Current status

The Child Poverty (2016) chapter has been updated in May 2021.

View the latest updates (May 2021)

Introduction

This JSNA chapter provides an up to date picture of current levels of Child Poverty in Nottinghamshire and its impact. It should be read in conjunction with the 2011 Nottinghamshire Child Poverty Needs Assessment.

Growing up in poverty can affect every area of a child’s development and future life chances. We know that the most disadvantaged children are less likely to achieve their academic potential, secure employment and gain a sense of future financial security. They are more likely to suffer from poor health, live in poor quality housing and unsafe environments. Poverty has blighted the lives of individuals, families and entire communities for generations and is an issue that could undermine the wider social and economic policies across Nottinghamshire. Growing up in poverty can mean being cold, going hungry, not being able to join in activities with friends, and not being able to afford even one week’s holiday.[1]

The Child Poverty Act 2010 placed new statutory duties upon top tier local authorities and their named partners to prepare a joint child poverty strategy which set out the measures that the Local Authority and each partner propose to take to reduce and mitigate the effects of child poverty in their area. The government has since amended the Child Poverty Act, replacing the income targets with a duty to report on Life Chances, contained in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016.

The Nottinghamshire Child and Family Poverty Strategy ‘Building Aspiration: working together to tackle child and family poverty in Nottinghamshire[2]’ was developed by asking partners to make organisational pledges to tackle poverty. Organisations were asked to shape their pledges based on a series of recommendations made in the local child poverty needs assessment[3].

The following priorities have been highlighted in the implementation of the Child and Family Poverty Strategy:

• Target localities of Nottinghamshire with greater levels of poverty to ensure outcomes in these areas are improved and children and families thrive in safe, cohesive communities and neighbourhoods.
• Increase educational attainment, employment and skills amongst children, young people and parents in Nottinghamshire; reduce dependency on welfare benefits and ensure work pays.
• Raise aspirations and improve the life chances for children and families so that poverty in childhood does not translate into poor experiences and outcomes.
• Support families to acquire the skills and knowledge to access responsive financial support services, money management, and debt crisis support.
• Support families with complex problems compounded by poverty and disadvantage.

The Nottinghamshire Child Poverty Strategy brings together existing activity and initiatives that contribute to the overall aims of the child poverty strategy e.g. improving the educational attainment of children eligible for free school meals. The action plan attached  to the strategy focuses on areas that require further partnership action, rather than focusing on existing individual agency actions.

The following table provides a list of some of the key local strategies that impact on work to tackle child poverty and improve the outcomes for children and families living in poverty:

Whilst rates of child poverty as measured by the Children Living in Low Income Households dataset have fallen slightly over the last 3 years, they are not falling quickly enough to significantly improve outcomes for children and young people in Nottinghamshire.

• The 2016 Social Mobility Index indicates that out of 7 districts, four are classed as Social Mobility Cold Spots, meaning that there is low social mobility in these areas. Good social mobility is a key indicator of how we are preventing poor children from becoming poor adults.   In particular, Nottinghamshire rates poorly for Youth Social Mobility with a lower than average attainment at A level and a low number of young people going to top end universities.[4]There are fewer children in poverty in Nottinghamshire compared to England (18.0%) and the East Midlands (17.0%). However, Nottinghamshire’s levels of child poverty are slightly higher than other East Midlands two tier authorities and also slightly higher than most of our statistical neighbours, with the exception of Kent.

• Worklessness is still a key reason why many children in Nottinghamshire are living in poverty; this may be compounded further with forthcoming welfare reforms.  However, the JSNA also identifies that in-work poverty remains an issue in Nottinghamshire and emerging changes to Universal Credit may exacerbate this.

• A reduction in funding for local services has meant that they have focused more closely on targeting services to the most deprived areas. The Troubled Families programme, in particular, measures performance explicitly around reducing Child Poverty[5]. Many other services, whilst not aimed specifically at tackling Child Poverty, have performance indicators which help mitigate the effects of poverty and help prevent poor children becoming poor adults.

• The government approach to measuring Child Poverty is changing, moving away from focusing on income targets and towards measuring improved outcomes for children and young people around educational attainment, worklessness and family functioning. This requires new thinking from commissioners and service providers as to how to best align the Pupil Premium, the Troubled Families programme and the Work Programme to provide a package of universal support for those eligible for Universal Credit.

Unmet needs and gaps

There is increasing focus in tackling child poverty on improving family functioning and enabling more parents to return to work. This has led to to the identification of the following gaps:

1. Family and parenting support for families with children aged 5-19 with need below Level 3 of the Nottinghamshire Pathway to Provision[1].

There has been a reduction in parenting and family support services from the local authority and commissioned partners for those families who do not meet Level 3 of the Pathway to Provision. Generally, services are intervening when problems are more entrenched and there are higher thresholds to access to more targeted provision. However, this needs to be balanced with the fact that more schools are using Pupil Premium money to employ their own family support staff, although this does not apply to all schools. Health Visitors, GPs and Children’s Centres have all retained a universal element to their family support delivery.

1. Support for parents with couple relationships

There is an increasing body of evidence that suggests that couple conflict plays a major role in negative outcomes for children and young people[2]. However, currently services focus on improving children’s behaviour and improving parental self- efficacy[3]

1. Effective support for adults with mental health difficulties to return to work

There are a rising number of adults claiming Employment Support Allowance as a result of mental health difficulties. Whilst both the Troubled Families programme and local Work Programme have sought to engage with these adults, the rising number of ESA claimants indicates that there is still further work to be done in this area.

1. Financial support for families where neither parent works

Changes in entitlements to welfare benefits over the next two years are likely to mean that families where neither parent works will be worse off. There is currently no local Welfare Assistance Scheme and there is likely to be increased pressure on Discretionary Housing payments going forward

1. Local authority sites for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller families. 

There are no local authority owned and run sites for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller families.  This effectively means that there is no equivalent to affordable, social housing for this group. The only sites available are privately run so are the equivalent to being in the private, rented sector.

Recommendations for consideration by commissioners

None provided.