Departmental progress on mainstreaming
279. The Committee wrote to central government departments
other than DWP and HM Treasury that might contribute to the eradication
of child poverty. Their responses are summarised below and are
in Volume III.
280. The Minister for Children, Young People and
Families stated:
"The basis for tackling child poverty and
social exclusion is to ensure that we give children an excellent
start in education so that they have a better foundation for future
learning and to enable young people to develop and to equip themselves
with skills. Knowledge and personal qualities needed for life
and work
so the work to tackle child poverty is firmly embedded
in what we are seeking to do."[261]
281. The letter
also referred to: the contribution of Sure Start; the investment
in schools in Excellence in Cities areas covering 1,500 secondary
and 3,000 primary schools, which is being extended to 15 more
LEAs in September 2004; the efforts the DfES is making to encourage
the take-up of free school meals and their nutritional adequacy;
and the guidance to LEAs to take into account the costs of school
uniforms.
282. The Parliamentary Under Secretary for
Health referred to the health inequality target: "Starting
with children under one year, by 2010 to reduce the gap in mortality
by at least 10% between 'routine and manual' groups and the population
as a whole." He acknowledged that the gap had been widening
since the target was established and the target "remains
very challenging". Among the measures to combat health inequalities
he mentioned: the Acheson Report published in 1998; making health
inequalities fundamental to the NHS Plan; 3000 personal medical
schemes to retain and recruit GPs in deprived communities; new
formula for allocating NHS resources with better measures of deprivation
and unmet need; £1 billion investment through the LIFT programme
in primary care; and the Children's National Service Framework
designed to improve standards.[262]
283. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry
said :
"My Department does not deliver services
focussed upon child poverty. However I am confident that the work
we have underway in a variety of areas will disproportionately
assist children in poverty stricken households."[263]
284. The letter also referred to: progress in increasing
the minimum wage; the action of OFCOM in regulating advertising
directed at children and promoting media literacy; the measures
to promote work-life balance and new laws covering the right for
parents to request flexible working hours; improved maternity
pay and the lengthening of maternity leave; and fathers' right
to paternity leave and equivalent adoptive parents rights. Reference
was also made to initiatives tackling debt problems and the proposals
in the Consumer Credit White Paper to control unfair credit transactions
and to improve the support for those who have fallen into debt
and improve the free debt advice available. Government policy
on over-indebtedness is being reviewed by a Ministerial group
which will report in Spring 2004.
285. The Home Office also have a contribution to
make to the eradication of child poverty, as they recognise in
their written evidence, which states:
"Child poverty is not only about financial
deprivation. It is also about poverty of opportunity - children
who are denied the chances that others take for granted, and whose
adults lives can be blighted by their experience of childhood.
Children who grow up in poverty run an increased risk of suffering
a range of negative outcomes. For example, they may be at greater
risk of becoming involved in anti-social behaviour, offending,
or substance abuse - there is strong evidence that children in
poverty are exposed to more of the risk factors that can lead
to these outcomes. Exposure to these risk factors, and involvement
in crime or drugs itself, can have a devastating effect on children's
prospects as adults. Children of prisoners are a particularly
vulnerable group
Children from deprived backgrounds are also
likely to have been a victim of crime. This too can have serious
consequences for a child's long-term development and prospects.
We know, in particular, that involvement in domestic violence
can have a serious effect not just on a family's financial situation,
but also a child's emotional and psychological development."
286. Their written evidence goes on to state that
delivering race equality is one of their key targets; that they
have worked closely with DfES on the consultation paper Every
Child Matters and on the Children Bill; and they have been
actively involved in the Treasury's Child Poverty Review. Other
key policy initiatives include: a Community Cohesion Unit which
is working to embed community cohesion in deprived neighbourhoods
into mainstream policy; an Anti-Social Behaviour Unit which published
a consultation paper, an action plan[264]
and the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (November 2003); Youth Inclusion
Programmes targetting the most 'at risk' teenagers to prevent
them from offending; parenting programmes working in partnership
with Youth Offending Teams and parents of young people engaged
in or at risk of anti-social behaviour; and a range of measures
to help children in asylum-seeking families and unaccompanied
asylum-seeking children.
287. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM)
also has an important part to play. The work of the Social Exclusion
Unit is important in delivering joined up policies; the Neighbourhood
Renewal Unit is responsible for delivering the neighbourhood strategy;
and the ODPM is responsible for housing policy and homelessness
and the fact that the number of children living in bed and breakfast
accommodation is currently at record levels. Shelter in their
oral evidence said
"
we would argue that housing is absolutely
critical. If you are serious about lifting
.., people out
of child poverty, then you have to do something to tackle housing
conditions on a structural level. It would be nice to see some
signs coming out of the ODPM that they understood their role in
delivery against the child poverty agenda. It is not a noise that
we hear coming out of the ODPM at all."[265]
288. Programmes delivered by local councils, regeneration
agencies or variously configured partnerships are offering services
to children which can impact importantly on their quality of life
and on the quality of life in poor neighbourhoods generally.
A great deal of good work is being done with a number of different
objectives - from reducing offending to raising minimum standards
of service across a cluster of wards. Yet funding sources are
frequently complex and there are differences in criteria and longevity
between them. The Committee heard, for example, about the problems
which hit the Children Fund this year - which impacted on the
ground on hundreds if not thousands of local initiatives delivering
holiday and after-school activities targeting on the neediest
children.
289. The Committee recommends that, as part of
the policy of mainstreaming child poverty, the Government aims
to create coherence and consistency between local funding streams
from all government departments which are directed towards children
and young people.
290. The Committee
recommends that a key feature of the national strategy should
include poverty proofing of all departmental policies across Whitehall
and the devolved administrations.
The distribution of expenditure
on (poor) children
291. Save the Children (UK) gave us access to a very
interesting analysis of public expenditure on children undertaken
by Tom Sefton covering education, health, social security, social
care and housing.[266]
His conclusions on these areas are summarised in annex 2. The
overall conclusion of the Sefton analysis is that overall spending
on children has grown by 17-19% in real terms between 1996/97
and 2001/02 and that this is more than the growth in expenditure
on pensioners and working adults. He estimates that the spending
on poor children (those in families receiving either Income Support
or income-related JSA) is on average twice as great as on non-poor
children. For individual services, in education, spending on poor
children is between 1.06 to 1.35 times non poor children; 1.03
to 1.43 times more in health; 1.22 to 4.10 times more in social
care and 6.8 to 7.03 more in housing; and 3.66 to 3.75 times more
in social security. The analysis also shows that overall spending
has become more pro-poor. For example, on average, the difference
in spending per child on education between the 10% most deprived
authorities and the 10% least deprived authorities has increased
from 16% in 1997/98 to 24% in 2003/04.
292. While these results are interesting they are
very sensitive to how central allocations to local authorities
and health trusts are actually spent on the ground and evidence
on this is very thin. There is some evidence that the gearing
to poverty in central allocations is not being reflected in the
expenditure patterns of local authorities and health trusts. The
Committee recommends that during the course of the next 3 year
spending round all departments should monitor the extent to which
their central allocations are being used to target child poverty
effectively at local level. The Minister
for Children argued that local authorities had to be left with
the discretion to use their resources as they thought best:
"
in the end local authorities have
to take their own decisions on the money that we allocate to them,
and that is again an element in our democratic infrastructure.
So if your local authority decides to use its money in a particular
way, it is very difficult for us to intervene at the centre. I
am not sure it would be right for us to do so. They have to take
that decision locally. What we can, and do, do is ensure that
the outcomes that we look to for local authorities act as a lever
to encourage them to invest appropriately in those children or
schools of greatest need
It is partly how you set the targets,
partly how you inspect. We do not control it through inputs.
We try and control it through outcomes."[267]
293. However, this does not mean that we should ignore
the distributional consequences of their expenditure.
294. Most of the Sefton analysis covers a period
before the period covered by the spending review,[268]
which covers expenditure in the three-year period 2003/4 to 2005/6.
In the period up to 2001 spending on health and education grew
in real terms, but fell as a proportion of GDP. The new spending
plans envisaged an overall increase of 3.3% per year in real terms
over the period and public expenditure as a proportion of GDP
will rise from 39.9% in 2002/03 to 41.9 percent in 2005/6. This
increase in spending is concentrated on education (7.7% growth),
health (7.3% growth) and transport (12.1% growth). Between 2000/1
and 2005/6, education spending will rise from 4.6 to 5.6% of GDP.
By 2007/8, it is envisaged that UK health spending will reach
9.4% of GDP - above the current EU average of 8%. While this increase
in spending is likely to benefit poor children, it is not necessarily
so. For example, the priorities identified for the increased spending
on health are mainly concerned with adult health and could result
in a relative shift in the gearing of health expenditure away
from children.
