News
Insight: essential youth sector analysis and reflection - Issue 14, 8 December 2010
08 December 2010
Tackling child poverty
Why are we talking about it now?
Last week saw the publication of the report of the Independent Review on Poverty and Life Chances, conducted by Frank Field, setting out a new strategy to meet the Government’s target of abolishing child poverty. A key question asked by the Review was how to prevent poor children from becoming poor adults. As an answer, the report proposes the Coalition Government switches focus from the previous government’s anti-poverty measure, based on material income, to a set of life chance indicators. This recommendation is based on evidence from the Review that children’s life chances are most heavily predicated on their development in the first five years of life and that family background, parental education, good parenting and the opportunities for learning and development in those early years, matter more to children than money in determining their potential in later life.
Key proposals set out in the Review include:
- parenting classes throughout school life;
- a new index of life chances that can be monitored annually. These indicators will measure annual progress at a national level on a range of factors in young children which are predictive of children’s future outcomes;
- a focus on foundation years equal to primary and secondary schools;
- a rationalisation of children's services, including post-natal work, from pregnancy to going to school;
- a working-class version of Mumsnet, the online forum for parents;
- kite marking children's tv programmes to help speech development.
Is there any evidence to support the Review?
It would seem so. A new report published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) found that although the number of impoverished children has dropped overall to 3.7 million, the majority (58%) are now from homes where a parent or carer is working, adding weight to the argument that work is not the only route out of poverty. However, the report Monitoring Poverty and Exclusion concludes that the overall fall in the number of poor children living in workless households (1.6m) was ‘almost certainly’ related to the rise in child benefit and child tax credit in 2008 and that without the increases in these benefits, the numbers of children in poverty would be around half a million higher. This then would seem to contradict Field’s report that says poverty is not based on material income.
A recent report published by Unicef into child inequality in 24 developed countries also contradicts the review and reinforces the argument that income is an important determinant of poverty. It found that income poverty still has the greatest impact on child inequality in the UK. The report measured how far children in poverty have fallen behind in terms of health, education and material wealth. Overall, the UK was ranked in the bottom two-fifths of countries, alongside Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The report calls for the government to apply a fairness test to changes to benefits and education.
Frank Field’s Review argues that there is little sign that schools close the attainment gaps forged by bad parenting during a child’s early years. However, a lack of good parenting is not the only issue. Figures from the JRF report found that in 2009 22% of 16-year-old boys and 15% of girls eligible for free school meals did not achieve five GCSEs, almost three times the proportion for boys and girls not eligible.
This makes the decision during the Spending Review to end the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA), which currently enables many disadvantaged young people to study for A-levels, and replace it with the learner support fund, very surprising. It has emerged that the yearly budget of the learner support fund will be just £78m, despite the fact EMA was worth more than £560m annually. A survey by the NUS in 2008 showed that 65% of those who receive the £30 rate of EMA stated that they could not continue to study without it. The London Borough of Newham also undertook research into its 16-19 education and related employment in 2010 which showed the importance of the Education Maintenance Allowance. The majority of young people in receipt of the EMA said it was an important factor in their decision to continue studying. The Government announced that EMA will be paid in full this year, an announcement about its long-term future is expected imminently.
A new report by researchers at the Institute of Education (IOE), University of London has also found that improving parenting does not improve educational disadvantage. The report which analysed the progress of over 11,000 children in their first two years at school found that there is still a large gap between children of parents in professional and managerial jobs and those with parents who were long-term unemployed. It also revealed that parents' social class has a bigger influence on progress between 5 and 7 than a range of parenting practices, such as daily reading with a child.
What does the sector say?
Anne Longfield, chief executive of 4Children, welcomed the Review: "Frank Field has hit the nail on the head. The first five years of life are ‘make or break’ for many children. As a country we have a duty to give every child the best start we can." Although TUC general secretary Brendan Barber backed Field's call for early years education to be better funded, he added “"We have reached a critical point in the debate about poverty, inequality and welfare in Britain. We remain a country with an exceptional level of economic inequality that needs significant fundamental structural change and government investment."
Unicef UK executive director David Bull said: "Tackling income poverty should remain the number-one priority for government to reduce child inequality in the UK. At a time of austerity we must not widen this gap”.
In a letter to the Guardian, Professor Diane Reay from the University of Cambridge criticised the Review. She said: “Rather than improving the material circumstances of the poor, the focus yet again is to be on social mobility and improving life chances, without any recognition that in a stagnant economy few opportunities for advancement exist”. However, Saran Brennan, Chair of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition said the focus on parenting as the key determinant in improving a child's life chances “will create mentally healthy, resilient and emotionally literate young people and adults who then form families that contribute constructively to society, thus breaking the cycle of intergenerational disadvantage”.
Dr Alice Sullivan, principal author of the IOE study said: “Our research shows that while parenting is important, a policy focus on parenting alone is insufficient to tackle the impacts of social inequalities on children. Redistributive economic policies may be more effective than policies directly addressing parenting practices”.