UK - One in five Reading children living in poverty

One in five Reading children living in poverty
By Linda Fort
December 14, 2010
More than one in five children and young people in Reading are being brought up in poverty.
The statistic was revealed to the community care, housing and health scrutiny panel last Tuesday night.
Reading has the fifth highest level of child poverty in the South East after Southampton, Portsmouth, Slough and Brighton and Hove.
Referring to the “horrific figure”, the newly elected chairman of the panel Councillor Mike Orton challenged council officers asking them what the authority should be doing about it.
He pointed to a picture of a child with the slogan “Promise me I won’t live in poverty” in the laptop presentation on poverty given by the officers and said: “I can’t make that promise unless you tell me what we are supposed to do about it. We can’t just leave it there.”
The definition of poverty is people living on less than 60 per cent of the average income in the borough which in Reading equates to £12,000 a year.
Kim Wilkins, public health lead for Reading, said poverty led to health problems like high levels of infant mortality and illness in the first year of life.
She listed a number of health indicators influenced by poverty in Reading saying breast feeding levels had improved and were better than the national average at 55.8 per cent compared with 42.6 per cent, tooth decay was only slightly worse than average and childhood obesity had improved and was now only slightly worse than average at 9.9 per cent compared with 9.6 per cent...........