On ITV Wales, Ceri Jackson, Director of RNIB Cymru described how it was not unusual for visually impaired people to have very low incomes.  ”We regularly come into contact with blind and partially sighted people living in abject poverty” she said. “People living without heating because they cannot afford to pay the bills, people not leaving their homes because they cannot afford transport, people whose homes are becoming unsafe to live in because they cannot afford basic repairs.”

On BBC Wales, Sarah Rochira, Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, commented that people over pension age were often badly affected by sight loss and had difficulties managing as a result.  She said ”Poverty often leads to older people becoming isolated and finding themselves in vulnerable situations, which quite simply has a devastating impact on their health, wellbeing and independence.”

 The report can be downloaded from our publications pages.

The changes come at the same time as Cardiff Council’s own budget is being cut by £55 million.  The council also anticipates that the cuts in benefits will mean that people’s lower incomes will mean they no longer have to contribute to the cost of social care,  resulting in an additional short fall of £24,000 in adult social services alone.  

Councillor Lynda Thorne, Cardiff council’s cabinet member for communities, housing and social justice, said she had written to the Welsh Government asking it to consider some “creative options” to help mitigate the impact of the changes, due to come into force next year.

Victoria reminded delegates of the vital importance of vocational education and training to a decent quality of life.  Virtually every aspect of our everyday lives depends on people having good vocational skills, whether its plumbers that make sure water flows in our homes and hospitals, care workers looking after children and older people, or office managers keeping a business running smoothly. 

Vocational education is also key to social justice she argued. It enables people to acquire new skills at any time of their lives, and can also boost people’s confidence and self-esteem. Yet it’s the Cinderella sector, with its good work too often overlooked.

The picture shows Victoria presenting Ystrad Mynach college student Craig Bannan with his IT practitioners award – Craig has succeeded despite being diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2009 and a subsequent relapse.  

Find out more about Ystrad Mynach College and about Craig’s success.

At a time when government cuts are threatening the future of libraries all over the U.K. it seems timely to reflect on their future particularly as we move into an increasingly digital age.  Deian Hopkin reminded attendees at the lecture that libraries have their origins in educating the poor who were unable to afford books. Today it is people on low incomes who are excluded from digital resources as only 41% of people in lower socio economic groups have access to the internet. Prof. Sir Hopkin proposed that rather than being a reason for closing libraries, the digital age is a very powerful reason for keeping them open.

However Deian Hopkin was keen to remind us that this does not mean that libraries are O.K. as they are. Outdated PCs that restrict the use of certain sites, prohibit memory sticks and can only be used for 30 minutes at a time are completely inadequate, especially as the focus shifts to mobile devices like phones and tablets. Prof Sir Hopkin suggested that to combat this, libraries need to reinvent themselves as “idea shops” that should be integral to the community. While it’s easy to see how this can be done in cities, e.g. in partnership with developers, he acknowledged it was much more challenging in less populated places.

Already, there are some innovative ideas in Wales, such as the health library being set up in a GP’s surgery in Cardiff and “books on prescription” being offered in some practices. There’s much more could be done, but it needs a sense of priority and urgency.

Deian Hopkin concluded that libraries have a vital role to play now and in the future. Critically, he saw libraries’ role being improving the education of everyone, and particularly people from disadvantaged groups.

We would like to thank both Dr. Francis and Mr. Antoniw for their outstanding contribution to the Bevan Foundation. As founding members they have seen the Bevan Foundation go from strength to strength with an increasing influence on policy and new thinking. We wish them the best of luck with their current roles and for the future.

The impact of poverty on educational attainment and participation is well documented.  It has often been said that parental expectations and involvement in their child’s education is a means of addressing this issue.  But what can we learn from existing research evidence about the relationship between the attitudes and aspirations of parents and subsequent attainment of the child?  This conference explored further these issues by drawing on a recent wide ranging review of evidence, and also from hearing more from those on the ground about these issues.

