Government Policy on Child Poverty and Child Abuse

The past three decades has witnessed an increase in the proportion of children who are living in poverty. In 1968, 10% of children were living in poverty while in 1995, the value had escalated to 30%; approximately 4.3 million children in UK (Jenson, 2004). As such, the UK government has the most children living in poverty than any other developed economies. According to Jenson (2004), child poverty implies the scenario where the family that caters for the children, either two or more, is not able to realize at least £349 per week. On the other hand, child neglect, as defined by Child Poverty Action Group (2005), implies a scenario where the society cannot meet the basic needs of the children. Child poverty gas led to lack of competitive education among the children, malnutrition, social problems, violence, drug abuse, families’ breakdown, and deterioration of economic development. These issues have been a concern to the federal government. The political parties in this region have signed policies and agreements that necessitate the end of child poverty in the next decade. The social policy, which has been the crucial policy that the UK has used in demarcating child’s poverty, incorporates principles, guidelines, activities, and legislation that the UK government should undertake in order to improve the welfare of the children.

Both the current government and the New Labour government focused on the ending of child poverty and commit itself to the social justice in the society. Although children have moved to the heart of social policy, there is some disquiet about the way they are being positioned in the brave new world of social investment. The establishment of Child Poverty Act that engrains this law has accompanied this. The information provided by the UK government, in the financial year 2010/2011, is that the children who were living in poverty were close to 2.3million (Jenson, 2004). This was more than 100% fewer than the children who were living in poverty in 1998 (Child Poverty Action Group, 2005). Ending the child poverty has been the key phenomenon amongst all the developed nations, and UK is no exception. Various laws have been enacted to safeguard children against the extreme effects of poverty.

Children: The future of UK

Social investment policy is both an analytical and ideal tool that the UK government used in suppressing poverty in the economy (Jenson 2004; Lister 2004). Children, as a whole, are over-represented among those in households with low incomes. Almost three children in ten are in the poorest households. The proportion of children in households with less than half the average income rose from about 10% in the 1970s to well over 25% in the early 1990s (Sherraden, 2002). Although majority of children are from families with low incomes, their parents may go to great lengths to spend enough to allow them to fit in with the “well-able” children around them. However, the implication of this is that parents—particularly mothers—are undertaking this strategy without protecting the future of the children. The graph below shows poverty rates by age in UK.

The Green Paper on Child Matters was enacted by the children’s activists in order to reinforce the government to undertake strategies that would enable child poverty reduction in UK and the rest of the world. The objectives of this Green paper included poverty eradication among children from remote areas, incumbent increase in operations and educational facilities in these regions, support from the government, and eradication of child neglect. The Green paper articulated its argument on the current situation that faces children in the economy. In addition, the report by UNCRC purports that childhood experiences of poverty seem to have effects lasting well into adult life. Even allowing for the effects of a wide range of other influences, indications of childhood poverty were linked to 15 out of 19 unfavorable adult outcomes (Hendrick, H. 2005). Although Tony Blair had pledged to end this strenuous poverty among children, the Chancellor of Exchequer was the main driver of social investment policy. In addition, the Budget Report of 2003 outlined that the government would support and implement the policy in order to harness a flexible economy in the future (HM Treasury 2003).

The Government Strategy Unit has enacted strategies that are vital for a state that aims at equipping its citizens with knowledge on economic changes in order to necessitate competitiveness. Key to this strategy is to ensure the society has qualities and skills that would enable them safeguard their jobs in the future. It accentuates on the strong evidence on the cost-effectiveness of social investment policy. The future orientation is manifested in the pre-occupation of New Labour where the focus is on equality and life-chances of the future opportunity. Early in the office, New Labour made a number of confident pledges to children and families, most notably a desire to end child poverty by 2020 (Dobrowolsky, 2002). A broader safeguarding agenda emerged as concerns about social exclusion coalesced with the more traditional concerns of child protection. The language of safeguarding appeared with the advent of the Children Act 1989, but it was through the New Labour project that, arguably, the family support aspects of this act and a broader notion of safeguarding became central to policy discourses (Cemlyn & Clark, 2005).

