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Government policy
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13/03/2012
Welfare reforms could push 250,000 children deeper into poverty
The government’s new Universal Credit will hit poorer working mums the hardest, according to a report by the charity Save the Children. The report, Ending Child Poverty: Ensuring Universal Credit Supports Working Mums, argues that the potential impact of the new welfare system, which is due to replace tax credits and most benefits from 2013, risks making life harder for some families.
It identifies three main areas of concern:
insufficient earnings disregards for working mothers lack of support for childcare costs Universal Credit payments will be withdrawn too quickly.Without changes in these areas, it argues, the scheme’s aims of making work pay by supporting parents into work and of reducing child poverty could be undermined.
Category: News stories -
11/03/2012
Central London primary school to lose half its pupils
A primary school in London’s most affluent borough is set to lose half its pupils as a result of the government’s benefits cap, according to a report in the Observer.
The school, St Cuthbert with St Matthias Church of England school in Kensington and Chelsea, the country’s richest borough, is making plans for the loss of up to 100 pupils in the wake of the government’s benefits cap.
The school’s headteacher, Stephen Boatright, said that children from six families had already moved to live as far away as Nottingham and Hull. He said schools in Enfield, north London, where the costs of private accommodation were lower, were already taking in huge numbers of children.
The £500-a-week benefits cap, which is due to be implemented in 2013, is expected to leave around 130,000 families across the capital unable to pay their rent.
Category: News stories -
08/03/2012
Coalition ministers clash over child poverty
In a speech to the think-tank ResPublica, the Children’s Minister Lib Dem MP Sarah Teather argued that ‘those who suggest that income plays no part in poverty are wrong’.
This appeared directly to contradict an earlier statement by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith (see Iain Duncan Smith rejects benefits as way to tackle poverty) that ‘tackling child poverty by boosting family income through benefits is a narrow approach’.
Category: News stories -
01/03/2012
ESRC research projects on child poverty identify barriers to mobility
Current policies are unlikely to meet child poverty targets, according to a summary of research projects by the Economic and Social Research Council, Child Poverty Casts A Long Shadow Over Social Mobility. This ESRC Evidence Briefing, one of a series on social mobility, provides a detailed summary of the findings of a number of current research projects on child poverty. The research consistently identifies significant detrimental outcomes for children living in poverty and key barriers to moving out of poverty.
Category: Reports -
01/03/2012
PSE: UK response to the Field Review consultation
In Tackling Child Poverty and Improving Life Chances: Consulting on a New Approach, the PSE: UK research team has responded to the consultation on the Field Review’s report, The Foundation Years: Preventing Poor Children Becoming Poor Adults. The response welcomes the emphasis on early years in the Field report but is critical of key aspects of the report, arguing that key elements of the proposed strategy are ‘narrow, partial and highly likely to be ineffective’.
Category: Reports -
29/02/2012
Welfare Reform Bill passed
The government’s highly controversial Welfare Reform Bill was finally passed by the House of Lords on 27 February 2012 after peers dropped their final resistance to the controversial measures. The Bill, hailed as ‘historic’ by the Prime Minister, aims to save £18 billion from the annual welfare bill and overhauls most of the benefit system.
Key measures include:
Category: News stories -
23/01/2012
Housing benefit cap will hit more households
Estimates of the numbers expected to be affected by the government’s Housing Benefit Cap have risen in an updated impact assessment by the Department for Work and Pensions, Impact Assessment for the Household Benefit Cap. The latest estimate is that the £26,000 benefit cap will reduce the incomes of 67,000 households, covering 90,000 adults and 220,000 children, in the year 2013/14. This is an increase on the government’s previous estimates of 50,000 households. Benefits for these households are expected to reduce on average by around £83 per week. Nearly 20 per cent of those households losing benefit will lose more than £150 per week.
The modelling suggests that, in the absence of any behavioural response to the policy, the numbers of households affected will rise to 75,000 in 2014/15.
Category: Reports -
01/01/2012
Disabled people slam government’s Disability Living Allowance reforms
The Coalition government’s proposed ‘reforms’ to the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) lack support and credibility and are ‘highly misleading’, says Responsible Reform, a report written by sick and disabled people, their friends and carers. Based on an analysis of 500 responses to the UK government’s consultation on its planned changes to disability living allowance, this report argues that the decision to reduce DLA expenditure by 20 per cent may have been based on misleading data about the reasons for growth in DLA. It is estimated that the proposed changes could lead to 500,000 disabled people losing entitlement to the benefit. The report found:
Category: Reports -
15/12/2011
Targeted support promised for Britain’s ‘most troubled families’
David Cameron pledged a network of troubleshooters, along with more targeted support for 120,000 of Britain’s most troubled families, by 2015. Cameron promised families one dedicated worker rather than a ‘string of well-meaning, disconnected officials’.
Under the government’s proposals, families need to meet five out of seven criteria – including truanting children, parents with addiction and antisocial behaviour – to be classified as ‘troubled’.
The government is diverting £448m from existing departmental budgets over four years to help pay for a network of people who will identify families in need of help, make sure they get access to the right services and ensure that action is taken.
Category: News stories -
01/12/2011
Iain Duncan Smith rejects benefits as way to tackle poverty
Tackling child poverty by boosting family income through benefits is a narrow approach that ‘looks set to have failed’ said Ian Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, in a major speech. The speech followed the government’s Autumn Statement, which included welfare measures that on the government’s own projections would lead to an increase in child poverty – another signal of the government’s intentions to develop a new approach to poverty less dependent on benefits.
Duncan Smith claimed there are problems with officially classifying child poverty as a family on 60 per cent or less than the median income, as this had pushed governments into introducing policies with ‘perverse incentives’. He argued that this target created a ‘poverty plus a pound’ approach – where authorities did only enough to keep some families just above the 60 per cent mark without really changing lives, while those at the very bottom could be left behind.
Category: News stories