A wide ranging study published in March of this year, and carried out by Professor Stephen Gorard and colleagues, reviewed past studies into the relationships between parents and children’s attitudes, aspirations and behaviours and educational outcomes.  From close examination of past research they identified 13 distinct attitudes, aspirations and behaviours which might be relevant – four of these concern parents, and the remaining 9 concern the individual child.  Significantly, the study found that parental involvement was the only factor which had sufficient evidence for a causal effect on attainment.  The researchers found that other factors indicated some evidence of a causal model, but often due to a lack of available and robust evidence, it was difficult to make claims of causality. 

We also heard from Professor Liz Todd, who presented evidence from a study conducted by herself and colleagues into whether interventions aimed at changing attitudes might go some way to addressing the attainment gap for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.  They found that rather than changing attitudes, interventions focusing on changing actions or behaviours may be more worthwhile.

Delegates also heard responses from schools and projects across Wales.  There are a great many  schools and community projects in Wales which seek to engage parents in their childs education.  We heard about the work of Goetre Junior School in Methyr Tydfil which works closely with parents to get them more involved in their child’s education.  We also heard about the many project organised by Glynoch Communities First, and the successes this community has realised in reducing the number of disengaged young people and decreasing levels of truancy.

The seminar raises a number of issues about how parents might mediate attainment, and what kind of parental interventions might go some way to making a difference.  Further attention is needed to understand what kind of interventions might work best at reducing the gap between rich and poor in education.

She said: “A job with less than 24 hours or that is temporary is quite unattractive to someone on benefits particularly if they have children, as not only are your costs higher but the benefit regime is so much more complicated.  We know from other statistics that temporary working is on the increase and part-time jobs as well.

She said she was particularly concerned about the impact on people of being both cash-poor and time-poor.  “I think it will make it extremely difficult for anyone looking for work. People are working several jobs with short or flexible hours.  It becomes extremely difficult to find a way out of poverty, it’s hard to up-skill or gain more training when working long hours or uncertain hours.  You have to start asking questions about the wellbeing of children or families if you have that combination.”

The Western Mail also reported that around one in 14 jobs advertised are on flexible contracts that could see someone working between one hour and full time hours any given week.  Dr Winckler said: “We’ve interviewed people in the past who are in these so-called flexible hours jobs and if you have one of these jobs, you don’t know from one week to the next how much money you’re getting and you don’t know if you need someone to pick up your children or if you’ll be able to go to a night class or visit someone in hospital.

“It’s not just that you work for your hours, it seems you sell your life to these jobs and if you refuse to do those hours, there might be someone else willing to.

The Welsh Government said that Health Minister, Lesley Griffiths, “remains true to the founding principles of Aneurin Bevan’s NHS – a comprehensive healthcare service that is free at the point of need. In Wales, we have taken this a step further by the introduction of free prescriptions and free hospital car parking.  Conservative Shadow Assembly Minister for Health, Darren Millar, said: “Patients expect the NHS to deliver the highest standards of care, regardless of how the service is funded.  … What matters to Welsh patients is not political ideology, but the standard of patient care, which will not be helped by Labour’s £534m cuts to the Welsh NHS.”

Dr Tudor Hart’s report was also highlighted in Pulse magazine and Health Insurance and Protection magazine.  

The media reaction so far has focussed on the responses of Wales’s two think-tanks, ourselves and the Institute of Welsh Affairs to the proposal, digging for criticism. Ours is simple: we welcome any steps that strengthen policy making, and we’d be pleased to work with such an institute in due course. 

But whatever a WPPI looks like, there will still be a need for a policy capacity that is genuinely independent of government, that can question government policy and action, and that can look at not just what the Welsh Government  does but also the UK Government, local government, the private and third sectors.

Moreover, ‘evidence’ is never neutral or value free. Most obviously, the areas of work by a WPPI will reflect the Welsh Government’s priorities.  But these may not be the only issues that matter. Indeed if organisations outside government didn’t campaign for policy change, some issues would never get to be Government priorities in the first place.

It seems to me that the problem in Welsh public policy is not a lack of ideas, but a reluctance of academics to produce policy-relevant research and of public officials to act on the evidence that is available. There needs to be a shift in culture and practice as well as a ‘bridge’ if an institute is to be effective. 

So hello and welcome to a new institute, or bridge or network, but it’s definitely not goodbye to existing think-tanks. 

Victoria Winckler is Director of the Bevan Foundation