CYP Now - NCB NOW: Comment - Child poverty: we must no longer look the other way

Those of us working with children and families see at first hand the impact of child poverty. It is not just that some families have less income: poverty is the chief cause of the inequalities that children in Britain face. Poor children go to poor schools. They live in poor areas, have poor play facilities and receive poorer health services. Children of poor families have a much higher mountain to climb if they are to succeed as adults.

You might expect that, in an affluent Western society, this would cause public outrage. Yet opinion polls show we care about tax, about transport, about crime levels, about the NHS - but not about child poverty.

This lack of concern is frequently reflected in the media. Last December, in his pre-budget statement, the Chancellor allocated a further £1 billion to increasing child tax credit, thus redistributing money towards the poorest families. Most newspapers ignored this announcement, perpetuating the notion that poor families do not really exist: they are just a figment of voluntary sector imagination.

Just before Christmas, the Department of Work and Pensions announced a revised way of measuring child poverty. The Department will continue to look at relative income, and chart how many families live on less than 60 per cent of average income. But it will also measure absolute poverty - the numbers of families living below a specific income level. And it will start to measure, for the first time, actual deprivation - the number of families who cannot afford to take children on holiday, or to buy two pairs of outside shoes.

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