As I write this piece, children are returning to school. It’s one of the regular financial pinch points in the year for parents and marks a key point in the calendar when family outgoings on essentials start to ramp up.

Winter is ahead and the costs – literally and figuratively – chill the bones of many.

In Britain, Ofgem – the body responsible for regulation of utility costs – has warned of a 10 per cent rise in the energy cap for this winter.

That will bring energy costs for the average household in Britain to double the costs of 2022.

In Northern Ireland, whilst the utility regulator has responsibility for managing electricity, gas and water, most residents in Fermanagh are reliant on oil for their heating.

That’s bad news for families and for the 24 per cent of children in Northern Ireland who are living in poverty.

But hold on, I hear you say – a new government was elected in July. Many of us working in the children’s sector were hoping for an early and decisive move on child poverty.

Alongside colleagues in the community and voluntary sector, Action for Children has been calling for the two-child limit on benefits to be scrapped.

This policy, more than any other, can be seen as a hallmark of Conservative Chancellor George Osborne’s 2015 budget.

But early signs are disappointing from Sir Keir Starmer’s government. Much of the messaging from Rachel Reeves, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, has focused on a ‘£22 billion black hole’ in public finances.

In fact, just a few weeks into the new administration, the Labour party suspended seven MPs after they voted in favour of an amendment to abolish the two-child limit.

The recent announcement on means-testing winter fuel payment for pensioners perhaps indicates further pain in the autumn budget statement.

Liz Kendall, the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has established a taskforce on child poverty which will hopefully form a new Child Poverty Strategy in the United Kingdom.

The Minister has promised the Child Poverty Taskforce will deliver a strategy by the Spring, and that it will work closely with the devolved governments and draw on their experience.

However, I suspect there will be a tussle between what the Labour government wants to do and what it can do with the approach they are currently taking to public finances.

Despite the Northern Ireland Act 1998 obliging the Executive to develop a strategy “to tackle poverty, social exclusion and patterns of deprivation based on objective need”, and a High Court judgement in 2015 that the Executive has breached its duties, there has been little sign of any real progress to address the issue here, almost another decade later.

The Minister has promised action “before the end of the year”, but it’s already too late for this winter, and for the many families and children that continue to be impacted by spiralling costs.

The failure to act on child poverty by successive governments, both here and in Westminster, comes at a high price.

A key message from the recent review of children’s services in Northern Ireland, by Professor Ray Jones, is that addressing the growing number of child protection referrals and admissions to care, requires properly resourced early supports to families and action to address child poverty.

A recent report on mental wellbeing by the Global Mind Project found that out of 71 developed countries assessed, the United Kingdom and South Africa had the highest proportion of people in mental distress.

Meanwhile in their 2024 ‘The Good Childhood Report’, The Children’s Society found one quarter of British teenagers report low life satisfaction – the worst in Europe.

The results for females surveyed is particularly concerning, with happiness levels plummeting far below their male peers.

Amidst worry on broader issues, 72 per cent of children reported being concerned about rising prices, and 77 per cent of parents reported they were very or quite concerned.

Between January and March, 2024, almost two thirds of parents reported they ran out of money before the end of the month “always or most of the time”.

One fifth reported struggling to afford a hot meal every day.

Every day in our local services, we see examples of children and families who are hit by the impact of poverty and related issues.

There are some signs of hope. Fermanagh and Omagh District Council is currently consulting on a draft Anti-Poverty Strategy.

It’s a locally crafted plan with a strong community development approach, while working alongside local services.

Whilst it cannot be a panacea for addressing all the root causes of child poverty, many of which will require legislative change at Westminster or mitigations from Stormont, the impact of local government should not be underestimated.

Fermanagh and Omagh District Council is the only council in Northern Ireland to have given this such a focus within their corporate planning.

They have employed a dedicated Anti-Poverty Officer to lead this work, and commissioned research through the University of Ulster which clearly identifies the impact of poverty on our rural communities.

That knowledge is essential to delivering future services, and the Council is to be commended for their work in this area.

But this winter, just like the last one, our local food banks and the community and voluntary sector will be trying to support those in need as best they can.

This remains an ineffective long-term strategy to address such a deeply embedded system failure in the sixth-richest economy in the world.

It’s essential we also look at the long-term costs. The long-term human costs of poor mental health will be catastrophic for our society, and the economic costs will echo forward through a generation.

Successive research demonstrates unhappiness is a major barrier to learning for children and poverty is a major barrier to future income.

What needs to change? At Action for Children, we have 10 clear policy asks for the new United Kingdom Government.

Since 2010, welfare changes have disproportionally hit families with children. It’s worth noting in Northern Ireland, despite the obvious barrier to work that it presents, we still have no Early Learning and Childcare Strategy.

We know child poverty is highly responsive to policy changes – we saw this in the 1990s and early 2000s under New Labour.

It is within the government’s gift to reverse child poverty and all its long-term social impacts on education, health and economic prospects.

As a starting point, any Child Poverty strategy needs two broad goals, as follows.

1. Fix the social security system to lift children out of poverty. That includes scrapping both the two-child limit and the benefit cap, and increasing the child element of Universal Credit by at least £15 per week.

2. Support low-income families back into work by breaking down barriers to work and lifting incomes through good quality and secure work.

Standing still is simply not an appropriate option. Child poverty needs to be seen not only as the biggest moral issue of our time, but as a long-term economic millstone that is a disaster for any nation.

Paul Kellagher, Children’s services manager with Action for Children in Enniskillen.