26,565 or 35.3% of children and young people between 0-19 years living in Leicester currently live within the official definition of child poverty.
Many more families experience low income and the challenges that this brings.
Further details can be found in the city council's initial Leicester City Child Poverty Needs Assessment, which can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.
These children and young people are at risk of poor outcomes, reduced life chances and life expectancies. The poorest outcomes for children and young people are correlated with persistent poverty.
Child Poverty Conference
On Friday 25 May the Leicester Child Poverty Commission will host a major conference to bring together all those in the city, and from beyond, with an interest in tackling child poverty. Find out more about the Child Poverty Conference and book your place.
Purpose of the Commission
The Leicester Child Poverty Commission has been established by the City Mayor and Cabinet of the city council to identify the local causes of child poverty and identify strategies to tackle and ultimately eliminate this.
Leicester City Council will take the findings of the Commission into consideration as it develops policy and makes budget decisions.
Read our press release on the new Commission.
What the Commission will do?
1. The Commission will address Leicester's specific challenges, identify best practice and devise effective policy solutions and establish relationships and working practices to implement these.
2. The Commission will itself provide (and commission as required) authoritative analysis of the factors driving child poverty in Leicester and on the impact of child/ family poverty on different areas, groups and communities across the city.
3. The Commission will evaluate the effectiveness of current national anti-child poverty policies in Leicester and advise upon changes required.
4. The Commission will advise upon best practice examples of evidence-based early intervention initiatives to identify and address child poverty, its causes and effects.
5. The Commission will identify new approaches to improving the life chances of children and families in poverty in Leicester and breaking cycles of deprivation through the deployment of public services and public, private and voluntary sector partnerships.
6. The Commission will report on a timely basis to the City Mayor, Cabinet and city council on progress in tackling Child Poverty.
7. The Commission will monitor & evaluate policy developments at a regional and national level as act an advocate and voice for the people of Leicester on the likely impact of future government economic and social policy decisions.
Who are the Commissioners?
All Commissioners are appointed for a period of two years in the first instance.
All Commissioners have a keen interest and commitment to tackling and eradicating child and family poverty and provide a wide range of experience and expertise.
The Commission will sit until 2015 and is supported by the Office of the Deputy City Mayor.
The initial Commissioners appointed to carry out this work are:
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Rory Palmer, Deputy City Mayor
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Councillor Vi Dempster, Assistant Mayor for Children and Young People
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Imran Hussain, Head of Policy, Rights and Advocacy, Child Poverty Action Group
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Jon Ashworth, Member of Parliament for Leicester South
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Mandy Ashton, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Health and Life Sciences at De Montfort University
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Rachel Dickinson, Strategic Director for Children's Services, Leicester City Council.
Baroness Professor Ruth Lister, Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at Loughborough University, will serve as a senior advisor to the Commission.
Receiving evidence
Stakeholder groups / experts will be invited to present evidence / be cross-examined as part of the Commission's work, or drawn into specific pieces of work stemming from the main Commission.
The Commission's partners
The Commission will also seek input from statutory partners, trades unions and neighbourhood representatives as required.
Statutory partners are:
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Leicestershire Police (under a statutory duty to co-operate)
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Youth Offending Service (under a statutory duty to co-operate)
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Transportation partner (under a statutory duty to co-operate)
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Job Centre Plus (under a statutory duty to co-operate).
Support for the Commission
The Commissioners will be supported by the Office of the Deputy City Mayor and the Divisional Directors of Leicester City Council as required.
Governance of the Commission
The Commission will meet at least four times a year in full session.
Further thematic sector and research work will be conducted in accordance with the above objectives. This will utilise social networking and web based technologies to facilitate operation, raise awareness of their work and seek feedback upon their findings.
Supporting documents
Download and read Leicester city's initial Child Poverty Needs Assessment PDF document from oneleicester.com. You'll need Adobe Reader, which can be downloaded from the Adobe website*.
*Leicester City Council is not responsible for any software downloaded to your computer.
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