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Children to be entitled to £50 uniform subsidy

Claire HamiltonNorth West
News imageBBC A shop rail with various school uniform dresses hanging down. They include blue, pink and green check dresses and dark tunics.BBC
School children in St Helens, Merseyside, will be entitled to receive £50 towards their uniform costs

All school children in part of Merseyside will be entitled to £50 that will be put towards the cost of new uniforms.

The St Helens Borough Council scheme is the first of its kind in the Liverpool City Region and was agreed as part of the authority's budget this week.

Council leader Anthony Burns said the move had been made possible because it received more money from the government than had been originally anticipated.

"Because we've successfully lobbied the government for additional funding, our council is now in a stronger financial position and it was important that local residents saw the benefit of that," he said.

He said he had been consulting Barnsley Council in Yorkshire, which launched a similar scheme last year.

Burns said the details of the scheme would be ironed out but in Barnsley, families are sent a voucher which they can exchange at the Post Office for cash.

The Labour-led council in St Helens also voted through a council tax rise of just under 5%.

Mr Burns said there were "different pots" of income for the authority, with the council tax used to pay for aspects like adult social care.

He said without the rise, the council would not be able to fulfil its legal duties in those areas.

News imageKimberly poses in the high street. She has drak hiar and wears dark shades and a jacket.
Kimberly said the payment would "help a lot" in funding her children's uniforms

In St Helens town centre, shoppers had mixed views about the uniform scheme.

Kimberly Miriam said £50 for each of her children "would help a lot" as the cost of new uniforms soon added up.

She said: "It's £50-£60 for a blazer, then you've got shoes, then they want all the top-make bags, then they want all the top-make shoes, it does cost quite a bit."

But another woman, Paula, said parents benefited from much more financial help than previous generations.

She said she was "on the borderline" of whether she supported the scheme, adding: "They're giving them breakfast, they're giving them lunch and they're giving them a meal after school."

News imagePaula smiles as she poses in front of a row of high street shops. She has short fair hair and wears an animal print scarf around her neck. She also wears a sandy-coloured coat.
Paula said she and her mother worked hard to pay for clothing and other needs

Paula said uniforms were something previous generations "worked to pay for".

"I worked all my life to pay for whatever my children wanted. My mother had seven children and she worked damn hard to clothe us."

However, she conceded that modern household budgets were being stretched, "It's a different world now, isn't it?"

At the full council meeting where the budget was agreed, an opposition group leader said the announcement was a cynical move by a Labour administration worried about losing seats at the local elections in May.

Reform's John Pinnington questioned how much the scheme would cost the council but did not receive a detailed response during the meeting.

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