Money Matters Campaign
In 2015 the coalition successfully mobilised the supporters of our member organisations to deliver a House of Lords amendment to keep a legally binding requirement on government to measure the number of children in poverty, as an essential tool for monitoring the impact of government policies. Our membership felt strongly that without this, children in poverty and the impact of policies on them, would essentially be rendered invisible to policy makers.
End Child Poverty members have played a crucial role in securing these amendments.
- Nearly 2600 emails were sent to Peers from End Child Poverty campaigners, asking them to support the Bishop of Durham’s amendment to the Bill.
- The follow up MP email action engaged with 2350 supporters across 609 constituencies.
- End Child Poverty secured widespread media coverage throughout the campaign – including in the Observer, the Independent, the Mirror and the Guardian.
Rent to Own: Paying a High Price
In November 2018, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced its intention to introduce a cap on the cost of rent to own goods. Member organisations had reported a growing concern among families they worked with of unmanageable debt accrued through high cost loans. Member, StepChange, exposed the experiences of their clients – low income families – forced to accept high cost credit for the most basic household items such as a washing machine or fridge and the cost of servicing the debt, at the expense of buying food, heating or clothing. This led us to call for a cap in November 2017 and our subsequent lobbying and Parliamentary work as a coalition, including action by individuals to their MPs, increased the pressure on the FCA to reverse its opposition to a cap.
Child Poverty Statistics
The regular publication of local child poverty statistics is our significant contribution to local advocacy. The research, undertaken by Loughborough University breaks down levels of child poverty across the UK by Constituency, Local Authority and Ward. This data is made available publicly for advocacy by our member organisations, for local campaigners to lobby their local representatives and MPs, as well as for use by local media outlets. For the 2017 General Election, we set up online actions for local campaigners to use their local child poverty data to lobby their local Parliamentary candidates.
The data published in 2018 generated more than 250 national and local media articles across the four nations of the UK; emails from the supporters of member organisations to local papers; has been referred to in Parliamentary debates on child poverty; has formed the basis of briefings for London Councillors; and was used by End Child Poverty member, Buttle UK to highlight the scale of children not having a bed to sleep in, which their interactions with individual families had highlighted was a growing problem. The data is also accessed by local bodies, such as Councils and health boards to help identify areas of greatest need.
