Shock Telford child poverty figures revealed
Monday 13th June 2011, 3:00PM BST.
A QUARTER OF all children in Telford & Wrekin are living in poverty – nearly double the proportion in the rest of Shropshire.
That is the shocking conclusion of a survey by the End Child Poverty campaign group which fights to give poor families a voice.
The group’s study revealed an average of 25 per cent of youngsters in Telford & Wrekin were living in poverty; nearly double the proportion across the rest of the county.
In one area, Woodside, the figure was more than half.
Children are defined as being in poverty if they live in homes with 60 per cent less than the UK mid-income level which latest figures put at £25,948. The figures were recorded last year.
Telford man John Houghton, whose son Mark, 18, hanged himself last September, said the statistic which shocked him particularly was that one in six children in poor families consider suicide.
Mr Houghton, of Hurleybrook Way, Leegomery, said: “Poverty increases the risks children face from effects to their health, getting in-volved with drugs, crime, alcohol, adverse effects to their education and their mental health. There is clearly a link between these statistics and the Index of Multiple Deprivation.”
The End Child Poverty figures show the worst child poverty levels in Telford & Wrekin were in Woodside, followed by Malinslee at 43 per cent, Cuckoo Oak at 42 per cent, Brookside and Haygate at 38 per cent and Donnington at 34 per cent.
The lowest levels were in Edgmond at five per cent and Apley Castle at six.
In north Shropshire the highest levels of poverty were in Market Drayton East at 26 per cent.
Councillor Paul Watling, Telford & Wrekin Council’s cabinet member for children and young people, said: “Deprivation has been a key issue in the borough for a long time and Telford & Wrekin Council and its partners have been focused for many years on tackling the root causes of it, but there is no quick fix.”
Councillor Aggie Caesar-Homden, Shropshire Council cabinet member for children and young people’s services, said: “The council is working extremely hard with partners to support children who are living in difficult circumstances.”
By Simon Hardy
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This statistic still puzzles me.
With child tax credit, child benefit and a raft of other benefits available to both working and non-working parents such as council tax benefit, housing benefit, free dental and medical care, working tax credit, income based job seekers allowance, etc., etc., I cannot see how a child can be living in poverty if its parent(s) share the income out and the child receives that proportion of money that the state has deemed is needed specifcally for the child.
Of course, it may be that parents are spending childrens’ money on things that don’t benefit their children – drink, tatoos, cigarettes, or whatever (I really don’t know) – and therefore depriving their children of essentials and putting them into poverty. But in this case, the poverty is not a reflection of lack of financial hand-outs, it’s indicative of a lack of parental responsibility and care.
I’m not ctiricising (at this point), just wondering where all the hand-outs actually end up and happy for other commentators to tell me.
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I’d assume that the ‘living in poverty’ tag is applied pre-benefits. So tax credits, child benefit etc should make the childs life better, but without these benefits they would be in poverty.
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So that means that they’re not actually in poverty then?
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It then would depend on what is done with the money they receive, if collected.If they have debt or other expenditures then naturaly this would consume the money.
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Rodney, I work full time and have children. I receive very little benefit due to this. I agree that some families do not prioritise what money is spent on and this is definitely a cause for concern. However, the Government is quite happy to pay peanuts to hard working taxpayers and do everything they can for the lazy.
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I agree with you Andy, although rather than working people also being on benefits, I’d prefer that the tax threshold was raised to take many of these workers out of tax altogether.
There is no sense in workers paying tax and then getting it given back in benefits – creates a layer of administration that’s not necessary.
Simply let workers keep more of the money that they earn in the first place.
By raising the threshold to, say, £10,000, whilst reducing or scrapping benefits, that would allow hard workers to not need to claim benefit and lazy non-workers would find their lifestyles seriously diminished and *may* be inclined to take job-searching more seriously.
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If these children are living in poverty then it seems reasonable to immediately prosecute parents that are allowing them to live in these horrific conditions. As Rodney said above with all the financial help, free housing, free council tax etc. there is no excuse. If parents do smoke, drink, gamble etc. then they must be prosecuted!
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If as Squire suggest you prosecute the parents, then what punishment are you going to impose? A fine perhaps, or by sending them to prison.
How will this help the child?
If you must make suggestions, then please think them through…..
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Birch them! Hard.
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And every day until they learn!
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tell it to the government that are wasting 100′s of millions of uk taxpayers money on forign aid while at the same time watching their own population live in poverty as bills rise,homes are lost & yet more & more immigrants are allowed into the country & given benefits & homes.
