Council will continue to focus on reducing the numbers of children living in poverty

Through its new Child Poverty Strategy for 2022 to 2030, Sefton Council will continue to focus on reducing the numbers of children living in poverty, families with no qualifications or skills training, young people aged 16-17 who are not in education, employment, or training and families who are unemployed and in receipt of out of work benefits.

It also aims to reduce the impact of fuel poverty on families, increase the amount of affordable housing across the Borough and raise average household incomes.

Introducing the Strategy at today’s Sefton Council Cabinet meeting, Cllr Trish Hardy who is Cabinet Member for Communities and Housing said:
“Tackling childhood poverty is key to us achieving all our priorities and should be squarely at the centre of everything we do, and this is the next step in the work we have been doing since 2015 on welfare reform and anti-poverty.

“The facts in this Strategy are sobering and the number of children in our Borough at risk or in poverty is frightening.

“But it doesn’t have to be like that. In the 1990s and 200s under a Labour Government we demonstrated how you can lift children out of poverty.

“It’s a political choice that been inflicted on our children and we know that all of the life expectations of children in poverty are limited by their experiences which they have personal control over.

“It makes me sick.

“As a council we can’t change it, but we can do our damnedest to minimise the impact of poverty on the children we have a responsibility to in this Borough.”

The Strategy says that Sefton Council is committed to increasing opportunity in employment and education and supporting the most vulnerable members of its communities.

It also says the Council will take a collaborative and evidence-based approach to achieving that and they ways in which investment is targeted.

Sefton Council will continue working closely with partners in the voluntary sector, health, trade unions, further education facilities and community groups.

Cllr Hardy added:
“We are committed to honouring the pledges we have made as corporate parents to children in our care and those who are leaving care.”