5,000 children in severe poverty

THIRTEEN per cent of all children in Warrington – some 5,000 in all – are living in “the most severe poverty” according to Save the Children.
The charity group is calling on Chancellor George Osborne to draw up an emergency plan to tackle severe child poverty.
They say children living in the deepest poverty total 1.6 million nationally.
It is the first time Save the Children has provided a local authority breakdown of the figures.
Manchester has the highest proportion of children living in severe poverty in the UK, with the London borough of Tower Hamlets a close second, both with 27 per cent.
In 29 local authorities across the country more than one in five children lives in severe poverty.
With increasing unemployment and cuts in welfare payments, Save the Children fear that even more children will be forced in to severe poverty in the coming months without urgent and concerted action.
Sally Copley, Save the Children’s head of UK policy said, “Children up and down the country are going to sleep at night in homes with no heating, without eating a proper meal and without proper school uniforms to put on in the morning. No child should be born without a chance. It is a national scandal that 1.6 million children are growing up in severe poverty.”
The charity wants the Chancellor to announce an emergency plan in the next budget to channel new jobs into the poorest areas, as well increase financial support for low-income families, for example, by paying for more childcare costs enabling parents to work.
Save the Children also wants to see the Government adopt its pioneering measurement of severe child poverty, which combines both income and material deprivation. According to the charity, a lone-parent family with one child aged under 14 in severe poverty is living on an income of less than £7,000 and a couple with two children under 14 is on less than £12,500.
At present, the government has no official way to measure how many children are caught up in severe child poverty, or to estimate the impact of their policies on this most vulnerable section of the population.
Ms Copley added: “If the government is to fulfil its commitments on child poverty, it must find a way of counting these children in greatest need. At the moment, these children are hidden from official view, and their plight unrecognised. If these children are to have a future, we must acknowledge their desperate need and urgently target government help towards them.”