Child poverty steals away children's life chances. Poor children are more likely to get behind their peers in education, have poorer health, a shorter life-span and a worse sense of well-being and belonging.

In 2014/15, 3.9 million children in the UK – 29 per cent of the Britain’s children – were living below the poverty line. Projections indicate that under current policy conditions, poverty rates may rise by as much as 50 per cent by the end of the decade (Child Poverty Action Group).[1]

This paper will examine the policy areas that the English policy-makers and the devolved government in Scotland have pursued since 2014, with a particular focus on the newly established Integrated Children and Young People’s Plan 2017-2020, which was introduced in Scotland in September 2017, and how it compares with aspects of the main child poverty strategy in England and Wales.

England & Wales

In 2010, the Child Poverty Act was passed with cross-party support. It enshrined in law Tony Blair’s 2001 pledge to end child poverty by 2020.

In 2016, the Welfare Reform and Work Act [2] abolished the Child Poverty Act, including the targets to reduce poverty and the measure of poverty based on family income. However, after a prolonged campaign, the government agreed to commit in law to regularly publishing data on the number of children in poverty. 

The government is treating the Child Poverty Act as “window dressing” [3]. Although it appears on the surface that the main parties are committed to eradicating poverty by 2020, these commitments are not "credible" the charity says, because none of the political parties has a coherent plan to avoid the crisis. For example if the Conservative Party was truly determined to adopt practical measures aimed at addressing deeply-entrenched inequalities it would not have to scraped its child poverty target and replaced it with a new duty to report levels of educational attainment, worklessness and addiction, rather than relative material disadvantage [4].

The Act sought to establish a Child Poverty Commission tasked with providing expert advice to the Government. The Coalition Government amended the Child Poverty Act to establish a Social Mobility & Child Poverty Commission in 2012, chaired by Alan Milburn. Under the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission has become the Social Mobility Commission.

The main shortcomings are that under the Welfare Reform and Work Act, the government is not required to produce a child poverty strategy. However, under David Cameron, the Conservatives indicated that they would produce a life chances strategy. 

Life chances strategy:

What are 'life chances' and how to measure them?: 'Improving children's life chances' - schooling, health and wellbeing, mental health and housing.

Life chances is a central motif of the current government’s social policy, bringing with it a welcome focus on tackling poverty and disadvantage and making opportunities more equal from childhood to adulthood. The framework sets out a range of indicators by which success could be measured. The recommendations span health, early years, housing, education, family life and support for young people moving into work. The common thread is that these will have limited impact as long as children continue to grow up in poverty.

To be credible and effective the strategy must place reducing poverty centre stage and promote concrete actions across a range of sectors:

Adequate family incomes: ensuring families have an adequate income to meet their children’s needs

-       Commits to raising the so-called ‘national living wage’; strengthens employee protection and prevents exploitative practices; adopts equality oriented labour market policies; raises children’s benefits.

 Lower costs for families: taking steps to reduce cost of living

-       Regulates costs in the private rented sector and longer term tenancies; introduces quotas for building genuinely affordable rented homes; invests in a universal free childcare service; ensures affordable transport fares.

Better homes and living environments:

-       Higher minimum standards for the energy efficiency and quality of rented homes; adequate funding for local authorities to maintain parks, sports grounds, leisure facilities, youth centres and libraries.

Effective services for children’s health and wellbeing

-       Commits to improving health; universal maternity and parenting support - high-quality universal antenatal and maternity services that meet needs across the social gradient, with additional targeted support for single and vulnerable mothers; prioritises mental health.

An education system that works for all children

-       The gradual extension of the 30 hours’ free childcare for three- and four-year-olds;  an increase in compensatory spending within schools, such as the ‘pupil premium’, targeted to the most deprived areas; strong government regulatory efforts to minimise social segregation in education and promote a balanced social mix of pupils across schools.