295. There is also a concern about whether the extra
allocated by central government in respect of poverty is enough.
Tom Sefton says:
"The outcomes for the poorest children are
still very much worse than for children from better off families.
Although spending is skewed towards poorer children, more clearly
needs to be done to reduce inequalities in income, and in educational,
health, and other outcomes. Arguably spending is still not sufficiently
skewed towards children with the greatest needs, whilst recognising
that higher spending is not the only answer to many problems."[269]
296. The Opportunity For All health indicators
illustrate some of these concerns. For example, the ratio of infant
mortality rates per 1000 live births in England and Wales of routine
and manual groups is widening not narrowing. The smoking rates
among children from 11 to 15 are static. The proportion of teenage
parents who are not in education, employment or training increased
in 2003 and while the under-18 conception rate fell between 1998
and 2001 it rose in 2002 on the basis of provisional figures.
The rate of decline is presently too slow to meet the target (to
reduce by 50% the 1998 England under-18 conception rate by 2010,
or the interim target of a 15% reduction by 2004). The second
Wanless Report published in February 2004 emphasised the need
"to shift emphasis from a national sickness service which
treats disease to a health service which focuses on preventing
it." [270]
297. As we have seen in the 2002 Spending Review
the transport budget was provided with the largest increase in
expenditure. Transport has recently been the subject of a Social
Exclusion Unit report[271]
and is relevant to poverty and social exclusion because those
without the use of a car have difficulty accessing employment,
education, health and other services, food shops, sporting leisure
and cultural activities. People without cars mainly rely on buses.
Poor people face physical barriers in accessing buses. In addition,
there are problems of frequency, reliability, coverage and cost
- bus fares have risen by 30% in the last 20 years and are some
of the highest in the EU. Spending on bus route subsidies has
fallen by two-thirds since 1985. Overall transport spending is
highly regressive, with better-off road and rail users receiving
much more of the benefit of subsidies than worse-off bus users.
The SEU report estimated that the lowest income quintile will
gain 12% of the total spend of the Government's recent 10-Year
Transport Plan, while the highest quintile will gain 38%. Thus
transport is an example of the potential for 'poverty-proofing'
wider areas of policy, but also the need to follow it through
with changes if this is to be meaningful.
298. It would appear, therefore, that the Government
has made progress on reducing inequalities in income, education,
health and other outcomes for children but needs to do more to
skew spending towards children with the greatest needs. There
appear to be many relevant, but segmented, activities relating
to child poverty within Government that require bringing together
to form a coherent strategy. The
Committee recommends that the Government devotes more analytical
and organisational effort to coordinate the most relevant activities
necessary for the child poverty goals to be achieved.
253 Finance Committee 2nd Report 2003 (Session 2) Report
on Cross-Cutting Expenditure in relation to Children in Poverty
SP Paper 4 Session 2 (2003). Back
254
DWP (2003) Opportunities for All: Fifth Annual report. Cm5956,
HMSO. Pg vii Back
255
Ev 34, 62-68, 126, 165 Back
256
See paras 233 Back
257
Ev 82 Back
258
Annex 4, Qq 383-389 Back
259
Ev 136 Back
260
Ev 74 Back
261
Ev 174 (vol III) Back
262
Ev 184 (vol III) Back
263
Ev 172 (vol III) Back
264
Home Office, Respect and Responsibility: Taking a stand against
anti-social behaviour, March 2003; Together - Tackling
Anti-Social Behaviour: the Government's Action Plan on Anti-Social
Behaviour, October 2003 Back
265
Q 138 Back
266
Sefton T (forthcoming 2004) A Fair Share of Welfare: Public
Spending on Children in England. London: Save the Children
and the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion Back
267
Q 431 Back
268
HM Treasury, Opportunity and Security for All, 2002. See
also for Scotland: Scottish Executive, Closing the Opportunity
Gap: the Scottish Budget for 2003-2006, Edinburgh: Scottish
Executive, Social Inclusion Division, 2002. Back
269
Sefton , T. (forthcoming 2004) Executive Summary Back
270
Wanless, D. (2004) Securing good health for the whole population:
Final report, HM Treasury/ Department of Health. Para 9.1 Back
271
Social Exclusion Unit, Making the Connections: Transport and social
exclusion, 2003. Back