£814 million wasted just for forign vaccines.
not to mention the multi-billions of taxpayers money wasted helping warmonger bush & now obama annihilate the western world.
tell it to prince charles,who in his own words “is all in favour of human depopulation”.
it’s ok though,as the powers that be are planning on causing ww3 between now & 2019,their already attacking the west.
china & russia & the western world vs europe/usa.
that way they the get the depopulation they want & also helps their plan of making a 1 world government NWO.
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@ Keneth
….errrr, you forgot to mention the Illuminati and the Lizard People…..
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It’s all very well Rob of Telford mocking Keneth but where do you think all the money goes. The Bildebergers have just had their annual meeting in Switzerland to decide on policy for the coming year. Whether to continue the war in Libya or extend it to include Syria and Iran and push to oil prices further still. They profit from all side. The cost of oil increases and so do their profits, the provision of aid to third world countries benefits their companies and the continuance of these wars make a constant market for arms and ammunition. We are all being conditioned to accept the New World Order as a means to ending these problem but only then when a few of the elite are in control will we really know suffering.
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@ William de Berger
First we mock you, then we’ll crush you under our scaley feet. Then we’ll eat the more appetising of you as canapes at one of our regular little get togethers (it’s no joke chewing those bits of cheese and pineapple on sticks when you’ve got a forked tongue).
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Think Keneth has been at the tabloids.
And as Europe & USA are in the Western World how that going to declare war on themselves….
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@ Lizard Man. (Sorry, this is as close as I can get to you blog to reply)
Could you not start by eating the poor, the unemployed, those on or about the poverty line. Apparently there’s a good supply if you look in the right places.
Just a thought.
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@Buskerman
Don’t think we didn’t try, but I mentioned in my earlier comment we prefer the more appetising specimens rather than the malnourished, vegans who live on a purely organic diet tend to be particularly toothsome – their young taste very much like veal….
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@ Lizard Man.
Since when did reptiles become so picky!
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@ Green
Since we became your masters…
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‘£814 million wasted just for forign vaccines’
How can money spent on vaccination, regadless of the source of that money, be regarded as ‘wasted’? Surely you’re in favour of vaccinating people against illnesses? We have the luxury of vaccination against so many illnesses, whilst elsewhere in the world, people, many of them children, die of what we would regard as trivial illnesses.
Whatever we spend on foreign aid, it is dwarfed by the £120bn per annum we simply give to the wealthiest people in the country by way of tax loopholes – please try and put this into perspective!
I don’t mind subsidising the poor, but I’m very unhappy that we are continually forced to subsidise the rich to such an extent.
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Where does that figure of 120bn come from? at a tax rate of 50% that would imply that these individuals are earning 240bn per year? that sounds unlikely to me. That figure probably refers to multinational corporates.
Also, if ‘the rich’ do not give as much of their money to you as you would like, how does this mean that you are subisdising them?
Remember that tax is the use of force and the threat of physical violence to a person in order to take away their honestly earned income.
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Keneth, I hate to say it, but I agree with you!!!
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Hmm..how is this figure arrived at ? Is this a measure of poverty , or is it some calculation based on the average incomes in the area etc ?
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“A QUARTER OF all children in Telford & Wrekin are living in poverty – nearly double the proportion in the rest of Shropshire.”
A pretty dreadful statistic – but the same report shows that one third of children in the UK live in poverty so at least Telford’s figures are better than the national average.
I do wish people wouldn’t use statistics in a misleading way.
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Again from that report – the figure of 30% or about 1 in 3 for the UK is the same as in 1998. Shameful that the situation hasn’t improved, but no shock-horror headline about things getting worse either.
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… also this report came out in March of this year. Three months late with the news? I suppose it’s better than the tale of someone who got overcharged in Asda by 2p or whatever ‘some years ago’.
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Ah, a definition. In the report referred to, they are looking at children in families where the reported income is below 60% of the median UK income (median = midpoint between highest and lowest).
To be included in the poverty figures, children also have to be in a family receiving either out of work benefits, or in-work tax credits.
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With that definition we’ll never get rid of poverty. Maybe a better definition is required ?
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“it seems reasonable to immediately prosecute parents”
The figures merely report how much income is coming in to homes with children. It doesn’t say a word about how it is spent. So, prosecute parents for having low incomes?????
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Absolutely prosecute “parents”,(parent more over), for having children born into certain poverty.
People should not be allowed to have children if they are unable to support them or prove themselves capeable of having them in the first place.
We have a situation in this country where the morally bound, working class family, struggles to bring up decent children. Whilst on the other side of the street, the great-unwashed underclass, plop them out in conveyor like fashion in order to access their state provided “wage”.
It wont be long before we have the pleasure of a fourth generation of lay-abouts. Tought the finer arts of asking for benefits with one hand whislt the other hand is steals your wallet and mugs your granny.
