From the chapter ‘Children society fails most‘
John Dickie, Director at the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), Scotland
If we are serious about a child-centred future, we need to start by ensuring families have the resources they need to give their children a decent start in life. Yet here in Scotland, one in four children is officially recognised as living in poverty.[i] Across the UK, over 4 million children live in families with incomes inadequate to the task of raising a child.[ii] That’s eight children in every class of thirty growing up below a poverty line that is itself significantly below what the general public believe is needed for a basic, but socially acceptable, standard of living.[iii] Worse still is that poverty disproportionately affects some children more than others. Nearly one in three children in families affected by disability, 38 per cent of those in lone-parent households, 39 per cent in Black and minority ethnic families, and a third of those in larger families, are living in poverty. And while the risk is especially high where no adult in a family is in paid work, over two-thirds of children in poverty are living in families where at least one adult is in work.[iv]
Despite the best efforts of parents and carers across the country, poverty systematically undermines children’s health, education, well-being and life chances. Poverty means that children growing up in the lowest income households are almost four times more likely to have ‘fair’, ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ health compared to those in the highest income households.[v] Poverty means that by age five there is gap of 10 months in problem-solving and 13 months in vocabulary development.
This is a poverty that undermines childhood itself, too often stripping the fun, freedom and joy from growing up. As one young person told Child Poverty Action Group’s (CPAG) Cost of the School Day project, ‘If all of your friends or people you know go to the after-school clubs, school trips, that kind of isolates you from them. You’re singled out, you’re not with them, just a spare person.’[vi] While parents go to extraordinary lengths to protect their children from poverty, even going without food, to ensure their children don’t miss out, the reality is that children pick up on the stress that an inadequate income creates.
This poverty has left children brutally exposed to the cost-of-living crisis – or, as one parent more accurately described it, the ‘cost-of-surviving’ crisis. Families with children face energy bills on average 30 per cent higher than other households.[vii] They are at greater risk of being pushed into poverty: forecasts suggest a third of children will be living in poverty by 2027.[viii]
Faced with this bleak picture it is tempting to be fatalistic, to resign ourselves to the vision of a future where all children can thrive fading away. Yet there is absolutely nothing inevitable about these levels of child poverty. Progress can be made and government policies can work. Here in the UK between the mid-1990s and early 2010s child poverty fell by over a million, an unprecedented reduction both in historical and international terms. This fall was a direct result of policy interventions. It began as the value of child benefit was increased by John Major’s Conservative government and continued as the New Labour government introduced the national minimum wage, removed employment barriers for parents, especially lone parents, improved parental rights in the workplace and increased the social security support for families in and out of work through child benefit and tax credits.[ix] Falls in child poverty were matched by real improvements in measured well-being – from languishing at the bottom, the UK moved to mid-table on tables of child well-being in developed countries.[x] Not enough, but progress that proves it is possible.
The harsh reality is that this progress has been reversed by a decade of austerity, an increasingly precarious employment market and cuts to financial support for families. Recent policy choices have failed to prioritise children. This doesn’t just damage individual children; it undermines the future health of our society as a whole.
The positive news is that, at least here in Scotland, there are signs that as a result of a combination of concerted pressure from civil society and political will across the political spectrum, a corner is being turned. The Scottish Parliament unanimously supported the introduction of the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 that sets targets for reducing child poverty to less than 18 per cent by 2024 and less than 10 per cent by 2030. It requires the Scottish government to set out how those targets will be achieved. Delivery plans have rightly focused on tackling the real drivers of child poverty: income from employment and social security and the costs families face. Significant investment from the Scottish government has followed, in the new Scottish Child Payment, again with unanimous support across the political spectrum. This is already making a huge difference to tens and thousands of children through providing £25 per week additional cash support for every child under 16 in families entitled to Universal Credit. This investment is estimated to lift up to 50,000 children out of poverty,[xi] reduce the depth of poverty for many more and provide protection from poverty for families currently living on the edge.
More is needed. Action to remove barriers to work, especially childcare barriers, and to improve parental earnings, is vital. This will require concerted effort from government and employers. Nevertheless, the Scottish Child Payment is a real indicator of what is possible when we put children first. The challenge for the UK government must be to make, at the very least, an equivalent investment as a down payment not just on our children’s futures, but all our futures.
Notes
[i] Scottish Government (2023) Poverty and Income Inequality in Scotland 2019–22: Children, https://data.gov.scot/poverty/#Children
[ii] DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) (2023) ‘Households below average income: Statistics on the number and percentage of people living in low income households for financial years 1994/95 to 2021/22’, Table 1.4b, www.gov.uk/government/collections/households-below-average-income-hbai–2
[iii] Francis-Devine, B. (2023) Poverty in the UK: Statistics, House of Commons Library, https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN07096/SN07096.pdf
[iv] Scottish Government (2023) Poverty and Income Inequality in Scotland 2019–22, https://data.gov.scot/poverty
[v] NHS Health Scotland (2018) 4. Child Poverty in Scotland: Health Impact and Health Inequalities, www.healthscotland.scot/media/2186/child-poverty-impact-inequalities-2018.pdf
[vi] CPAG (Child Poverty Action Group) ‘Cost of the school day’, https://cpag.org.uk/cost-of-the-school-day
[vii] CPAG (Child Poverty Action Group) (2022) ‘Gaping £1,000 gap for worst-off families as energy price cap rises’, Press release, 25 August, https://cpag.org.uk/news-blogs/news-listings/gaping-1000-gap-worst-families-energy-price-cap-rises
[viii] Resolution Foundation (2022) In at the Deep End: The Living Standards Crisis Facing the New Prime Minister, London, www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/in-at-the-deep-end
[ix] CPAG (Child Poverty Action Group) (no date) ‘Recent history of UK child poverty’, https://cpag.org.uk/recent-history-uk-child-poverty
[x] UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) (no date) ‘Child well-being in rich countries: A comparative overview’, Report Card 11, www.unicef.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Report-card-briefing2b.pdf
[xi] Social Security Scotland (2023) ‘184,000 getting £25 Scottish Child Payment’, News, 28 February, www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/news-events/news/184-000-getting-25-scottish-child-payment#:~:text=The%20Scottish%20Government%20estimates%20that,forecasts%20issued%20in%20March%202022