Working Families response to the consultation on Tackling Child Poverty and Improving Life Chances.

Working Families response to the consultation on Tackling Child Poverty and Improving Life Chances.

Introduction
Working Families is the UK’s leading work life balance charity.  We run a free legal helpline for disadvantaged parents and carers seeking advice about employment and benefits rights.  We also support a network of parents of disabled children who work or wish to work.  Many of our callers are on below average incomes and many are both in work and in poverty.

Working Families is a member of the End Child Poverty Campaign coalition and we endorse the statement of principles set out by the campaign.  Our response draws on the experiences of parents in work or seeking work and our research on the impact of work on family life.  We focus in particular on the impact of parental time poverty as well as income poverty on children’s wellbeing and support Graham Allen’s suggestions for further investment in parental leave arrangements. 

Question 1: What do you think are the key points from the Frank Field Review which the Government need to incorporate into the child poverty strategy?

We support a broad approach to child poverty which does not consider income alone, although we would not wish to see a reduced emphasis on tackling economic inequalities.  We know that families thrive when they have both adequate incomes and adequate time together to build strong relationships.  Increasing parental engagement means giving parents time to be good parents.  While work is usually the best route out of poverty, not all work is good for families.  Parents should not be pressed to work increasingly long hours in low paid employment.  Improved income and standard of living is offset against the time sacrifices necessary to get them.  Child welfare is not best served where parents are working long and inflexible hours, often in several different jobs.  While we support increased investment in interventions in the “Foundation Years”, parents need to support their children throughout the school years. Employment and social policies to tackle child poverty need to support parents’ continued engagement in their children’s lives.

Working Families is particularly concerned at the level of in-work poverty:  Joseph Rowntree’s recent research (December 2010) “Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion” found an increase in the number of children in poverty in working families:  they now account for 58% of the total.  The new child poverty strategy needs to focus on tackling in-work poverty as families in these groups are likely to be experiencing both income and time poverty.

Question 2: What are your thoughts on the best way to incorporate early intervention into the child poverty strategy?  (Include reflections on Graham Allen’s Review)
We particularly endorse Graham Allen’s Review findings that we need to consider a more generous and flexible maternity and paternity benefit system, and flexible working practices.    We support the view that “given the exceptional and lasting importance of the first period of any child’s life, and the huge savings resulting from getting this right, I am convinced that parental leave arrangements should be a top priority for the redistribution of existing spending or new public expenditure in more favourable times” and that a new system should “enable parents to take more of their entitlement” (Paragraph 30 of the Review).

At present statutory pay during maternity and paternity leave is considerably less than the national minimum wage.  Not only does this send a poor message about how our society values children in the early years, but low income families face considerable financial hardship when a new baby is born.  Low pay influences families’ choices about the time they can spend with a new baby.  Working Families’ recent research (2010) on paternity leave revealed that 40 per cent of fathers don’t take even the existing two weeks of paternity leave, the majority because they could not afford to take the low level of pay.   While some fathers took annual leave at the time of their child’s birth, this meant that there was less time together as a family later in the year. Other fathers were ineligible for any paid leave, for example because they were self employed or because they did not have enough service with their employer.  Many women cannot afford to take the full year of maternity leave entitlement because SMP is only paid for 39 weeks: family finances dictate when they return to work.  Improving parents’ access to paid leave including by increasing eligibility to paid leave (for example for self employed fathers and those without long service), and ensuring that statutory payments are at least at the national minimum wage should be a priority.

Parental leave – an unpaid entitlement of 13 weeks leave available to both parents until the child is aged five – is equally inaccessible to many low paid parents.  However, it can be vital to supporting some parents continuing in work.  For example, parents of disabled children report that there is a lack of summer holiday childcare and, where it is available, it does not cover the full six weeks of holiday.  Low income parents who can negotiate parental leave for a few weeks to cover this may be able to recoup the loss in pay through an increase in working tax credits.

It would be invaluable for parents of older children to have access to longer periods of leave to support their child through the transition to secondary school, through exams or the difficult teenage years.  Consideration should be given to extending parental leave to parents of older children and to introducing paid parental leave.

We very much welcome the Government’s plans to extend the right to request flexible working to all employees and urge them to consider Graham Allen’s suggestions in their forthcoming consultation on parental leave arrangements.  It is time to reassess the appropriate level of financial support for families so that low income families are able to access their entitlements and children get the best possible start in life.

Question 4: Are these the right areas for the child poverty strategy to cover?

Working Families welcomes the inclusion of employment and skills in the child poverty strategy.  However, many parents do not just face barriers to employment but ongoing constraints on their work due to their caring responsibilities.  For example, some parents of disabled children are unable to work full time because of their heavy caring responsibilities including taking children to numerous medical and other appointments.  Single parents may need to be able to restrict their hours of work (as they may now) to school hours.  However, many part time jobs on offer are on low pay and with few prospects: such jobs do little to lift families out of poverty.  There is a role for Government to increase the availability of good quality part time work and jobs offered on flexible hours as part of a strategy to tackle child poverty.

Childcare costs are a huge barrier to parental employment.  It is particularly disappointing that the Government propose to reduce state support with childcare costs through the childcare element of working tax credits from 80% to 70%.  Some parents may lose up to £30 a week and this is a disincentive to work.  Appropriate and affordable childcare is vital to the success of the strategy:  a Joseph Rowntree report concluded that appropriate childcare provision could move between a sixth and a half of children out of poverty today[i].

Question 6: What do you think makes the most difference to the life chances of children?

We are disappointed that the consultation papers suggests that fathers should not be concerned about the amount of time they can spend with their children, but only with the quality and content of their involvement.   There is now considerable research evidence which suggests that a high level of father involvement is associated with good outcomes for children including fewer behavioural problems and higher educational achievement.  There is also a considerable desire from fathers for more family time: 82% of full time working men say that they would like this[ii].  Whether fathers or mothers are the main carer should be a matter of family choice and couple parents should also be able to choose to both work part time, sharing the responsibility for childcare.

It is necessarily the case that parents in long and inflexible hours of work have more limited opportunities to contribute to their children’s education.   Without flexibility over working hours, low income parents will not be able to attend parents’ evenings or support their child with homework.   Over half the parents we surveyed in our research (Time, Health and the Family, 2005) said that long hours of work affected their ability to help their children with homework.  Time pressured parents are less likely to be able to have good “focused” attention for their children, and are more likely to be stressed and tired which affects the quality of their involvement.

A lack of family time impacts on strong relationships between parents.  Our research (Time, Health and the Family, 2005) also found that 72% of parents reported that long hours of work affected their relationships (rising to 82% for those working more than 45 hours per week).  Long hours also had a negative impact on both children and parents’ health both in terms of physical effects and unhealthy lifestyles.

If improving the home and family environment are agreed to have a significant impact on children’s life chances, then we urge the Government to increase the availability of good quality jobs offering part time or flexible working patterns to ensure that parents have time  - as well as adequate income – to support their children.

Working Families February 2011