by political editor Paul Francis

Parts of Kent are wallowing in rising levels of poverty and social deprivation.

That was the revelation at a major conference today, which showed areas of Kent are actually becoming poorer - bucking the national trend.

Kent County Council leader Cllr Paul Carter said young people in Kent's poorest areas should now be made to take on places in workfare programmes.

He said the most recent official Government data showed many parts of Kent were seeing rising levels of poverty and deprivation and that in the poorest parts of the county, the population was rising.

"There are some really worrying trends in our areas of greatest social deprivation where we are slipping down the league table."

On the basis of the most recent data, only Dartford and Canterbury of Kent’s 12 districts had made any progress in tackling social deprivation.

Cllr Carter said the greatest challenge was closing the gap between the poorest and most affluent parts of Kent- amid signs that it was getting wider.

One way of breaking the cycle of welfare dependency would be for the money spent on welfare and benefits for under-25s to be used instead to create work programmes.

"I think you would get a very pleasant surprise if you approached those long-term unemployed people and said to them: ‘I can give you a job that can be sustained into the future, with choice and diversity.’ I think 60 to 80 per cent would want to get off the sofa and into work."

Places would be funded by councils and the NHS. "With public sector agencies the size and scale of KCC and the NHS, we could offer a guarantee of employment for young people."

He told the conference the efforts being made to tackle deprivation in certain parts of Kent like Thanet were stalling.

"At best, we are treading water and if we are honest we are going backwards rather than forward. We cannot see that as an acceptable situation."

Mr Carter was speaking at the annual Kent Partnership conference at Maidstone’s Oakwood House. The conference brought together around 200 representatives from the public and voluntary sector to consider the key challenges facing the county.