Comprehensive spending review 2007
What it needs to deliver on child poverty

Executive summary

In July 2005, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced that the Government intended to launch a comprehensive spending review reporting in 2007. The 2007 spending review will cover government departmental expenditure allocations for 2008/09, 2009/10 and 2010/11. The spending review, therefore, covers the spending period to 2010 and is key to the Government’s target of halving child poverty by 2010 and eliminating it by 2020. To ensure that the Government meets its child poverty aims, CPAG recommends that the 2007 comprehensive spending review should do the following.

• Provide most for those children at greatest risk of poverty.
• Work towards better jobs, not just more jobs.
• Ensure the safety net protects families against poverty.
• Maximise the contribution of child benefit within family support.
• Introduce free at the point of delivery good-quality childcare.
• Make the reduction of child poverty central to the new child support
  policies.
• Make education truly free at the point of delivery.
• Provide benefit entitlement to all UK residents equally, irrespective of
  immigration status.
• Reduce the disproportionate burden of taxation on poorer families.
• Improve the quality of delivery and gear it to the needs of the poorest
  families.

Comprehensive spending review 2007
What it needs to deliver on child poverty

Contents page
Introduction
The Government’s record
What should the spending review deliver?
Provide most for those children at greatest risk of poverty
Work towards better jobs, not just more jobs
Ensure the safety net protects families against poverty
Maximise the contribution of child benefit within family support
Introduce free at the point of delivery good-quality childcare
Make the reduction of child poverty central to the new child support policies
Make education truly free at the point of delivery
Provide benefit entitlement to all UK residents equally, irrespective of immigration status
Reduce the disproportionate burden of taxation on poorer families
Improve the quality of delivery and gear it to the needs of the poorest families
Notes

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