Official Statistics

Children in low income families: local area statistics 2014/15 to 2018/19

Updated 30 June 2020

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

The latest release of these statistics can be found in the Children in low income families: local area statistics collection.

This is the first release of these statistics which have replaced DWP’s Children in out-of-work benefit households and HMRC’s Personal Tax Credits: Children in low income families local measure publications.

This is an annual release and the next release will be in Spring 2021.

Feedback and queries about the statistics can be sent by email.

1. Introduction

This release contains experimental Official Statistics on the number (and proportion) of children living in low income families across Great Britain by local area.

These new statistics complement and should be viewed as a companion release to the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) survey on children in low income households which provides National and Regional estimates but not local area estimates. These local area statistics are calibrated to, and thus match, the 3-year average HBAI survey estimates at Region and Country level for Great Britain.

This is the first release of these statistics which have replaced DWP’s Children in out-of-work benefit households and HMRC’s Personal Tax Credits: Children in low income families local measure. The limitations of the former releases have been addressed and the new statistics provide a more coherent picture of children in low income families for both Relative and Absolute measures Before Housing Costs (BHC).

The release covers data for the financial years 2014/15 to 2018/19 and is available for a range of local areas including at:

• Local Authority
• Westminster Parliamentary Constituency
• Ward
• Lower Super Output Area level

2. Main stories

• In 2018/19, there were 2.74 million children living in families in Relative low income and 2.27 million children in Absolute low income across Great Britain; 82% of children were aged under 16 for both measures
• At a local level, the proportion of children aged under 16 living in low income families varies greatly, ranging from 6% to 38% across Local Authorities for Relative Low Income and from 4% to 33% for Absolute Low Income
• Of the 10 Local Authorities with the highest proportion, 7 are in the North West, and the remaining 3 in the North East, West Midlands, and Yorkshire and The Humber respectively. These Local Authorities rank in the top 10 across both Relative and Absolute measures
• Of the 10 Local Authorities with the lowest proportion, the majority are located in the South East with the remaining in London, East Midlands and East of England for both Relative and Absolute measures.
• The proportion of children in low income families increased the most in Isles of Scilly and decreased the most in Nottingham since 2017/18

3. What you need to know

The statistics in this release relate to the number and proportion of children living in low income families by local area across Great Britain. These statistics are a measure of children and cannot be used to obtain the number of low income families.

The statistics complement and are calibrated to DWP’s Households Below Average Income (HBAI) statistics, which contains the headline measures for children in low income households at a National and Regional level, by providing local area statistics. Statistics are calibrated to the 3-year average HBAI Regional and work status aggregates, thus the Great Britain and Region totals in these statistics match equivalent statistics in the 3-year average HBAI statistics.

The Great Britain 2018/19 figure is formed from the HBAI 3-year average from 2016/17 to 2018/19.

DWP has a statutory obligation to publish measures of Absolute and Relative low income, and low income and material deprivation for children under section 4 of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 and this is provided through the annual HBAI and Income Dynamics publications. HBAI is only able to provide estimates of children in low income at National and Regional level, however there is significant demand for local area measures from users such as Local Authorities.

A family must have claimed one or more of Universal Credit, Tax Credits or Housing Benefit at any point in the year to be classed as low income in these statistics. Relative low income measures families in low income in the reference year, whereas Absolute low income measures families in low income based on what low income looked like in 2010/11. Income is Before Housing Costs (BHC) and is equivalised to adjust for family size and composition. See definitions for more information about the terminology used throughout this release.

The statistics relate to activity throughout the financial year. The count of children refers to the age of the child at 31 March of each year.

More detailed breakdowns (including by individual Age of Child, Family Type and Work Status) by low-level geographies (including Westminster Parliamentary Constituency, Ward and Lower Super Output Area) can be found via DWP’s online tabulation tool Stat-Xplore. The statistics released on Stat-Xplore allows users to analyse the number (and proportion) of children in low income families within and across small areas over a 5-year period.

The background information and methodology gives more information on the construction of these statistics.

4. Proportion of children living in low income families

Figures on the proportion of children are presented for children aged under 16.

In 2018/19, there were 2.74 million children in families in Relative low income and 2.27 million children in Absolute low income families across Great Britain. 82% of children were aged under 16 for both Relative and Absolute measures.

At a local level, the proportion of children aged under 16 living in low income families varies greatly, ranging from 6% to 38% across Local Authorities for Relative low income families and from 4% to 33% for Absolute low income families. Figure 1 shows the distribution of the proportion of children across Local Authorities in 2018/19. The majority of Local Authorities have a rate of children in low income families that falls between 10% and 20%.

