Seven ways to reduce child poverty

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Bevan Foundation’s review of ‘what works’ to reduce poverty is generating some valuable ideas.  They are at an early stage, but we are sharing them now to encourage discussion and debate.

So, what should be done about child poverty?

Child poverty in Wales is virtually unchanged since 2002/03-2004/05, despite the target to halve child poverty by 2010.There is a wealth of evidence on the negative effects of child poverty on children’s immediate experience as well as their future prospects. This is what might work to reduce poverty.

1.  Increase Household Income

Low educational attainment is the key way in which poverty in childhood affects outcomes for adults.  Evidence shows that increasing household income increases children’s educational attainment – an extra £7,000 a year closes the attainment gap at age 16 by half. The source of income, e.g. whether it is from benefits or earnings, does not make a difference to outcomes, but who receives the money does – income received by the mother makes more difference than receipt by the father.

This stark and powerful evidence suggests that there would be benefit in the Welsh Government intensifying its efforts to increase family incomes through:

• increasing labour market participation of mothers – including the need for a coherent and easy to understand offer on childcare;
• maximising the take-up of in- and out-of-work benefits, including education-related benefits such as free school meals and school uniform grants
• action on improving the quality of work (see 3.3).

2.  Support Parental Relationships

There are clear links between poverty and the type of household in which a child grows up, which are partly but not solely linked to income. Various types of action to support family relationships are proven to help to reduce poverty, and include facilitating fathers’ involvement in with their child and access to relationship counselling for low income couples.

This evidence suggests that the Welsh Government could:

• encourage employers in the public, private and third sectors to offer better parental leave for fathers;
• encourage couple counselling that is accessible to low income families;
• develop ways to support non-resident parents to maintain good relationships with their child, e.g. after divorce or separation.

3. Better Parenting

Parenting explains less than half of the educational disadvantage faced by children from low income backgrounds, however specific parenting practices do make a difference to outcomes. The Welsh Government could build on this evidence by establishing a national, evidence-based parenting programme.

4.  Develop early years (pre-school) education

High quality early years education can help to overcome some of the disadvantages faced by children from poor families, with the amount of money allocated making a difference to outcomes. Access to early years education is variable across Wales as is quality – with the poorest children often having the least good provision. This suggests that the Welsh Government could:

• establish a consistent approach to early years learning across Wales;
• protect expenditure on early years provision;
• continue to drive up quality of early years provision especially in disadvantaged areas.

 5.  Better primary and secondary education

High-quality teaching has been shown to be the most important school-level factor affecting attainment and is particularly significant for children from low income backgrounds. For these pupils, having a good teacher compared to a bad teacher leads to an additional year’s progress.

The evidence on how best to improve teaching quality suggests that funding affects pupil outcomes, while school structures do not have an impact. Other important factors affecting pupil destinations include good quality careers advice, acquisition of social and emotional skills, and active monitoring of pupil destinations (not just their achievements).

Based on this, the Welsh Government could:

• increase its focus on improving the quality of teaching especially in schools with a large number of pupils from low-income households;
• continue and if possible enhance the Pupil Deprivation Grant;
• make a step change in the provision and quality of careers advice, with active employer involvement, a stronger understanding of local labour markets and a focus on children from low-income families;
• include the acquisition of social and emotional skills by children in the curriculum;
• monitor pupil destinations not just attainment.

 6.  Post-16 learning

Further education and apprenticeships are much more important to the post-16 learning of children from low-income families than those from better-off homes, yet the quality of provision is typically lower than in schools. Despite efforts to widen access, many fewer low-income children enter higher education than high-income children.

Emerging recommendations are that the Welsh Government could:

• establish parity of funding between FE and post-16 provision in schools;
• improve the quality of provision in further education and apprenticeships;
• base interventions to reduce the number of young people not in education, training or employment on evidence of ‘what works’;
• require universities to work on a pan-Wales programme to widen participation with challenging targets.

7.  Leadership and Commitment

Last but not least there needs to be strong political leadership and commitment, not just in government but across the whole public, private and third sectors. It needs to be integral to all departments not coralled into the ‘poverty unit’, and all bodies need to listen – really listen – to the views of people experiencing poverty.

For the full report on the emerging findings, please visit our publications page.

To find out more about what we are doing on poverty, check our projects page.

To keep up-to-date with all our work, sign up to our monthly e-newsletter. 

Victoria Winckler is Director of the Bevan Foundation