Agenda item

The Committee considered the report of the Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Services that provided Members on the progress of the Child Poverty Working Group (CPWG) in addressing the impact of poverty on children, young people and their families in County Durham since the last update in January 2022 (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

The Social Inclusion Operations Manager and Research and Consultation Officer were in attendance to present the report and deliver a presentation (for copy of presentation, see file of minutes).

The presentation provided Members with details of the vision for the Child Poverty Working Group and a demonstration of the Durham Insight web site that provided access to information, data and research about what it is like to live in County Durham. Members were also provided with details of the priorities, additional support and next steps.

The Research and Consultation Officer provided members with a demonstration of the data held on Durham insights website. The poverty dashboard provided information relating to child poverty, free school meals eligibility, universal credit, household income and deprivation 2019. Members were advised that the current cost of living crisis would not be captured until March 2023 and not be reflected in the data until spring 2024. Members learned that free school meals eligibility linked to the deprivation data and indicated that 29.6% of pupils in County Durham were eligible for free school meals but only 75% of those eligible were actually taking a free school meal. 

Councillor Gunn thanked officers for a detailed report and made a number of comments on the child poverty situation and congratulated staff on the work done to enhance the lives of children and families across County Durham. She applauded the partnership work with the voluntary sector and indicated the levelling up was not just about infrastructure but was also about children and families and creating situations where they can have aspirations. She suggested that grants be provided to children and provided details of a child that was part of the British Team for Taekwondo, but he had to subsidise this himself and a grant would be helpful.

Councillor Townsend referred the data around the cost of living crisis that would not be shown until 2024 and the statistics were getting worse. She stated that child poverty had increased by 3% across County Durham from 2019 to 2021 and it was clear from the data that more children were living in child poverty than in previous years and some areas of the county had consistently higher levels of child poverty. Children with special educational needs and disabilities were representative in those child poverty measures, and it was important that all members knew and heard those facts and tried to do what they could and asked if there was a message that councillors could give to MPs.

The Member was advised that the Officer would get back to her with regard to lobbying on poverty. She then advised that the Department of Education did not want to fund holiday activities during half term holidays, but she would take this away and have a broader conversation.

In response to a question from Councillor Walton on why there was a lag in the data, the Officer indicated that it was a national data set that needed to be processed and was not the Council’s data.

Councill Hunt indicated that the cost of childcare swallowed up any additional income, the current childcare offer was for thirty hours and if parents wanted to be proactive and work longer could Durham County Council look at increasing the childcare offer for families who wanted to work full time but found it difficult to fund.

The Officer responded that she would take Councillor Hunt’s comments back.

Mrs Gunn commented that some parents could and may wish to contribute to some of the activities provided.

The Officer responded that the facilities were fully inclusive, and they used the data to target areas where free school meals were provided but every child had access to the fun with food programme activities.

Resolved: That the contents of the report be noted.