By Aaron Barbour
Thanks to Save the Children for the Image (c) Photo credit: Teri Pengilley
So another budget day rolls by. I used to find it a real bore, having to watch this dull, middle aged, white man speak about things that I didn’t think really affected me. I think many people still hold this view.
But have things changed for me? Yes. Like hell they have. I am now avidly glued to the TV, radio and/or internet news sites, listening expectantly for the changes that we, at Community Links , have been advocating over the past year.
This year I was listening out for the child poverty announcements. Yes, 250,000 more children out of poverty is fantastic, added to the 600,000 already out thanks to tax credits and changes to the benefit system. Though these measures don’t necessarily address the root causes of poverty they will have a significant impact on a whole generation. However there will still be 450,000 children left behind in poverty, if the government doesn’t make a further investment of £2.3bn, to hit their target of halving child poverty by 2010. Where will it come from? by stopping involvement in overseas wars, freezing public spending, increasing the tax burden (again), or borrowing beyond the golden rule. Only they know, and have got the power, which they must use to reduce the blight of child poverty in the UK.
Small note: I was pleased to see the announcement of the rollout of the Savings Gateway Scheme that we were advocating back in 2003/04, in our report: Cheats or Contributors?
The budget cannot by itself, bring about the changes we need. It is too blunt an instrument. It fails, for example, to reach hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people engaged in the informal economy who are unable to access government support, such as tax credits. Multi-various approaches are needed which respond directly to the widely divergent needs of those engaged in informal economic activities.
The UK government at present does not have an overall strategy or plan or lead department for dealing with the informal economy. It must clarify its objectives for harnessing the enterprise of people working informally. Objectives that are clearly designed to achieve the goals of eradicating poverty, particularly child poverty and securing full employment.
A coherent and holistic strategy is needed across government to bring about those changes. That strategy must be supported by a set of outcome targets, and/or incorporated into appropriate public service agreements in the next comprehensive spending review, which should be ‘proofed’ against these aims. With these and other social policy changes, that we’ve made in several recent publications on the informal economy, then and only then will be on the road to eradicating poverty for families and their children.
