Government unveils new measures to tackle child poverty and increase social mobility » Housing » 24dash.com

A package of new initiatives to help families and end child poverty as part of a renewed drive to increase social mobility will be announced by Children's Secretary Ed Balls, Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Yvette Cooper today.

The announcement of the pilot measures come ahead of a speech on social mobility by the Prime Minister Gordon Brown this evening.

The Prime Minister will say that unleashing a new wave of social mobility must be the driving ambition of the Government.

The new measures aim to put some of the poorest children on the path to success, delivering prosperity and fairness for hard-working families that play by the rules and breaking cycles of poverty once and for all.

The pilots will build on already successful initiatives - such as offering new services in children's centres as well as testing new approaches to improving families' incomes.

They include:

• A new Child Development Grant of around £200 will be available to low income parents with children under the age of five in 10 local authorities from early 2009. Parents who take up services such as their free entitlement childcare places and work with children's centre staff to take agreed action to support their child's development and improve their families' wellbeing, could be eligible. £12.75m will be available through this pilot.
• Children in couple households are 60% less likely to be in poverty when both parents are working than if neither parent works. The current In-Work Credit pilots will be expanded to provide financial incentives for both parents to move into work as well as providing tailored work-related support. Over £5m will be available for this pilot.
• Help in children's centres in Preston and Newham for parents to better understand and claim tax credits - to support families with everyday costs and childcare costs.
• £7.6m for 30 Children's Centres across 10 Local Authorities to offer enhanced work-focused services, helping parents with training and work experience to boost their confidence, skills and support them to enter and progress in work.
• Funding will be made available to extend the London Childcare Affordability pilots and find new ways of making childcare more affordable for these families so that parents can enter work.
• Up to £10m will be invested in incentives to help parents in London, in particular mums, to overcome constraints to returning to work, for example by helping them to overcome the high childcare and transport costs which act as particular barriers in the capital.
• Improved supported accommodation for teenage mothers by providing additional services to improve the health and development of their children, improve their parenting skills and support them with learning. Pilots are expected to begin in early 2009.
• At least £20m will be available through grants to local authorities to develop new and innovative approaches to tackle the causes and consequences of child poverty. The pilot areas will include remote rural areas, pockets of deprivation in otherwise affluent areas as well as deprived communities in inner cities. They will test out new approaches to support groups at particularly high risk of living in poverty including disabled children, Black and Minority ethnic and White working class families.

Depending on the success of the pilots in the first two years, there may be scope to extend or introduce additional pilots in year 3.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls said: "Child poverty blights the life chances of far too many children in our country which is why we are absolutely determined to end child poverty, stop poverty passing from one generation to the next and increase social mobility.

"Thanks to the measures we have taken over the last ten years we have lifted 600,000 children out of relative poverty, but we know there is more to do. That is why it is vital that we learn from these pilots and identify more ways to help families living in poverty.

"We have set an ambitious target to half child poverty by 2010 and eradicate it by 2020. Tackling child poverty is in everybody's interests and needs to be everybody's business. Together we can up the pace of change and meet our historic goal."

Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell said: "The greatest cause of child poverty is worklessness among parents - a child in a household where no one works can be up to 7 times more at risk of living in poverty than a child in a working family.

"These pilots will provide parents with the practical solutions they need to overcome the barriers that are stopping them for working and are central to helping us meet our target of eradicating child poverty completely by 2020."

Chief Secretary to HM Treasury Yvette Cooper said: "Over the next two years increased Child Benefit and Tax Credits will help take around half a million children out of poverty. But we also need to tackle the long-term causes of child poverty, and that is what these pilots are all about."

The Child Poverty Action Group said the proposals lack "the language and bold policies to strike at the heart of the problem".

Chief executive Kate Green said: "It is gross inequality that is the enemy of opportunity and social mobility. It is Britain's exceptional gap between the richest and poorest that has created a gulf that can no longer be navigated.

"Our national ambition must be to end the damaging culture of inequality that has Britain in its grip more than almost every other wealthy country."

The plans include 30 children's centres which will be set up in 10 areas of the UK, offering parents training and work experience.