Over 65% of Local Authorities have a proportion of children in low income families between 10% and 20%.

Figure 1: Proportion of children aged under 16 in Relative and Absolute low income families by number of Local Authorities, 2018/19

Source: Children in Low Income Families statistics and ONS population estimates.

Figure 1 is based on unrounded percentages. Proportions are calculated by dividing the number of children aged under 16 in a geographical area (for example, a Local Authority), by the population aged under 16 in that geographical area. More information about the calculation of rates can be found in the background information and methodology.

For Relative low income families, only 4% of Local Authorities across Great Britain have a rate over 30%. For Absolute low income families, only 1% of Local Authorities have a rate over 30%. Figure 2 shows a map of the proportion of children aged under 16 in Relative and Absolute low income families by Local Authority in 2018/19. The darker areas show the Local Authorities containing the highest proportions of children living in low income families.

There are clusters of Local Authorities in the North West with higher proportions of children in low income families.

Figure 2: Proportion of children aged under 16 in Relative and Absolute low income families by Local Authority (quintiles), Great Britain, 2018/19

Source: Children in Low Income Families statistics and ONS population estimates.

Notes about Figure 2:

1. Data is banded using quintiles. This means group ranges are calculated to split Local Authorities evenly, so 20% of Local Authorities fit into each group.
2. The bottom quintile (lightest shade) shows the group of Local Authorities which have the lowest rates of children in low income families. The top quintile (darkest shade) shows the group of areas which have the highest rates.
3. The map legends show the highest and lowest rate for Relative and Absolute measures but bandings are based on Relative quintiles.
4. Rates have been calculated using the mid-2018 population estimates as, at the time of release, this was the latest data available.

The maps show that areas with the highest and lowest rates are similar for Relative and Absolute low income measures. There are clusters of darker shaded areas in the North West indicating there are higher proportions of children living in low income families in Local Authorities within this region. Areas with the lowest proportions are represented by lighter shades, as is shown in Local Authorities towards the South East.

5. Areas with the highest and lowest proportions of children in low income families

Figures 3 and 4 show the 20 Local Authorities with the highest and lowest proportions of children under 16 in Relative and Absolute low income families in 2018/19. Oldham was the Local Authority with the highest proportions for both Relative and Absolute measures at 38% and 33% respectively. In contrast, City of London had the lowest proportion of children under 16 in low income families in 2018/19 (6% in Relative and 4% in Absolute).

The proportion of children in Relative low income families was highest in Oldham (38%) and lowest in City of London (6%).

Figure 3: The 20 Local Authorities with the highest and lowest proportions of children under 16 in Relative low income families, 2018/19

Local Authority	Highest (%)	Local Authority	Lowest (%)
Oldham	38%	City of London	6%
Pendle	37%	Elmbridge	6%
Middlesbrough	37%	Richmond upon Thames	6%
Blackburn with Darwen	37%	Hart	7%
Bradford	35%	Epsom and Ewell	7%
Birmingham	34%	Rushcliffe	7%
Manchester	34%	Waverley	8%
Hyndburn	33%	Wokingham	8%
Burnley	33%	East Hertfordshire	8%
Bolton	32%	South Northamptonshire	8%
Sandwell	32%	Kensington and Chelsea	8%
Stoke-on-Trent	32%	Mid Sussex	8%
Kingston upon Hull, City of	31%	St Albans	8%
Rochdale	30%	Guildford	8%
Walsall	29%	Windsor and Maidenhead	8%
Wolverhampton	29%	Rutland	8%
Luton	29%	Mole Valley	9%
Newcastle upon Tyne	28%	South Bucks	9%
Glasgow City	28%	Surrey Heath	9%
Liverpool	28%	South Cambridgeshire	9%

Source: Children in Low Income Families statistics and ONS population estimates.

Pendle had the second highest proportion of children under 16 in Relative low income families, followed by Middlesbrough. For Local Authorities with the lowest proportions, Elmbridge was the second lowest followed by Richmond upon Thames.

The proportion of children in Absolute low income families was highest in Oldham (33%) and lowest in City of London (4%).