Policy Proposals

Children’s investment aims at improving both the services and cash support. In the case of cash support, the government has ensured that the child benefit is universal, and there has been an increase in children support for poor families, especially in the improvements and new tax credit scheme and social assistance of children’s payments. In addition, the introduction of maintenance allowances aims at encouraging young people to continue schooling without any financial constraint. The new trust fund endorsed to children is a form of assets based on building social investment state (Sherraden, 2002). Since the initiation of New Labour government, the emphasis on the significance of welfare services aimed at realizing strategic goals for poverty eradication in the economy. Provision of early education to children has been vital to service investment among the children. The strategy on childcare, which is removing obstacles from accessing paid work amongst the parents and child development, has been enhanced by the remunerated maternity leave.

Though New Labour has been faced by demands on the need for parents to undertake childcare roles in the society, it has been an uphill task to realize this strategy as traditional division of labor is quite a challenge. The new proposals provide that fathers would be given ‘additional paternity leave’ (APL) of about six months, which will be simultaneous with the mothers’ maternity leave—in the first three months of the fathers APL, one is paid a flat rate (Lister, 2004). However, the current APL requires that the father would be eligible for APL when the mother returns to work, and the father’s guarantee on being paid APL will depend on maternity allowance subjected to the mother. It is an improvement to the original plan as mothers can now transfer their payments of maternity leave to their counterparts. Therefore, it is not a surprise that the government projected that between 9,000 and 16,000 new fathers yearly would benefit from APL (Williams, 2004).

In the case of Neglect Policy, the government has not considered the effectiveness of the policy, and it has neglected its core principles. Where the government would have determined the portion of payments made to parental leave should be subjected to children’s welfare, and meeting the daily demands for the households. As such, it would have enhanced explicit challenge to cultural diversity, which underpins the reliability of the traditional division of labor based on gender disparity. Yet the government has acknowledged that the shift in gender culture aims to encourage childcare initiatives in the society. The reluctance in using the policy has changed the behavior regarding the public’s perception of the willingness of New Labour government to undertake childcare policies.

Evaluation of Policy and its Effects

The Green Paper on Every Child Matters ensured that the children’s services, especially, poverty eradication were redeveloped (Williams, 2004). The document emphasized on the responsibilities of both parents and children to eradicate poverty, protection of the rights of children, and safeguarding children from exploitation and access to vital social amenities. Fawcett et al. (2004) posits that most of the initiatives undertaken aim at changing the behavior of parents in order to increase children’s social control and authoritarianism—characterizing the modern families. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 has exemplified this policy and requires that parents should be convicted when the child is exposed to inhuman acts including child curfew, parenting orders that immune children’s freedom, and anti-social orders emanating from parents.

Consequently, parents can be jailed or fined where child truancy persist, although the proposal to provide children with child benefit was later abandoned by the opposition government. Blair also argued that parents need to be forced to attend to children chores when the children are suspended from school in order to enhance their responsibility in shaping the behavior of their children. This will minimize the nuisance that is caused by children, either in the shopping centers or on the streets. Blair purports that it is significant for parents to accept their responsibilities in order to improve children’s respect and discipline in learning institutions (Williams, 2004). Although the New Labour government has endorsed no such proposal, the current government is planning to initiate a policy that would make the parents liable for the irresponsible behavior.

In achieving the objectives and eradication of children’s poverty, the government use of targets has been efficient. The most ambitious and prominent targets that the New Labour had undertaken was to reduce child poverty by 25% by the end of 2004/2005, reduce it by 50% by the end of 2010/2011 financial period, and eradicate it by the end of 2025 (Child Poverty Action Group, 2005). In addition, the government had set the target of achieving the renewal strategy of the neighborhood in which an individual should not be disadvantaged by their place of residence. Such targets require the government to be accountable in its mandate. However, some omissions that have impeded the realization of set objective include lack of target for the whole population living in poverty, and the lack of target to lessen inequality in the society. Consequently, the scope and speed in which the policy is undertaken varies across the society. Education, employment, neighborhood regeneration, and child poverty were the main issues in which the government was undertaking with the limited resources available. Over time, childcare poverty and pensioner poverty have been the key issues that need to be addressed in the contemporary society. However, in other regions, the scope of government intervention is less impressive, as the challenges are increasing with time. The government has not supported vulnerable groups, and they have been left to fend for themselves despite the government ricocheting on the need to have substantial plan to eradicate children’s poverty. For other groups, like asylum seekers, the policy has been exclusive on income, employment and housing (Dobrowolsky, 2002).

