Government outlines child poverty initiatives

Prime minister Gordon Brown has announced a series of new pilots to combat child poverty. The pilots progress the idea of a two-way commitment or ‘contract out of poverty’, through supporting and rewarding families to take an active role in improving their families’ incomes today and their outcomes now and in the future. The government is also looking for lessons from beyond the UK and are learning from Opportunity NYC, a project that applies these principles with families in the poorest boroughs in New York.

They will help to inform and shape future policy to meet a range of key challenges:
• improving children’s outcomes, through offering one-off child development grants to low income parents who take up early years entitlements and other services;
• supporting families at risk by extending the Families Intervention Projects to support more of the poorest families with complex needs, and improving housing support for teenage parents;
• increasing employment, through offering enhanced work-focused services in Children’s Centres, piloting an in-work credit for second earners and partners of Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) claimants, expanding the London Childcare Affordability Pilots, and developing incentives for parents in London to return to work;
• improving financial support, through offering tax credit advice in Children’s Centres to help parents make claims for tax credits and keep their awards up to date, and
• utilising and encouraging local leadership and expertise, through the Local Innovation Pilots, enabling local authorities to develop innovative new approaches in their areas.