Concern over lack of guidance for councils on reducing child poverty
Joe Lepper
Friday, May 6, 2011
Councils are crying out for central government guidance to help them reduce levels of child poverty, the Local Government Group has found.
A study of 43 child poverty partnership members across nine areas has highlighted concern about the lack of government direction surrounding local authority child poverty duties.
The Local Authority Progress in Tackling Child Poverty report, commissioned by the LG Group and carried out by the National Foundation for Educational Research, found that as well as guidance on tackling poverty in austere financial conditions, councils wanted more direction on how to identify and bring together different sources of funding.
The report added that partnership members wanted advice on ensuring initiatives provide value for money and help with presenting business cases.
Most of the respondents to the study said they had decided to focus on specific families rather than area-wide child poverty initiatives.
A spokesman for the Child Poverty Action Group said: "The message from the coalition has been for councils to decide for themselves and not to have central government guidance. But if councils are saying they cannot move forward without support then the government should listen."
The Child Poverty Act 2010 placed legal obligations on councils to tackle child poverty, which include completing an assessment of local need and a joint strategy through child poverty partnerships.
The previous Labour government had consulted on draft guidance around the new duties but this was shelved after the coalition came to power.
A Department for Education spokeswoman dismissed calls for guidance on aligning budgets. She said: "In line with its recently published Child Poverty Strategy, the government is supporting local areas to look at new and innovative ways of pooling budgets, commissioning and delivering services through initiatives such as community budgets, social return on investment and payment-by-results.
"The government believes that local issues are best dealt with by local people delivering local solutions."