Memorandum submitted by City of London Corporation (CP 08)

 

General Background

 

1. Acting as local authority for the City of London is only one of the roles undertaken by the City of London Corporation which also provides specific services to London as a whole and the financial Services Industry in the UK more generally. It is, however, in the capacity as Trustee of the City Bridge Trust, a grant making charity, that the City has been most actively engaged with the campaign to end child poverty in the Capital.

 

2. Currently, City Bridge Trust is part-way through a two year grant of £96,000 made to the End Child Poverty Campaign which is facilitating work in a number of London local authority areas with voluntary organisations to identify and share best practice and to raise awareness about issues relating to child poverty in London. These challenges extend beyond economic poverty to poverty of housing, education, family life, play, life opportunities etc.

3. More generally, many of the grants, annually totalling £18m, that City Bridge Trust awards across Greater London will have a positive impact on child poverty.  Some examples are grants around young people's mental health, assisting young disabled people in the transition to adulthood, work with young care leavers and awards on a special initiative "young people and parents tackling violence" which is looking at what parents can do to support children who are victims of (or suspected of being involved in) violence or bullying.

 

Particular Concern

4. Although about a third of a million people come to the City to work the City has a small resident population of some 9,000 with only a very small number of children. The City's particular circumstances provide one example of a more general issue. The widely differing local circumstances and challenges faced by the responsible local authorities will best be accommodated by a significant degree of flexibility being incorporated into the drafting of the regulations to be issued governing the "local child poverty needs assessment" and also into the guidance on "joint child poverty strategies". Both these more detailed documents, to be issued under powers in the Bill, should leave responsible local authorities free to deploy the resources they have available effectively and work with their local partners adopting approaches, which, given their local circumstances they believe are most likely to achieve the targets contained in the Bill.

 

October 2009