West’s new plan to tackle child poverty

A child poverty action plan for the West of England has been published today, with a nationally-significant opportunity for the authority to widen childcare access in the region.

The new plan – praised by anti-poverty campaigner and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Early Years Minister Olivia Bailey – coincides with a joint visit by council leaders and the Mayor to the Tynings Primary School in Staple Hill, home to one of the seven new/expanded nurseries in the West.

Full of measures to help tackle the cost of living; support children to grow, learn, and thrive; connect residents to opportunity; and pioneer new policy approaches, the new regional action plan complements the work of local councils and national government.

As well as setting up a new regional child poverty partnership chaired by the Mayor, bringing together action across sectors, the action plan includes:

• Using rare combined authority powers to widen Early Years provision, alongside creating a co-operative childcare staff bank
• Launching the Mayor’s VCSE Youth Guarantee Fund, backing the organisations who already know best how to reach and support young people to do that
• Getting more young people into work, training, or education, including through our £5 million Youth Guarantee, and focusing employment and skills support at low-income households alongside Return-to-Work bootcamps
• Creating a fund to deliver new jobs in the Everyday Economy, a key growth sector for the region, in the sectors that families rely on most
• Establishing a new distribution hub for essential items for families who need them most, particularly families in crisis, with plans set to come to January’s meeting of the Mayor and council leaders
• Building more affordable and social homes, using the Strategic Place Partnership with Homes England to accelerate delivery, and targeting retrofit funding for social housing
• Continuing Kids Go Free, following success this summer and its return this Christmas

Helen Godwin, Mayor of the West of England, said:

“While our recent economic growth is the best in the country, social mobility in parts of the West is among the worst. This means that children born here are less likely than others to ever escape poverty. That must change.
“Building on the government’s welcome decision to scrap the child benefit cap to lift 450,000 children out of poverty, our new regional action plan sets out what more we can do to help children and families – alongside our Growth Strategy to create 72,000 new jobs.
“Whether it’s Kids Go Free on our buses, widening access to childcare, or building more affordable and social homes, we are determined to make a real difference to people’s lives.
“Today, in Staple Hill, we saw the impact of the national expansion of nursery places. Our regional action plan sets out how we can build a better future where every child can have the best possible start in life.”

Anti-poverty campaigner and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said:

“The West of England’s child poverty action plan is the first of its kind and follows on from Helen Godwin’s successful campaign to highlight the needs of children in poverty. Helen deserves widespread support for her leadership, and compassion towards the children in her region, as she introduces these very welcome, new policies.”

Early Education Minister Olivia Bailey said:

“This action plan is a brilliant example of how mayors and councils can build on our national strategy to lift over half a million children out of poverty.
“Thousands of families across the West of England will benefit from free breakfast clubs, government-funded childcare, the removal of the two-child benefit cap and more, and we welcome this work to go even further so every child gets the best start in life.”

Councillor Kevin Guy, Leader of Bath & North East Somerset Council and Deputy Mayor of the West of England, said:

“Families are still feeling cost of living pressures. Partnership matters and this action will help us all go further and faster targeting support where it’s needed most and improving life chances for children across the region.” 

Councillor Tony Dyer, Leader of Bristol City Council, said:

“This plan is about making sure every child in the West of England has the chance to thrive. By widening access to childcare, backing youth organisations, and creating real opportunities for families, we’re tackling the root causes of poverty head-on. We are committed to delivering real change for the children who need it most.”

Councillor Ian Boulton, Co-Leader of South Gloucestershire Council; Cabinet Member for Education, Skills, Employment and Business; and Councillor for Staple Hill & Mangotsfield, said:

“Tackling child poverty will take the work of all local councils, working closely with national Government. By collaborating across our region we can make a real difference and this action plan sets out a number of important steps that we can take to improve local people’s lives.”

This follows the child benefit cap being scrapped by the Government in last month’s Budget, something campaigned for and welcomed by the West’s political leaders, which will lift 450,000 children out of poverty. The majority of children living in poverty are in families where at least one parent is working. Families across the West will be £23 million a year better off as a result. The national child poverty action plan sets an ambition to lift a further 100,000 children out of poverty.

The ambitious new regional action plan sets out the “proudly interventionist approach” promised, as a central part of the region’s new ten-year Growth Strategy. In a speech last month, the Mayor noted that around 67,000 children are currently living in poverty in the region – enough to fill Ashton Gate, the Mem, Twerton Park, and the Rec to capacity, with room still needed for another 5,000 kids.

Lois Haydon, Head Teacher at the Tynings Primary School, said:

“We were delighted to host Helen, Ian, and Christine today to support the launch of the child poverty action plan.
“I'm really pleased that they have been able to see our new nursery and to have talked with them about the benefits of the action plan.
“We were fortunate to have our nursery funded by a government grant, and this has supported us in giving a greater number of children a better start in life.
“If you are interested in a place in our nursery, please contact the school office.”

Children in Staple Hill are benefitting from around 4,000 new nursery places rolled out nationally from September. Thanks to efforts of school and early years leaders, these new school-based nurseries and thousands more throughout the sector help enable working parents to take up the 30 government-funded hours of provision, saving them up to £7,500 on average each year. Four other new and two more expanded nurseries opened in Chipping Sodbury, Fishponds, Hanham, Henbury, Keynsham, and Warmley in September. Next year a record £9.5 billion will be invested into Early Years, a boost of over £1 billion, alongside billions recently announced to support young people.

The regional action plan also includes a commitment to work with and lobby government, including for families in receipt of Universal Credit to access vouchers for existing childcare discounts – rather than having to pay upfront and then reclaim – as the Mayor called for in a speech last month.

Over the summer, Kids Go Free on the West’s buses saw more than 910,000 free journeys by local children – putting almost £1 million back into families’ pockets. Children’s journeys increased by 32% compared to 2024, with parents and carers across the region sharing how the scheme helped them do things they otherwise would not have been able to afford. For families usually unable to travel at all, this opened the door to the brilliant things that our region offers – in some cases for the first time ever.

Since May, the Mayor has highlighted the issue of child poverty, supporting national government efforts to introduce and expand free breakfast clubs, with ten already up and running the wider region and schools recently encouraged to join the scheme, and plans to extend automatic entitlement for 500,000 more children to receive free school meals from next year. Increases to the national minimum wage; an expansion of government-funded childcare; and a cap on the number of branded school uniform items, which are often more expensive, are among other measures already announced to support parents and carers.

In September she joined former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to highlight the importance of tackling child poverty, saying: “The West is seen as an affluent, progressive region but that reputation belies a painful reality. In Bristol, 35% of children are growing up in poverty. In some parts of our towns and cities, every other child faces that daily uphill battle. Our rural areas face similar challenges, with between one in four and one in five children in poverty, compounded by isolation and a lack of opportunity.”