Lessons for children's leaders from government ethnicity audit

The data highlights what many who work in the children's sector already know: children from minority ethnic backgrounds are more likely to experience disadvantage and are more likely to have to live with the consequences that go with it. This means growing up poor, developing childhood obesity, starting school behind their peers and then tragically heading along the so called "school to prison pipeline".

While much of the data focuses on adults, the findings serve as a reminder for children's leaders over the extent that race can affect children's life chances.

It has been well documented that child poverty levels are rising. But what is particularly stark from the assembled ethnicity data - published on a new government website called Ethnicity Facts and Figures - is that disproportionately high numbers of black and Asian children are growing up in poverty - and for many it is persistent, deep poverty.