England

A glimpse inside many of the country’s homes tells you what poverty looks like in England: rising damp, too few clothes for cold weather, children sharing a mattress on the floor.

We see flats without cookers and parents who go without so their children have enough to eat.

A family of eleven share a two bedroomed house. This room is shared by a mother and four of her six children. The walls are in disrepair and are mouldy.

• Nearly 1 in 3 children in England live in poverty.
• In parts of London and Manchester, more than a quarter of children live in severe poverty.
• In 2010 we spent £1.8 million to help children and their families in England.

The challenges

Children tell us what poverty means to them: they’re bullied because their clothes aren’t right; they feel helpless that their parents can’t get a job.

"Even the 7- and 8-year-olds know when their mum’s run out of money," says Sally Copley, our UK Head of Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns and Head of England. "Kids see everything. They watch their parents struggling."

England has one of the worst rates of child poverty in the industrialised world.

In parts of London and Manchester, more than a quarter of children live in severe poverty.

In Bethnal Green, minutes away from the City of London’s billions, more than half of children live in poverty.

But child poverty is a problem in every part of England.

Even in affluent areas, such as Cambridgeshire and Berkshire, one in ten live in poverty.

From the earliest age – before they turn two – there are differences in rates of learning and development between children from poor families and those from families that are better-off.

By the time children are 16 the gap is even wider, with the poorest children only half as likely to get good GCSEs as their classmates.

Children are victims of a financial crisis they did not create.

What we’ve achieved

Across England our programmes are tackling child poverty directly, family by family, in some of the country’s poorest communities.

At the highest levels of government we press for significant policy change.

• Our pioneering Families and Schools Together (FAST) programme, launched in 2010, is helping children get a good start at school by bringing parents into the classroom through a two-year programme. In our pilot projects, children did better academically, behaved better in the classroom, and had better relations with their peers and families. Parents felt more confident about helping their children with their schoolwork.
• In My Back Yard brings young people and families into the political picture. In Newham, east London, parents with disabled children organised a ‘One Voice for Parents’ event to discuss obstacles in caring for disabled children. The event was attended by the Minister for Disabled People, Maria Miller MP, Stephen Timms MP and representatives of the Department for Work and Pensions. Many of the parents’ recommendations were included in new government plans for the disability living allowance, and some were invited to sit on a new advisory group on disability.
• In Westminster, a group of 9- and 10-year-olds worked with Westminster City Council on a workshop and leaflet showing people how to save money on electricity and gas bills, and be environmentally friendly. Young people in Bradford are successfully campaigning for better youth support services and cheaper school uniforms.
• As a result of our lobbying in the run-up to this year’s budget and the publication of the government’s first child poverty strategy, many of our points, including a clear measure of severe child poverty, have been adopted.
• Our Shout is a Save the Children project based in Bradford, made up of young people aged 13-18 who have been campaigning tirelessly for the past three years to end child poverty in the UK on a local, regional and national level.

 

What’s urgent now

We were delighted that the Child Poverty Act came into effect in March 2010 – a major victory for us and other child poverty campaigners.

Now we need to see it delivered.

Our UK Poverty Rip-Off report shows that low-income families pay up to £1,280 more for basic goods and services than better-off families.

And recent cuts in childcare support from the government are hitting low and middle-income families hard.

If the government is to meet its own legally binding target it needs to reduce the numbers of children in poverty now – including cutting the numbers of children in severe poverty by at least 190,000 in 2011.

It also needs to help families struggling with some of the most expensive childcare in the world.

You can help

Affordable childcare for Britain's poorest families is crucial if they're to work themselves out of poverty.

Ask your MP to call on the Chancellor to make childcare affordable for all.

Find out more

• Read Telling it like it is
• Read The UK Poverty Rip-Off: The poverty premium 2010

Contact us
Our work taking place in England is managed from our Farringdon, London office. 

London Team
Chris MacArthur
Finance and Administration Officer
020 7012 6606 email: c.macarthur@savethechildren.org.uk

North of England Team
Helen Ingham (tbc)
Finance and Administration Officer
0161 249 5130 email: h.ingham@savethechildren.org.uk