Child Poverty Action Group

This week CPAG have responded to the government's consultation on funding for local welfare provision in 2015/16. You can read our response here.

Local welfare provision (LWP) was set up by councils in April 2013 following the abolition of the social fund. The schemes help households on a low income manage one-off or unexpected expenditure, such as replacing a broken cooker or setting up home after fleeing domestic violence.

This year the government is required by the Child Poverty Act 2010 to set a target it aims to achieve for persistent poverty in the UK by 2020. Read CPAG’s response to the consultation on this topic here.

Today we publish our third annual report ‘The Cost of a Child in 2014’, written by Donald Hirsch from the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University and funded by JRF. It draws on the Minimum Income Standard project (MIS) to establish how much families need to cover their basic needs like food, clothes and shelter, and to participate in society.

Last year the government announced that the period which new claimants have to wait to make a claim for job-seekers allowance and employment support allowance would be extended to seven days. In this submission response, CPAG expresses its concerns about this and the risk it poses to low income families with children.

This response sets out CPAG's detailed analysis of the Government's draft child poverty strategy proposals, with our recommendations for improvement.

The Child Poverty Act 2010 places a duty on central government to produce a child poverty strategy every 3 years. In spring 2014 they consulted on their draft strategy for 2014-17. The London Child Poverty Alliance responded setting out how the strategy could be improved to tackle the shockingly high level of poverty in the capital. If the government does not address poverty in London, it is unlikely to meet its child poverty targets.

In April 2013 parts of the discretionary social fund were handed over the local government who have been running local welfare assistance schemes (LWAS) from that point on. However, in December 2013, the government published indicative figures which suggest that LWAS will receive no dedicated funding from 2015/16.

In September 2014, the government committed to making a fresh decision on how these schemes would be funded.

As this policy note makes clear, CPAG has a number of concerns relating to this decision. Specifically:

On March 26^th 2014, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith, was interviewed by Evan Davis on the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4.

Although the main topic for the interview was a vote taking place that day on a government proposal for a cap on expenditure on large parts of social security, tax credits and other social support, much of the interview also covered child poverty and the government’s targets.

At the Budget in March 2014, the government announced it would be amending the Charter for Budgetary Responsibility to implement a new 'welfare cap' policy.

While child poverty is responsive to, and requires, many different types of policy intervention, international evidence shows that social security is an essential tool for reducing child poverty. A note prepared for CPAG by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex University illustrates vividly the effect of taxes and benefits on child poverty rates across the EU27 for 2012.

Figure 1 shows that the UK’s child poverty starting point is very high – we have the second highest child poverty rate before taxes and transfers in the EU27.