Winning the war on child poverty

We know that child poverty is associated with low educational achievement and that educational attainment is the best indicator of future income and health. The Welsh Government has two flagship schemes desgined to work towards reducing and eliminating poverty in Wales, known as "Communities First" and "Flying Start".

Communities First

Since becoming the Assembly Member for Swansea East in 2011, I’ve witnessed first-hand practical examples of Communities First programmes that have made a significant difference to the lives of many of my constituents. This has ranged from helping people find employment; helping people reduce their financial outgoings; to helping people improve their health and wellbeing.

Communities First supports the most disadvantaged people in our most deprived communities with the aim of contributing to alleviating persistent poverty especially inter-generational poverty.

The Welsh Government funded Communities First delivery teams work with residents, community organisations, business and other key agencies in the newly formed "clusters" and focus on actions leading to the long term sustainability and wellbeing of communities. It is based upon involving local people in all aspects of this work as an essential feature of the programme .Communities First aims to contribute to reducing the education/skills, economic and health gaps between the most deprived and more affluent areas in Wales. The pogramme has three strategic objectives helping to achieve these outcomes; these being "prosperous communities, learning communities and healthier communities".

The weakness is that each area is identified from its census data which can only be accessed at lower super output area level (LSOA).

These are a set of geographical areas developed following the census, initially to facilitate the calculation of the Indices of Deprivation. The problem is that where the area is not homogenous pockets of deprivation can be missed. Is there a better way of identifying areas of deprivation such as housing tenure and council tax banding because such relatively large areas as these can include both relative affluence and pockets of poverty?

Flying Start

Flying Start is a programme to create positive outcomes for children. The programme recognises that when some children start nursery school at three, they can be two years behind others in terms of development. 

It is incredibly difficult to reduce this gap over the eight years children are in primary education; this needs addressing before they start nursery school. The core elements of Flying Start are drawn from a range of actions that have been shown to create positive outcomes for children and their families. These include free quality part-time childcare for 2-3 year olds, an enhanced health visiting service, access to parenting programmes and early language development. The key is providing an opportunity for children to develop between 2 and 3 in such a way that they start school with development consistent with their chronological age.

Despite a change in the targeting approach from school catchment in phase 1 to LSOAs in phase 2 in Swansea, the model for the childcare continues to be located in Primary Schools (where possible) in order to achieve effective transition into the Foundation Phase.

This should make it easy for the benefits and impact to be identified. The criteria for identifying the Flying Start target areas is not the same as Communities First; Flying Start is based on the Income Benefit Household Data for 0-3 year olds in order to ensure that the programme is targeted effectively at young children.

To be eligible for Flying Start, the family or individual must meet certain criteria, such as being pregnant or have at least one child aged 0-3 years, and live within the catchment areas. First time parents or those who need particular help with parenting are identified through a health assessment, and appropriate support given for their needs. Again, this area based approach misses many children who live in areas outside the designated area who have the same or greater needs. It is imperative that action is taken to ensure that these children do not miss out.

 

My concerns...

Whilst the census area data catches most areas of poverty and children who need support, the problem occurs where there are either pockets of deprivation or more often where the boundary used is not a community boundary and so consequently an area alongside a porgramme area of equal or even greater need is missed.

I believe that either a greater flexibility is needed or that a better method of identifying those in need, especially for Flying Start, must be found. We owe it to our children to ensure that they all have an equal opportunity and that it does not become part of a post code lottery.