Fewer children on benefit, latest figures reveal

The number of children in Britain living on benefits has fallen by
6 per cent in two years according to the latest figures from the
Department for Work and Pensions.

There were 2.5 million children for whom benefit was payable last
May – nearly one child in five – which was 169,000 fewer than two
years previously. Nearly two-thirds of them (64 per cent) had been
receiving benefit for at least two years.

Four out of five of the 406,000 lone parents who took part in the
New Deal for Lone Parents had left by the end of September 2002. Of
those who left 186,000 had found jobs.

Ninety per cent of young people on the New Deal for Young People
scheme had left by September 2002. Two out of five of those leaving
had found “sustained, unsubsidised jobs”, but 29 per cent left for
“unknown reasons”. 

– See the statistical summary December 2002 at website www.dwp.gov.uk