Recommendation 36

Local level data on child income poverty is important to enable national and local governments to plan their services. DWP’s recent work with HMRC to produce local area estimates of children in low income families is welcome, but its usefulness is reduced because the estimates do not include housing costs. For most families with children, housing costs take up a significant portion of their monthly budget, especially in the south of England and in coastal areas. Without good quality data about those costs it is impossible to gain a full picture of a family’s circumstances, but DWP told us that there is a lack of individual-level data on housing costs. The Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University has, however, been able to use the housing data that is available to model local rates after housing costs.