Figure 4: The 20 Local Authorities with the highest and lowest proportions of children under 16 in Absolute low income families, 2018/19

Local Authority	Highest (%)	Local Authority	Lowest (%)
Oldham	33%	City of London	4%
Pendle	33%	Richmond upon Thames	5%
Blackburn with Darwen	31%	Elmbridge	5%
Bradford	30%	Rushcliffe	6%
Middlesbrough	30%	East Hertfordshire	6%
Hyndburn	29%	Epsom and Ewell	6%
Manchester	29%	Hart	6%
Burnley	29%	Kensington and Chelsea	6%
Bolton	28%	St Albans	6%
Birmingham	27%	Waverley	7%
Kingston upon Hull, City of	26%	Wokingham	7%
Rochdale	26%	South Northamptonshire	7%
Stoke-on-Trent	25%	Rutland	7%
Sandwell	25%	Mid Sussex	7%
Liverpool	24%	Three Rivers	7%
Wolverhampton	23%	Cotswold	7%
Newcastle upon Tyne	23%	South Cambridgeshire	7%
Walsall	23%	Guildford	7%
Glasgow City	23%	Windsor and Maidenhead	7%
Kirklees	23%	Surrey Heath	8%

Source: Children in Low Income Families statistics and ONS population estimates.

Percentages in Figures 3 and 4 are based on unrounded figures. Rates have been calculated using the mid-2018 population estimates as, at the time of release, this was the latest data available.

Similar to Relative low income families, Pendle had the second highest proportion of children under 16 in Absolute low income families, followed by Blackburn with Darwen. For Local Authorities with the lowest proportions, Richmond upon Thames was the second lowest followed by Elmbridge.

With the exception of Luton and Kirklees, Local Authorities rank in the top 20 highest proportions across both Relative and Absolute measures. The local areas with the lowest proportions shows a similar story with 18 out of the top 20 Local Authorities ranking in the Relative and Absolute top 20.

9 out of the top 20 Local Authorities with the highest proportions of children under 16 in Relative and Absolute low income families were in the North West.

11 out of the top 20 Local Authorities with the lowest proportions of children under 16 in Relative low income families and 9 out of 20 for Absolute were in the South East.

Figures 5 and 6 show the 20 Local Authorities where the proportion of children living in low income families has increased or decreased the most, based on percentage point difference, since the previous year.

The proportion of children in Relative low income families increased the most in Isles of Scilly and decreased the most in Nottingham since the previous year.

Figure 5: The 20 Local Authorities with the largest percentage point changes in the proportion of children under 16 in Relative low income families since the previous year, 2018/19

Local Authority	Increase since previous year (percentage points)	Local Authority	Decrease since previous year (percentage points)
Isles of Scilly	4pp	Nottingham	-5pp
Middlesbrough	3pp	Leicester	-4pp
Ryedale	3pp	Derby	-4pp
Kirklees	2pp	Lincoln	-4pp
Bradford	2pp	Mansfield	-3pp
Craven	2pp	Wellingborough	-3pp
Calderdale	2pp	Ashfield	-3pp
South Lakeland	2pp	Chesterfield	-3pp
Rother	2pp	Boston	-3pp
Hambleton	2pp	Corby	-3pp
Torridge	1pp	South Holland	-3pp
Harrow	1pp	Northampton	-3pp
Barnsley	1pp	East Lindsey	-3pp
Newcastle upon Tyne	1pp	Kettering	-2pp
Gateshead	1pp	Gedling	-2pp
Runnymede	1pp	West Lindsey	-2pp
North Lincolnshire	1pp	Charnwood	-2pp
Wyre Forest	1pp	Bolsover	-2pp
Swale	1pp	Erewash	-2pp
Leeds	1pp	East Northamptonshire	-2pp

Source: Children in Low Income Families statistics and ONS population estimates.

The proportion of children in Absolute low income families increased the most in Isles of Scilly and decreased the most in Nottingham since the previous year.

Figure 6: The 20 Local Authorities with the largest percentage point changes in the proportion of children under 16 in Absolute low income families since the previous year, 2018/19

Local Authority	Increase since previous year (percentage points)	Local Authority	Decrease since previous year (percentage points)
Isles of Scilly	7pp	Nottingham	-5pp
Middlesbrough	3pp	Leicester	-4pp
Kirklees	3pp	Derby	-3pp
Bradford	2pp	Lincoln	-3pp
Ryedale	2pp	Ashfield	-3pp
Craven	2pp	Boston	-3pp
Calderdale	2pp	Corby	-3pp
Newcastle upon Tyne	2pp	Wellingborough	-3pp
Hyndburn	2pp	Mansfield	-3pp
South Lakeland	2pp	Chesterfield	-3pp
Wyre Forest	2pp	East Lindsey	-3pp
Richmondshire	2pp	South Holland	-2pp
Rother	1pp	Bassetlaw	-2pp
Barnsley	1pp	Northampton	-2pp
Torridge	1pp	North East Derbyshire	-2pp
Swale	1pp	Gedling	-2pp
North Lincolnshire	1pp	Broxtowe	-2pp
Doncaster	1pp	High Peak	-2pp
Hambleton	1pp	Charnwood	-2pp
Runnymede	1pp	Purbeck	-2pp

Source: Children in Low Income Families statistics and ONS population estimates.

