PARENTS from poorer backgrounds will be given financial support to help pay for school costs under a groundbreaking scheme.

Renfrewshire Council has unveiled a £280,000 fund which will allow less well of families to meet the cost of school trips and other educational expenses such as books or uniforms.

The support is part of a wider £6 million fund which will also see an extra £1.2m spent on literacy resources to help cut the the attainment gap.

The council will also use £410,000 to set up a team of experts to forge links between pupils and the world of work and training.

The move comes after a major UK-wide report last year found millions of families across the UK were struggling to meet the hidden costs of state education.

The Children's Commission on Poverty said basics such as uniforms, school trips, materials and computer access could amount to £800 per child each year.

Mark Macmillan, Renfrewshire Council leader, said: "The cost of the school day has a major impact on families who live below the breadline and I want to put a safety net in place to offer them immediate help with costs like materials, trips and other activities.

"More than half of our £6m poverty fund will deliver a unique schools package to improve early years and close the attainment gap between high and low income households.

"We will also step up Renfrewshire's literacy approach in our primary schools and bring it into line with the needs of local children."

Meanwhile, new figures showed the number of UK children classed as living in relative poverty remains 2.3 million.

The Department for Work and Pensions annual estimate shows the proportion affected - almost one in six - was unchanged from 2011/12 to 2013/14.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said UK poverty levels were the "lowest since the mid-1980s" and showed government reforms were working.

But charities said proposed welfare changes would leave families worse off.

A child is defined as being in poverty when living in a household with an income below 60 per cent of the UK's average.

Shadow chancellor Chris Leslie accused the government of failing to make progress in cutting child poverty and raising incomes.

The figures represented a "depressing slow-down in the progress we should be making as a country", he said.

Javed Khan, chief executive of children's charity Barnardo's, said every child living in poverty was a child that was being "let down".

He said: "Government plans to cut struggling families' incomes further by changing tax credits is deeply concerning... this government must ensure that change to the benefits system makes work pay for those on low incomes."

Matthew Reed, chief executive of the Children's Society, said there has been a "steady rise" over the last five years in the numbers of children living in poverty in households where parents work.

He said 200,000 more children have been pushed deeper into poverty over the past year.

Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, said the figures made "grim reading", adding: "The government is not going to meet the child poverty targets."