Liverpool reassesses child poverty plan

Liverpool's regional cabinet has approved a revised life chances needs assessment produced by the Liverpool City Region’s Child Poverty and Life Chances Commission, because of emerging evidence that suggests more families are relying on food banks since the original plan was published in 2011.

The commission's report found more children are living in workless households and with fuel poverty – it identified a deficit of 90,000 jobs in the area.

It also predicts the problem will escalate in the future; a £162m reduction in welfare spending is expected to affect families in the area in 2013/14.

The plan highlights figures published in February by the Campaign to End Child Poverty that showed two of the region’s local authorities, Liverpool and Knowsley, were within the top 20 local authorities with the highest levels of child poverty in the country.

Rob Tabb, city region strategy and implementation manager at Knowsley Council, which leads on child poverty, life chances and employment skills for the city region, said that while the original plan "was in the right place", support for improving children and families' economic wellbeing needed speeding up.

“When we looked at the needs assessment, we realised we had made a number of improvements around raising the life chances of children and young people," explained Tabb.