Figures 5 and 6 are based on unrounded figures and are calculated as the percentage point difference in the proportion of children in low income families between 2017/18 and 2018/19.

In 2018/19, Isles of Scilly had the largest increase in the proportion of children living in low income families. Although Isles of Scilly had the largest increase out of all Local Authorities, the proportion of children in low income families is relatively low in comparison to other areas; 12% Relative and 13% Absolute in the latest year.

Middlesbrough had the second largest increase, rising by 3 percentage points over the year for both measures. Over the last 5 years, Middlesbrough had the largest increase for Relative low income families with a rate of 23% in 2014/15 to 37% in the latest year; an increase of 13 percentage points. As shown in Figures 3 and 4, Middlesbrough ranked in the top 5 Local Authorities with the highest proportions of children in Relative and Absolute low income families.

Of the Local Authorities with the largest increases since the previous year, 16 rank in both the Relative and Absolute top 20.

In contrast, Nottingham had the largest decrease in the proportion of children living in low income families in 2018/19 since the previous year; a decrease of 5 percentage points for both Relative and Absolute measures.

Leicester had the second largest Relative and Absolute decrease, falling by 4 percentage points to 27% Relative and 22% Absolute since the previous year. In 2018/19, Leicester ranked outside of the top 20 Local Authorities with the highest proportions of children in low income families but was the highest ranking Local Authority in 2015/16 for both Relative and Absolute measures.

Of the Local Authorities with the largest increases since the previous year, 15 rank in both the Relative and Absolute top 20.

Figures on rates by Local Authority and Ward can be found as a 5 year timeseries via supporting data tables.

6. Family Type and Work Status

The published statistics on Stat-Xplore allow users to tabulate trends over time by family type and work status. Figures 7 and 8 illustrate the type of analyses this supports.

There were more children in couple low income families across all regions.

Figure 7: The number of children (aged 0-19) in Relative and Absolute low income families, Region, Family Type, 2018/19

		Relative			Absolute
Region	Lone parent	Couple	Total	Lone Parent	Couple	Total
North East	66,000	69,000	135,000	51,000	59,000	111,000
North West	161,000	227,000	388,000	135,000	200,000	335,000
Yorkshire and The Humber	115,000	180,000	295,000	98,000	160,000	258,000
East Midlands	75,000	105,000	180,000	57,000	91,000	148,000
West Midlands	125,000	210,000	335,000	98,000	169,000	266,000
East of England	90,000	135,000	225,000	68,000	110,000	178,000
London	161,000	240,000	401,000	127,000	196,000	323,000
South East	127,000	165,000	293,000	109,000	146,000	256,000
South West	65,000	98,000	163,000	52,000	84,000	136,000
Wales	54,000	71,000	125,000	42,000	58,000	100,000
Scotland	99,000	100,000	198,000	78,000	86,000	164,000

Source: Children in Low Income Families statistics.

Totals shown in Figure 7 may not sum due to rounding

For all regions across Great Britain, there were fewer children in low income families where the family type was lone parent for both Relative and Absolute measures. Figure 7 shows some regional variation in 2018/19, for example over two thirds of all children in Relative low income families in the West Midlands are in couple families, whereas the family type split is almost even in the North East, i.e. of the 135,000 children in Relative low income families in the North East, 49% were in lone parent families compared to 51% in couple families.

There were more children in working low income families across all regions.

Figure 8: The number of children (aged 0-19) in Relative and Absolute low income families, Region, Work Status, 2018/19

		Relative			Absolute
Region	In working families	Not in working families	Total	In working families	Not in working families	Total
North East	78,000	57,000	135,000	64,000	47,000	111,000
North West	256,000	132,000	388,000	218,000	117,000	335,000
Yorkshire and The Humber	195,000	99,000	295,000	170,000	88,000	258,000
East Midlands	119,000	60,000	180,000	103,000	45,000	148,000
West Midlands	231,000	103,000	335,000	176,000	90,000	266,000
East of England	168,000	57,000	225,000	131,000	47,000	178,000
London	302,000	99,000	401,000	238,000	85,000	323,000
South East	204,000	89,000	293,000	175,000	80,000	256,000
South West	118,000	45,000	163,000	98,000	38,000	136,000
Wales	81,000	44,000	125,000	62,000	38,000	100,000
Scotland	127,000	71,000	198,000	106,000	58,000	164,000

Source: Children in Low Income Families statistics.