Some of the initiatives on social investment policy have resulted into positive implications, although its effects are not extensive. For instance, the society has realized new government deals on childcare and poverty eradication, numeracy and literacy hours have increased over time especially in primary schools, regional-based initiatives have been enhanced, and allowances on education maintenance is available to the public. Simulation modeling denotes that benefit reforms and the tax incentives have, considerably, reduced the level of child’s poverty, and this has boosted the government’s strategy of realizing its target by 2004/2005. It is predicted that pensioner poverty, towards the end of 2015, would be a thing of the past (Hendrick, 2005). Tax and benefit polices have aimed at harmonizing income inequalities that exits across the economy. In the case of family’s expenditure, the survey conducted shows that benefits are accruing to parents having children. Interviews on families that live in areas characterized by low-income population suggest an improvement in the living standards of the population.

Although the child eradication scheme has realized success, it can be argued that the improvements have been achieved when the economy was experiencing stability. Ideally, it is easy to achieve economic improvements at a stable economic level rather than when the economy is unstable. For instance, in an unstable economy, reduce poverty would be difficult and the living standard of people in the region would significantly reduce. In 1997, economic problems were substantially high; therefore, it is not prudent to rely on the information provided on the strategies to eradicate poverty in UK.

Social investment policy is significant in enhancing equality and reducing poverty; but it has faced incumbent challenges including conflict of interest in the society. It is difficult to draw a line on whether to have a proportionate increase in the living standards of the population or bridge the gap between the disadvantaged group and wealthy families (Hendrick, 2005). For instance, educational achievement and health improvements have widened the gap between the disadvantaged group and the less-disadvantaged group. In addition, limited resources have been focused on the regions with greatest needs thereby increasing inequality across the society. In overall, the New Labour social policy has linked the value of the tax credits and social security benefits to the prices of the commodities, and not specifically the living standards in the society. In some instances, it has ensured an increase in fiscal measures in order to achieve equality and rational structure. With the increase in fiscal measures, the relative poverty rates have increased thereby negating the objective of the policy.

Conclusion

Substantial differences exist between the various polices that were pursued by New Labour since 1997, and the policies that were pursued previously. In some regions, the policy implementation has realized its objectives while other parts are still experiencing the same debacle; this is not the desired achievement. Poverty eradication should commence from eradicating child’s poverty. The New Labour policy on social investment aims at achieving this strategic goal of the government. However, following the exit of the New Labour government, the policy had not yet been fully achieved. Some of the regions had realized the European Union poverty gap reduction while others were still in the process of achieving the target. From the analysis, poverty eradication cannot be achieved within a short time, as the progress is slow. Imaginative and sustained effort is required in order to speed the whole process of achieving poverty eradication.

References List

Cemlyn, S. & Clark, C. 2005. ‘The social exclusion of Gypsy and Traveller children’ in G. Preston (ed.) At Greatest Risk. The children most likely to be poor, London: Child Poverty Action Group.

Child Poverty Action Group. 2005. Ten steps to a society free of child poverty, London: CPAG

Dobrowolsky, A. 2002. Rhetoric versus reality: the figure of the child and New Labour’s strategic “social investment state”, Studies in Political Economy, 2(15): 43-73.

Fawcett, B., Featherstone, B. and Goddard, J. 2004. Contemporary Child Care Policy and Practice, New York: Palgrave.

Hendrick, H. 2005. ‘Child welfare: the historical background’ in H. Hendrick (ed.) Child Welfare and Social Policy. An essential reader, Bristol: Policy Press.

HM Treasury. 2003. Budget Report 2003, London: HM Treasury.

Jenson, J. 2004. Changing the paradigm. Family responsibility or investing in children, Canadian Journal of Sociology, 29 (2): 169-194.

Lister, R. 2004. ‘The third way’s social investment state’ in J. Lewis and R. Surender (eds.) Welfare State Change. Towards a third way?, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sherraden, M. 2002. ‘From a social welfare state to a social investment state’ in C. Kober and W. Paxton (eds.) Asset-based Welfare and Poverty, London: National Children’s Bureau.

Williams, F. 2004. ‘What matters is what works: why every child matters to New Labour. Commentary on the DfES Green Paper Every Child Matters’, Critical Social Policy, 24 (3): 406-427.