It about time the idle British got of their backsides and started working for a living again. Otherwise the only thing “Great” left in Britian, will be a stinking flock of the unwashed.
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Gringo says “Absolutely prosecute “parents”,(parent more over), for having children born into certain poverty”.
I’m sure I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong but I thought you had to be 16years of age to be prosecuted?
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“plop them out in conveyor like fashion in order to access their state provided “wage”
HA! HA! I love that description!!!!!!
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look at that labour have just got in to telford and already they have ruined the figures for children
down with labour, they make your children poor
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@ blue boy
It’s a shame that central government have no influence on policies that affect levels of poverty – I’m sure that nice Mr Cameron and his ex-Etonian chums would do everything they could to improve the situation – what do you think?
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You just haven’t got the same delivery as Tory Boy, get him back please mr moderator
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This report and figures were actually completed last summer. But here there is a clear link between Child Poverty and the Index of Multiple Deprivation.
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normally i would jump on the band wagon here and assume its the parents fault. but i’m currently in this position myself.
My husband lost his self employed income back in nov 2010 and due to having being self employed and myself being classed as working full-time (24hrs per wk) we are not entilted to benefits or help with our mortgage, i say any we get council tax beneift. Even with this it has still put us under the governments workings of what our family needs to live on by £70 per wk in poverty.
thats alot of money with 3 kids to look after, a mortgage etc.
We don’t drink or smoke or even socialise. the only time we would get any help is when we have lost everything and we are sleeping on the street.
Guess being a hard working british family doesn’t pay these days.
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But you now are no longer a hard working family ? you will be tarred with the same brush through no fault of your own
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Your situation is dreadful, but according to Kath at 8, as you’re not receiving benefits, then you’re not officially living in poverty!
Once again, it shows that it’s best to stay at home and not look for work than to work and then fall victim to recession. The state would pay you the benefits that you mention if you had not worked for ages, (or ever!), but as you tried to improve yourself in the past, they’re not interested.
Time to turn things around.
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I do not believe any of these surveys.
The result depends on exactly what outcome you wish the survey to prove.
Having travelled through out the world and seen poverty most people in the UK donot know what poverty really is.
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I’ve also travelled and seen poverty in other parts of the world. What we cannot do is compare poverty here to poverty in other countries. How much poverty in other countries is through corruption, tax avoidance etc. You have a very shallow view.
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seeing as most of the population of telford is on benefits is it any suprise that their kids are poor?
simply solution peeps – GET A JOB!!
go on
on ur bike
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“seeing as most of the population of telford is on benefits”
I see your grasp of facts is on a par with your (or should that be “ur”) command of the English language!
PS What the hell are “peeps”?
PPS It’s Baron Tebbit of Chingford – please keep up!
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Of course our poverty is not the same as third world poverty alas though we are not a third world so why any poverty?.As for do I wish to vaccinate the world no my country’s people come first during hard times.Unless these country’s wish us to enter them and run them as we see fit just to ensure that corruption in their own country is removed.
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Must be a poor place Telford. I’m pleased to live in a posh place called Shrewsbury.
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…not half as pleased as we are!!
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That is great!!! Ha! HA!
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And the poor people of Telford are also glad that you live in Shrewsbury.
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Genuinely feels that the rest of Shropshire, especial Shrewsbury, has a growing jealousy problem with Telford.
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Yes,
I really envy you for your overpriced houses, your Town Centre gridlock, your higher crime rate (according to Police statistics).
But mostly I’m just happy that someone with the nasty mean-spirited right-wing views you espouse doesn’t live in the same town as me…
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I have said this over and over again.
The provision of benefits in cash is very easy to abuse ie using family tax credits etc for luxuries of life ie alcohol, cigarettes and gambling.
If people are dependent on benefits they should be paid in vouchers.
ie
Voucher for food
Voucher for energy
Voucher for clothing
and this should only be exchanged for the above and for the designated people who would benefit for them.
Vouchers for children clothes, food etc
No provision should be given for vouchers to be used on alcohol or tobacco this would force the unemployed who are able to work, to eventually work if onloy to enjoy the pleasures of alochol and tobacco once again.
A very simple solution if I may say so myself
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I agree.
And the voucher scheme should be extended to all people.
All wages should be paid in vouchers.
This way, the government could make sure everyone gets their 5-a-day and lives an enforced healthy lifestyle.
It’s the very simplest solution of all.
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“A very simple solution if I may say so myself”
Indeed – so simple it could have been thought up by a very spiteful child.