Support for transition to adulthood

-       Careful monitoring of new apprenticeship places to ensure they benefit disadvantaged young people, may need to increase subsidies for 16–18-year-olds; a policy focus on creating real opportunities for young workers beyond apprenticeships, whether through tax incentives for employers or investment in industries that generate high-quality jobs for young people; an end to the practice of unpaid internships; in general helping young people start their adult lives without facing financial insecurity and hardship and/or a heavy burden of debt through assessing and revising current destructive polices such as restrictions on housing benefits and increased tuition fees.

Scotland

Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) is the national approach in Scotland to improving outcomes and supporting the wellbeing of our children and young people by offering the right help at the right time from the right people.  It supports them and their parent(s) to work in partnership with the services that can help them. Scotland seeks to establish itself  as the best place in the world to grow up by putting children and their families at the heart of policy making and service delivery.

The Scottish strategy is enshrined in international treaties and is based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). GIRFEC has 16 values and principles that endorse fully the UNCRC approach to the upbringing of children. GIRFEC is the methodology for ensuring that any practitioners helping children and their families work in a way that fully embraces UNCRC. This applies to both adult and children’s services (Scottish Government).[5]

GIRFEC ensures children and young people get consistent and effective support for their wellbeing wherever they live or learn as the national standard. This incudes a single planning framework – the Child’s Plan– to ensure a consistent approach to how a range of extra support that is not generally available is planned, delivered and coordinated to a child’s specific needs and circumstances. This plan is developed in partnership with the child and their parent(s).

Services and community organisations across Scotland already use the GIRFEC approach to ensure the way they support children, young people and their parents is consistent and effective.

Legislation: the Children and Young People Bill became an Act in 2014 and includes progressive provisions such as:

- Increases the amount and flexibility of free Early Learning and Childcare from 475 to a minimum of 600 hours per year for 3 and 4 year olds, and 15% of Scotland’s most vulnerable 2 year olds. From August 2015 this will extend to 27% of the most vulnerable 2 year olds;

- Provides Free School Lunches to all children in primary 1–3 by January 2015.

Child Poverty Measurement Framework - Performance at a Glance 2016 

Source: Scottish Government: Annual Report on the Child Poverty Strategy for Scotland - 2016[6]

Follow to continue : http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/02/5028/1

The Scottish Government condemned UK’s plans to repeal significant parts of the Child Poverty Act 2010 via the Welfare Reform and Work Bill in July 2015. Scotland was strongly against the proposals to replace the 2020 income-based poverty targets with measures on worklessness and educational attainment; to remove the child poverty aspects of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission's remit; and to rename the legislation the 'Life Chances Act'. Scottish Ministers requested an opt-out from the UK Government's approach. They worked with DWP to agree a number of amendments to the Welfare Reform and Work Bill removing any duties on Scottish Ministers from the 2010 Act, and committed to bring forward a Scottish approach to tackling child poverty. A Legislative Consent Memorandum was considered by the Welfare Reform Committee in December 2015 and approved by the Parliament in January 2016.

The Scottish strategy differs from the rest of the UK in many positive ways that show the devolved government's commitment to addressing the building reasons behind the phenomenon of child poverty, which is entirely avoidable in a country as rich and as progressive as 21st century Britain. The lagging behind of England and Wales is not a recent development but a long-standing, deeply entrenched policy choice to prioritise one group of society over another. All political parties and policy makers have been pursuing a flawed direction. It is high time to alter the direction, if children, who are the future of any country, are to have a brighter fate.   

[1]Child Poverty Action Group Summary on Improving Children’s Life Chances, http://cpag.org.uk/sites/default/files/cpag_book_summary.pdf

[2]  Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/7/contents/enacted/data.htm

[3] Save the Children accuses main parties of treating Child Poverty Act as 'window dressing', https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/may/28/child-poverty-act-5m-2020-save-children-uk

[4]Government to scrap child poverty target before tax credits cuts,  https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/01/government-scrap-legal-requirements-child-poverty

[5] Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) - http://www.gov.scot/Topics/People/Young-People/gettingitright/what-is-girfec/children-and-young-people

[6]Child Poverty Measurement Framework - Performance at a Glance 2016, http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2016/12/6196/2