Consider_the_Impact_Different_Government’s_Welfare_Policies_Have_Had_on_Poverty_in_the_Uk,_in_Relation_to_Children_and_Young_People.

Consider the impact different Government’s welfare policies have had on poverty in the UK, in relation to Children and young people. In March 1999, Tony Blair made a speech about poverty (Dorman 2004: nd) he said “our historic aim will be for ours to be the first generation to end child poverty and it will take a generation. It is a twenty year mission but I believe it can be done.” This essay will define the word poverty and look at the history of welfare reform. It will discuss the three different government ideologies towards welfare and the state since 1979. How Margaret Thatcher believed cutting benefits, forcing people to work, would help the economy. It will discuss how Labour’s policies were committed to the eradication of child poverty, by supporting low income families by financial means and placing services into disadvantaged communities. How the Coalition Government has reduced family’s benefits and its future plans for welfare reform, and how changes in policies have impacted on children’s and young people’s poverty. There are two definitions of poverty; absolute poverty which is a standard set by numerous countries doesn’t change and is based on a fixed income threshold. Where a person’s income doesn’t match what is needed such as food, clothing and shelter to survive. Relative poverty is worked out against the poverty line of sixty per cent of the average UK income. (Poverty Action Group 2012: 1) It is where a person has a low income and a poor standard of living and though they have enough money for basic necessities, there is no money left over for luxuries. The Welfare State originated from the Poor Law Act 1834, where poor people were put into workhouses and had to work in exchange for food and somewhere to live (O’Brien and Penn 1998:21). The belief was that everyone had the freedom to make choices and all the state needed to do was to help the really destitute. Studies by Booth and Rowntree in the twentieth century showed that poverty wasn’t just due to being lazy, but there were social and economic climates that also contributed (Thane 1996:7). In 1942 William Beveridge, an economist and expert on the unemployed published a report on welfare reform. He believed that to reduce unemployment the economy needed to improve and that there should be public services for all who needed it. All working people would pay a weekly flat rate contribution to the state in the form of a social insurance. If you were sick, became unemployed, retired or widowed you would get a weekly flat rate payment and non-contributors to the scheme received a means tested national assistance. The idea was that everyone lived in acceptable conditions and shouldn’t go below this. In 1945 Labour came into Government and being in favour of the report they also had white papers written up on education, strategies for enabling full employment, and the National Health Service (The National Archives nd). Margaret Thatcher’s Government in 1979 believed the state had too much control and reduced its size by privatising the main utility providers, British Gas, BT etc. and made cuts to the welfare state. (O’Brien and Penna1998: 78-79). The Government stated they were no longer a ‘universal provider’ and decided against the policy for full employment, emphasising the need for employers and employees to arrange this. They also wanted more to be done by the private and voluntary sector in regards to services and believed more people should take responsibility for themselves (Kavanagh 2011:3). This was a very similar view to the old poor laws. The Social Security Act 1986 was meant “to target benefits more towards families with children and to improve incentives to work”. Supplementary benefit became Income support and included the payment element for housing and family credit (Joseph Rowntree Foundation 1994:2). Alongside this, the Children’s Act 1989 was brought out to protect those families most in need. This gave social services the power for intervention; its primary aim to protect the child by guidance and financial means, but also to remove them and place in foster care if needed. In 1991 the Child Support Act was introduced to look at making absent parents accountable for their maintenance payments. The Child Support Agency in 1993 was formed to seek these parents and impose charges. Though this was set up to make sure children were provided for, it proved unpopular, as it took a long time, made unrealistic calculations and people ended up in arrears (Child Support Agency 2011). Margaret Thatcher’s reforms though, meant to decrease welfare dependency only increased unemployment and more money was given out in benefits to support this. New labour in 1997 linked poverty to ‘Social Exclusion’, they described it as “what can happen when people or areas suffer from problems such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime, bad health and family breakdown”. Tony Blair created a ‘Social Exclusion Unit’ to look at and implement changes in the most deprived areas for them “to provide housing, education, and getting the basic right”; He believed that everyone should have acceptable living conditions (Social Exclusion Unit 2001:10). This was very similar to Beveridge’s ideals in 1945. He introduced the New Deal employability, to assist unemployed young people and single parents into work. The introduction of the minimum wage along with a means tested child and working tax credits, supported low income