London Councils seeks freedom to tackle child poverty

16 June 2009 Ross Watson Early Years Social Care

The body that represents local authorities in London has called for greater freedom from central government and more funding to help councils meet their new duty to help eradicate child poverty.

The draft Child Poverty Bill was published last Friday, placing a duty on central and local government to eradicate child poverty in the UK by 2020.

London Councils' chairman Merrick Cockell welcomed the bill, but said: "Simply placing new duties on local authorities without providing corresponding resources to meet those duties would be a matter of passing the buck. Local authorities want to rise to this challenge - but we need the powers and funding to do it."

In its response to the Child Poverty Bill consultation, London Councils called for boroughs to have greater freedoms from government control around housing benefit, tackling worklessness and childcare, enabling authorities within the capital to better respond to local needs.

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