inspiring social change - chris goulden
DESCRIPTION
The presentation delivered by Chris Goudlen from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation at the Breaking the Cycle of Child Poverty event in Redcar on 13th January 2012.TRANSCRIPT
INSPIRINGSOCIALCHANGE
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Breaking the Cycle of Child Poverty ConferenceNE Child Poverty Commission
Chris Goulden13 January 2012
• Annual review of progress made in fighting poverty and other forms of exclusion in the UK
• Range of indicators from low income & worklessness to ill health and homelessness
• Uses official statistics & datasets – therefore retrospective
• 2011 the first report to fully summarise Labour’s record
• Also the first that can look at the Coalition’s agenda on poverty and exclusion
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
BackgroundAbout the “MOPSE” reports
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Contents of this presentation
• Poverty, focussing on different risks by age group
• Work and worklessness
• Broader issues of exclusion− including health, housing and education
• Finally, looks at the Coalition’s child poverty agenda
Key points on poverty
• Child poverty (AHC) fell by around one-seventh under Labour
• The poverty rate for working-age adults without dependent children rose both in 2009/10 and over the last decade. It now stands at 20%
• The pensioner poverty rate, at 16%, is now around half the rate it was in 1997
• Now a sizeable (5% point) gap between poverty measures before and after housing costs
• Half of children in poverty are in working households
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Key points on work & employment
• By mid-2011, 6 million people were unemployed, lacking but wanting work or working part-time because no full-time job was available
− “Underemployment” was 2 million higher than in 2005
• The number of households where no adult has ever worked has never been higher
• The proportion of low paid jobs fell from 1997 to 2005, then stopped falling
• Young adult unemployment has been rising since the mid-2000s and is now higher than any time in last 20 years
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Education, health & housing
• Education− Proportions of children at all ages not attaining
expected standards have fallen− Gaps between FSM and others have closed, if slightly
• Health− Infant mortality down, adult mortality (pre-65) down− But health inequalities persist and geographical
differences are stark
• Housing− Homelessness down compared to a decade ago but
up in most recent year− Repossessions lower than early 1990s but rising again
in most recent figures
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Looking forward
• Child poverty strategy− Acceptance of 2020 target and measures− Explicit recognition of in-work poverty a step forward− Focus on gaps in education attainment− Are there other areas (e.g. health) where gaps are
marked?
• Social mobility strategy− Clear overlaps with child poverty
• Similarity with last Government’s approach− Explicit focus on children− Heavy (?over) reliance on tax, tax credit and benefit
systems
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
Key questions
• How to address poverty of young adults – who were children themselves when war on child poverty was first declared?
• How to balance the different roles of a social security system – and the different bases of entitlement to benefit?
• How to prevent welfare reform from being over-burdened by problems whose roots (and remedies) lie elsewhere?
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion