A NATIONAL charity has criticised local education authorities - including three in the north west - for axing clothing grants as the cost of school uniforms rises.
A survey by Citizen's Advice Bureau of all 172 LEAs in England and Wales found 42 per cent now offer no help to parents, however low their income, compared with 30pc three years ago.
The number of grant schemes has fallen in three regions with the highest proportion of children living in poor households - London, the north west and the north east.
In the north west, only 68pc of LEAs offer grants compared with 80pc in 2001. In Manchester some children get '78 when they transfer to secondary school while in Liverpool it could be as little as '20.
In Salford, Oldham and Cheshire parents get nothing. Salford is in the top 10 most underprivileged areas in Britain.
The CAB is urging the government to introduce a statutory duty on LEAs to provide uniform grants.
In Salford, grants were stopped four years ago. In the final year '168,000 was set aside for the grants, which went to 5,000 children.
Bury LEA abandoned grants several years before Salford.
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School uniform grants blasted
September 09, 2004
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Tina Brady, Cheetham Hill (16/09/2004 at 14:21)
I work with families in Salford area and it is catch 22 for most of them. The parents cannot afford the uniforms so the children refuse to go to school, then education welfare are at the door. I work for a voluntary service and have to try my best to find some kind of help for these families but there is nothing available to them. What is more important to LEA children in school learning and being happy or children not at school doind god's know what.