Totals shown in Figure 8 may not sum due to rounding

Figure 8 shows that for both Relative and Absolute measures, more children were in working low income families than in low income families who were not working across Great Britain in 2018/19. With the exception of the North East, over two thirds of all children in Relative and Absolute low income within each region were in working low income families. 58% of all children in low income families in the North East were in working low income families across both measures.

These statistics provide a count of the number of children in low income families by family type and work status. They do not provide information on the proportion of children in low income by family type and work status. More information on these can be found in the HBAI release.

More detailed statistics are available on Stat-Xplore which allows users to produce bespoke tabulations showing local area analyses by a range of breakdowns over time.

7. About these statistics

Figures for the latest year (2018/19) are provisional and subject to revision in subsequent releases. The statistics in this release are not directly comparable to the former DWP (children in out-of-work benefit households) or HMRC (children in low income families local measure) releases. Whilst they complement the statistics released in the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) publication, please note that they are produced from an entirely different data source with some differences in methodology, for example HBAI considers household incomes whereas these statistics cover family incomes (multiple families may live in the same household).

Definitions

Term	Definition
Children	Dependent individuals aged under 16; or aged 16 to 19 in full-time non-advanced education. Figures on the proportion of children living in low income families are derived for children under 16 as a percentage of the under 16 population.
Family	A single adult; or a married or cohabitating couple; or a Civil Partnership; and any dependent children.
Equivalised income	Income is gross income Before Housing Costs (BHC) and includes contributions from earnings, state support and pensions. Equivalisation adjusts incomes for family size and composition; taking an adult couple with no children as the reference point.
Relative low income	A family in low income Before Housing Costs (BHC) in the reference year. A family must have claimed one or more of Universal Credit, Tax Credits or Housing Benefit at any point in the year to be classed as low income in these statistics.
Absolute low income	A family in low income Before Housing Costs (BHC) in the reference year in comparison with incomes in 2010/11. A family must have claimed one or more of Universal Credit, Tax Credits or Housing Benefit at any point in the year to be classed as low income in these statistics.
Work status	A family is defined as ‘in-work’ if they have an accumulated period of at least 26 weeks paid employment or self-employment within the 52-week tax year.
Family type	Family type accounts for changes in family composition throughout the year (for example, re-partnering, multiple partners). A Lone Parent family type means the parent/guardian has had no partnerships at any point in the year.

Rounding policy

Numbers over 1 million are rounded to the nearest 10,000. Numbers less than 1 million are rounded to the nearest 1,000. Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number, with the exception of the maps which are shown to 1 decimal place. Unrounded figures can be obtained from Stat-Xplore.

Where to find out more

This statistical summary gives an overview of the key points and trends. More detailed breakdowns can be found via the supporting data tables or DWP’s online tabulation tool Stat-Xplore.

The statistics within this release have been primarily sourced from the DWP RAPID (Registration and Population Interaction Database) longitudinal dataset which provides a single coherent view of citizen interactions with DWP and HMRC within the tax year. The background information and methodology provides a fuller explanation on the purpose, coverage, construction, sources and limitations of the statistics.

Experimental statistics

These statistics are experimental Official Statistics, badged as provisional (for the latest year) and are subject to revision in future releases. Experimental statistics are official statistics which are published in order to involve users and stakeholders in the assessment of their suitability and quality at an early stage, in compliance with the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for Statistics.

Contact information and feedback

DWP would like to hear your views on these statistics. We would be interested in hearing what you use them for and how well they meet your requirements as well as interest in extending the analyses to Working and Pension Age claimants. Feedback and queries about the statistics can be sent via email.

Press enquiries should be directed to the DWP Press Office: 020 3267 5144

Lead Statisticians: Luke Stockham and Katie Wong

8. Related statistics

DWP Households Below Average Income (HBAI)

DWP Children in out of work benefit households

HMRC Personal Tax Credits: Children in low income families

ONS working and workless households

DWP Family Resources Survey

English Indices of Deprivation

Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation

Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation

ISBN: 978-1-78659-216-3