Child Poverty in Medway

I see that one of our local newspapers is looking at child poverty ward by ward in Medway, seemingly prompted by local Labour who are trying to make a party political point (as per a predictable enough quote in the article) but it is an important matter regardless of that aspect. The article doesn't appear to be on-line, so I cannot link to it.

Regular readers will probably recall that I looked at this and other ward demographic data three months ago. The reasoning and conclusions I expressed there are just as valid today, and are (mostly if not entirely) fairly obvious anyway. It's worth re-reading as there are several snippets in there that will help inform what I am discussing today.

Specifically, the Messenger's article, written by promising young journalist Alan McGuinness, puts percentage figures for how many children in each ward are "in poverty". Medway as a whole is rated by the Campaign to End Child Poverty (CECP) at 19% of its children being in poverty.

Now, this is evaluated via the hugely flawed system of relative poverty (in benefit-claiming households of below 60% average income) that is next to meaningless as a measure, but it still affords an indication (no more than that) of where poverty is higher or lower than another ward. These figures are, in descending order...

1. Gillingham North (35%)
2. Chatham Central (32%)
3. Luton and Wayfield (32%)
4. Gillingham South (25%)
5. Rochester East (22%)
6. Strood South (22%)
7. Twydall (22%)
8. Rochester West (19%)
9. Strood North (18%)
10. Princes Park (17%)
11. Walderslade (17%)
12. Lordswood and Capstone (15%)
13. Rainham North (15%)
14. River (14%)
15. Peninsula (13%)
16. Rainham South (13%)
17. Strood Rural (13%)
18. Rochester South and Horsted (9%)
19. Watling (9%)
20. Cuxton and Halling (8%)
21. Rainham Central (8%)
22. Hempstead and Wigmore (3%)

The colour coding shows the political complexion of each ward's current councillors. Rather than mix blue and yellow and apply green, which would be misleading in (say) Watling ward, I have split the names into different colours in the cases of split wards. Bold black means Independent(s).

I think this paints a very clear picture, though it isn't precisely a straight Red/Blue divide. However there is no Conservative representation in the "top five" wards, and only one non-Conservative near the bottom of the list. Labour have never had any councillors in any of those wards in the (almost entirely) Blue-only chunk from No. 10 onward. This helps to illustrate just how dependent they are on poverty and deprivation: without those they'd never have any councillors – at least around these parts!

The angle that local Labour have taken is the very Dickensian one of wanting more. Of course, the so-called "deprived areas" already receive disproportionate resourcing in many areas of the council's work, though I'm sure it'll always be possible to make it appear otherwise – probably by picking a specific topic that, for the current year, happens not to have as much activity or spending in the Labour areas.

They have already tried to make such a claim regarding road/path repairs in Labour-held wards – and I shall more to report on that particular claim soon. The new angle is that poverty levels are set to rise "under the Tories" (running the council), although my information is that the actual poverty level is comparatively low in Medway, even for prosperous Kent (Swale and Thanet are both noticeably higher than here, at 22% and 25% respectively).

Even by ward breakdown – which makes some specific localities look worse – none of Medway's wards comes close to the mid-forties percentages in some wards elsewhere in Kent (e.g. Newington Ramsgate, Margate Central, and Sheerness West) so, although this doesn't mean no action should be taken (and plenty already is and has been for years) in my home borough, there isn't a great deal of mileage in the topic around here.

That won't stop their wailing and gnashing of teeth, which after all is what Labour specialise in, but we know their game so can afford appropriate weighting to whatever they try to claim. A far more useful activity would be to press for a change to an absolute poverty evaluation, rather than this idiotic "relative poverty" calculator we have had for years. That would show the reality more clearly, and release wasted resources on non-poor cases and areas to produce real benefit in situations of genuine poverty.