on services to deal with consequences of child poverty
- £3½ billion lost in tax receipts from people earning less as a result of having grown up in poverty
- £2 billion spent on benefits for people spending more time out of work as a result of having grown up in poverty
- £8½ billion lost to individuals in net earnings (after paying tax)
CPAG is the leading charity campaigning for the abolition of child poverty in the UK and for a better deal for low-income families and children.
CPAG is the host organisation for the Campaign to End Child Poverty coalition, which has members from across civil society including children’s charities, faith groups, unions and other civic sector organisation, united in their campaigning for public and political commitment to ensure the goal of ending child poverty by 2020 is met.
