Medway named among England’s 10 hardest places for children to grow up
Council leader Vince Maple says services must work together to improve children’s lives
The Childhood Lottery examines differences in children’s access to services and opportunities across every local authority in the country.
Responding to the findings, Medway Council leader Councillor Vince Maple said officers were examining the report and acknowledged more work was needed.
He added that the findings covered Medway as a place, rather than only services provided by the council, and improving outcomes would require organisations to work together.
The report concludes children’s experiences differ depending on where they live, with unacceptable outcomes and levels of service delivery in too many parts of England.
Council leader responds
Councillor Maple said some of the areas where Medway scored less highly included health, policing and community safety.
He said collaboration between different organisations was already taking place, but some improvements remained works in progress.
He also said some of the report’s data was a couple of years old and pointed to positive feedback from young people and families about Child Friendly Medway and youth services.
Councillor Maple said: "But we're not complacent. Of course, nobody wants to be in this particular position that we saw today."
Asked about resources, he said there was no single solution to improving Medway’s position.
He said the council would examine the detail behind the overall score and look at what it could learn from areas performing well.
Youth services and employment support
Councillor Maple highlighted Medway’s youth service and Child Friendly Medway programme as examples of support already available.
He said more than 120,000 people had interacted with Child Friendly Medway last year, while acknowledging activity levels alone did not address all the challenges highlighted in the report:
"We've got our child friendly Medway programme, universally loved by the community, really high satisfaction scores, more than 120,000 people interacted with it last year.
"So look, of course, it's not just about quota of activity, and it's not just about those kind of 'set piece' events, although they're really important and I'm proud of the way that we deliver that often in partnership with others.
"Some of the stats within this are really quite gritty, kind of challenging circumstances, particularly where we have got areas of deprivation and certainly on things like quality of housing"
Young people and families can find information about education, employment, leisure and youth services on the Medway Council website.
The Childhood Lottery uses data gathered by the Children’s Commissioner, alongside figures from the Department for Education and 10 other public bodies.