Local Evidence Highlights Hidden Child Poverty

A new report from Citizens Advice Stroud & Cotswold Districts has exposed the extent of child poverty in areas often perceived as affluent. Child Poverty: Local Evidence – National Action (August 2025) reveals that one in five children across the Stroud and Cotswold districts is living in poverty.

Drawing on data from 85 local households and first-hand accounts, the report highlights the daily reality for families struggling to meet basic needs in predominantly rural communities.

Key findings include:

• 88% of families in the study are receiving Universal Credit, yet continue to face financial hardship.
• 73% are in debt, with two-thirds of these dealing with priority debts such as rent, energy bills, or council tax arrears.
• 70% have used crisis support such as food banks or the Household Support Fund.
• 66% are single-parent households, the vast majority headed by women.
• 73% of households include someone receiving or applying for disability benefits.
• Families in private rental accommodation face average shortfalls of £250 a month between Local Housing Allowance and actual rent.

The report also highlights how sudden changes such as relationship breakdown, ill health, or the arrival of a new child frequently push families into crisis. Policies including the two-child limit and the benefit cap are identified as significant drivers of deep poverty for larger households.

Citizens Advice Stroud & Cotswold Districts make a series of recommendations to address these challenges. These include:

• Protecting disability and health benefits by pausing cuts to the Universal Credit health element.
• Raising Local Housing Allowance to the 30th percentile of local rents and ensuring it keeps pace with rising costs.
• Introducing automatic access to social tariffs for energy, water, and broadband to ease household bills.
• Ending the two-child limit and the benefit cap, which together could lift 400,000 children out of poverty nationally.

Elizabeth Hall, Chief Executive Officer of Citizens Advice Stroud & Cotswold Districts, said:

"Behind every statistic in this report is a child growing up without essentials, opportunities and the experiences they deserve. Poverty is not inevitable, it is shaped by the choices we make as a society, and it can be changed."

The findings are published ahead of the UK Government’s forthcoming Child Poverty Strategy, expected in autumn 2025. Citizens Advice is urging policymakers to ensure lived experience and frontline evidence are at the centre of national action.

Read the full report here