WIREDGOV

This is a spending review of reforming ideas to strike at the heart of the nation’s damaging deficit. The Chancellor is right to argue that failing to tackle the deficit will only hit people, particularly the poorest, more severely in the long-term.

In a particular we comment on three of the five core drivers of poverty:

Although we understand that our children’s future prosperity hinges on reducing the deficit, we are not yet fully convinced this CSR is sufficiently focused on the welfare of Britain’s families

The family is barely mentioned although we welcome the emphasis on children with disabilities and mental health needs with the expansion of personal budgets and access to psychological therapies. However, there are real cuts in financial assistance to low-income families with the decrease in assistance with childcare.

There is already low take up of this benefit.

We are encouraged by the commitments to protect Sure Start, refocus it on its initial purpose and encourage new providers in early years. It is our hope that innovative but effective services that genuinely help struggling families rather than simply taking over childcare for a few hours per day will flourish.

However, we fear too great an emphasis on early year’s education and childcare, as we saw under the previous Government, rather than on helping parents who struggle to nurture their children.


On welfare:
Welfare payments that continue to reward worklessness for generations, without making work pay and leaving people without hope, or aspiration, trapping them in poverty are wasteful and must be reformed. The Universal Credit reforms, heavily influenced by the Centre for Social Justice report ‘Dynamic Benefits’ go a long way to making welfare sustainable and are made possible in part by the reductions in overall welfare spending.

Furthermore, we welcome support for those out of work through the Single Work Programme and will comment further as details are released. We welcome the support afforded to people previously ignored on incapacity benefit, enabling them to improve their lives through work. Concerns over the implementation of the assessment must be addressed and this is acknowledged by the Government.

The freeze on tax credits helps to retain an incentive to work, we welcome its protection in difficult fiscal circumstances. Increased child tax credit payments will support an additional four million families.

On education:
Education is the most effective tool for increasing social mobility and fundamental to breaking the intergenerational poverty cycle. We welcome the commitment to increase the schools budget and, if implemented thoughtfully, the pupil premium and free schools, proposals the CSJ has long championed, will go a long way to improving provision in our poorest areas.

However, these initiatives must be accompanied by improved discipline and ongoing parental engagement.

We also welcome the intention to give schools more control over their spending but the Government must remain careful to ensure to most effective interventions are promoted and encouraged across the country, and do not go missing in the aim of local discretion. 

And on policing and the criminal justice system, which picks up the pieces of poverty:We welcome the Government’s reiterated commitments to reform policing and to deliver a ‘rehabilitation revolution’ in the criminal justice system.

Both would reduce crime. Clearly, however, these commitments become more difficult to achieve in view of a need to reduce the deficit. Therefore, in order to weather the challenging annual cuts of four per cent to policing, the Government must ensure we get police out from behind their desks and onto the streets.

And we need their efforts and strategy driven by local people to meet local needs. Without these changes to achieve more effective and efficient policing – especially in our poorer areas where crime is higher – these cuts will hit hard.

And, in view of the additional annual cuts of six per cent to the Ministry of Justice budget, more of the ‘rehabilitation revolution’ will fall to voluntary and private sector providers. Whilst such organisations are best placed to transform lives, many already struggle to make ends meet and work with commissioning processes.

The newly announced payment mechanisms must make life easier for these groups, and the Government should outline their clear details at the earliest opportunity.

Gavin Poole, Executive Director, the Centre for Social Justice said, “Broadly, this is a brave and necessary reforming agenda and one that the CSJ welcomes. We must now look at the detail, however, to see how this will be delivered. This is particularly true for family policy.

It remains to be seen how the Government will make good the Prime Minister’s commitment to make Britain the most family friendly country in Europe. We support the principle that those with the broadest shoulders should bear the greater burden, but we do question the continued fairness anomaly in the Government’s child benefit reforms. As stands, they are unfair and we urge the Chancellor to revisit his decision.”

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The Centre for Social Justice is an independent think tank established, by Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP in 2004, to seek effective solutions to the poverty that blights parts of Britain.

In July 2007 the group published Breakthrough Britain. Ending the Costs of Social Breakdown. The paper presented over 190 policy proposals aimed at ending the growing social divide in Britain.

Subsequent reports have put forward proposals for reform of the police, prisons, social housing, the asylum system and family law. Other reports have dealt with street gangs and early intervention to help families with young children.

The Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP stood down as Chairman of the Centre on his appointment as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in May 2010 and is now the Founder and Patron.