Apart from the obvious question of how you would prevent the products purchased with these vouchers being traded illicitly for cash, what right do you have to treat everyone in receipt of state aid, however deserving, as though they are a criminal?
Why not go the whole hog and reintroduce the workhouse – there might be a few administrative problems, for example provision for workers in receipt of Family Tax Credit who live away from home during the week, but I’m sure company barracks could be made available for them (and indeed their families – make them work as well).
As for the very young and the old and infirm, well, they’re not very productive are they?
Who was it said “work makes you free” (better known in German as “Arbeit Macht Frei”)?
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And what about the vouchers for “unique” butterfly tattoos on their shoulder for the girls and England tattoos for the lads?
Let’s not forget baccy vouchers and beer tokens.
Vouchers for terrier dogs.
Vouchers for Greggs pies.
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Could not agree more about vouchers. I work in a fincancial institution and the number of people coming to collect their benefits at christmas to fund a shopping expedition for the childrens presents (wi consoles, nintendos, tvs for their bedrooms) was amazing.Don’t get me wrong I don’t expect anybody to not buy presents for their kids but I have worked hard all my life and when I struggled after ending up on my own with the children they had to make do with sensible presents not ones paid for by the state (or us hardworking tax payers).My children have also worked (for pocket money when young) once they were old enough to fund their own luxuries. After all what is poverty? Having to go without sky tv maybe!!!!
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Rob Telford, I have been studying the Holocaust for many years and have visited all the Nazi death camps.
Oswiecim. In German, Auschwitz,The camps name is KL Auschwitz 1. The sign over the main entrance gate reads,
“WORK BRINGS FREEDOM”
Peter. Over priced houses! So you can’t afford to live in Shrewsbury then?
Low crime rate! Have you been reading the Shropshire Star lately?
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John,
I pity you if you cannot see the anti-Telford vein that runs through the Shropshire Star like a stick of rock. The facts, fortunately, say something different.
Fortunately I can afford to live in Shrewsbury, but I prefer the green open spaces of Telford to the crowded traffic-filled streets of Shrewsbury.
I’m assuming that you may have only visited Telford Town centre, rather than the many other attractive parts of the town to live in – you really do need to get out more.
I live in a lovely big house, with many trees and open countryside a short walk away. We have housemartins who regularly nest in a couple of houses around us, and many other wild birds, including geese flying over on a daily basis, and even a visiting heron. It’s a good place to live.
I can cycle to my place of work – or even walk at a pinch. I’m in easy reach of the motorway should I wish to travel further.
I appreciate that you and facts are almost total strangers, but the facts about crime rates in Telford and Shrewsbury are here: http://www.police.uk/ – Shrewsbury has a slightly higher crime rate than Telford – fact.
You tell us that you have visited Nazi death camps. And yet you’ve also previously said you vote BNP. You may have studied the topic for years – but you’ve clearly learned nothing – unless, of course, like the leader of your chosen party, you deny the Holocaust ever happened?
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Whilst you’re all criticising and wondering why parents who get free this, that and the other have poverty sticken children perhaps one of you could point out where in the article it states the parents of these children are all dole dossing drug users?
No? Cant find it? That would be because you’ve all jumped to conclusions instead of reading the facts
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“The sign over the main entrance gate reads,
“WORK BRINGS FREEDOM””
Really? Why in English, I wonder.
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I have obtained a copy of this report and studied it very closely it is full of half-truths and the satistics are at least 3 years old. The current figure as stated in the SS is a guess for mid-2010.
The complete report is a scare monering piece of work that requires very close questioning.
I have written to Simon Hardy Shropshire Star and requested that he clarify much of the report as it appears to me his report that he quotes from is different to mine.
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obtained a copy – sounds like you’ve been a pi – its in the public forum, simply go to a website.
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I think they should just be plugged in like on the Matrix
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Poor John. Obtained as in printed from the website.Sorry I can only use olde english.
You will be telling next that BBC Panarama can be relied on for truth and reliability
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If you took time to read the State of te borough report, the IMD, both of which are prepared by, agreed to and signed by T&W Council, you would notice that the statistics mentioned in this report are in line completely with the reports I mention.
Instead, you would rather enter a plea of denial about poverty in the Borough and say stats can be made to read how you like.
Would you now suggest that T&w council are incorrect with their reports?
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PETER. Yes the Holocaust did happen, On visits to New York and Israel, I have seen the tattoos on the victims arms,and been inside the camp bathhouse known as “Saunas” in KL Auschwitz ll- Birkenau where they received them.
Kath. That is the English translation of the sign over the main entrance gate at KL Auschwitz l. Which reads “ARBEIT MACHT FREI” With the letter “B” upside down, there is a reason for this.
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