Child Poverty Strategy monitoring framework: 2025

The Child Poverty Strategy Monitoring Framework 2025 provides the latest published data on outcomes for children and families in Wales. The findings are organised across four domains: Standard of Living; Education, Skills, and Employment; Wellbeing; and Inclusive Communities. The summary below provides a key finding for each domain.

Standard of Living domain

• In the most recent period, 31.2% of children in Wales were estimated to be living in relative income poverty after housing costs.
• DWP have made improvements to poverty statistics and on 26 March 2026 they revised some of the data to reflect this. The monitoring framework will next be updated in 2028, however the revised data are in our annual relative income poverty statistics report. 

Education, Skills, and Employment domain

• The gap in GCSE attainment between pupils eligible for free school meals and those not eligible remains significant. In 2024 to 2025, the difference in achieving A* to C grades was 29.4 percentage points.

Wellbeing domain

• Babies born in more deprived areas of Wales are more likely to have low birthweight.

Inclusive Communities

• Satisfaction with access to local services and a sense of community belonging is lower among families experiencing material deprivation.