families with their transition into work. New Deal communities and neighbourhoods addressed the most disadvantaged suburbs. They provided community education, health centres; careers advise for young people in the form of connexions services. The National Child Care Strategy of 1998, targeted new childcare centres in the form of ‘Sure start’, to provide free early education places for pre and school age children and to provide assistance for low income families (CPAG 2004:14-15, 24-25). The “Every child matters” initiative in 2002 stressed the importance to bring together education, social services, Connexions and health services for children. It set up clear communication channels through a Common Assessment Framework. The aims to be healthy, safe, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution and to have economic wellbeing and the Children’s Act 2004 used the “ECM” as a benchmark to improve social work with children, their play and investment in mental health (Barker 2009 nd). The 2010 Child Poverty Act aims were to end child poverty by 2020. The targets set for this were; for less than ten per cent of children to be living in families in relative poverty; for less than five per cent of children to be living in families of low income and material deprivation and that less than five per cent of children should be living in families in absolute poverty. Strategies needed to be updated every three years on how this would be achieved and all the main parties signed up to this (The Law centre 2010). Child poverty saw a reduction between 1998 and 2010 when over a million children were lifted out of poverty.9 This was due to an increase of lone parents working, as well as the reliance of tax credits paid to families with children (CPAG 2012). Since 2010, the Coalition has set up the work programme initiative to get the long term unemployed back into work, assisted by an adviser supporting them with job search activities. Uncertainty surrounds the Government’s commitment to the “ECM” strategy, as funding has been cut with reductions and closures of connexions services and sure start centres. The Department for Education has also replaced the phrase and five aims with “help children achieve more” (Child Care and Young People’s Daily Bulletin 2010). Further cuts include the benefits cap recently implemented for families on welfare to bring it into line with the average wage earner. Working tax credit entitlement for couples with children, now have to work twenty four hours instead of sixteen to qualify and will lose it if they work below this. Also the child care support element has been cut by ten per cent, again affecting low income families (Conservative Party Policy 2012). Conservative Work and Pension’s secretary Iain Duncan Smith said recently that he “wanted to fix child benefit and working tax credits for two children only; that they shouldn’t have to support the poorest families if they had more children than they could afford”(Mirror Newspaper 2012). There has been an increase in community food bank centres, to provide a hot meal or a food bag to people struggling to survive. In addition there has been the increase in schools providing breakfast for children (Dowler, Turner and Dobson 2001:96-97). In 2013 there will be the introduction of the Universal Credit; it will combine job seekers allowance, housing benefit, child tax credit working tax credit, income support and employment support allowance into one payment. Application will be online and the claimant will input information about any work as it happens and their payment will be adjusted accordingly. There will be one main claimant per household and it will be paid monthly. The claimant has to agree to actively look for work and if they do not do this, they will lose their Universal credit for up to three years (Conservative Party Policy 2012). Universal Credit may cause problems in the future as families struggling with monthly payments may spend the housing element for other essentials and in doing so slide into debt. There is also the problem of how people with little or no computer skills will manage this. Each government had similar ideas on poverty, to gain employment through the ideal of conditionality; people should be forced to seek work to get their benefits. Work does not provide a guaranteed route out of poverty; almost two-thirds of children growing up in poverty live in a household where at least one member works (CPAG 2012). Margaret Thatcher did little to help children out of poverty, though she did bring in powers through Social Services to assist families who were struggling. Labour invested in services and financial measures to help people back into work and to support their families. They made a commitment to eradicate child poverty by 2020 and some steps had been made towards this by the end of their government. Though it is still very early to gauge the Coalition government progress to date, under their current policies; it is believed that three hundred thousand more children will be living in poverty by 2016 and this is expected to rise to over four million by 2020(CPAG 2012). 10The Coalition GovernmentThe The Coalition Government have made a commitment to the 2010 Child Poverty Act, but there is room for debate on how they plan to achieve this. 1643 words, 10% over. References BBC - History - British History in depth: (2012) Thatcherism and the End of the Post-War Consensus. [online] Available from [7th November 2012] Dornan P (2004) Ending Child Poverty by 2020. Edition. 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