CHAPTER TWO POLICY AND LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 INTRODUCTION
For the UK government, work is at the heart of efforts to tackle poverty and social exclusion. The strategy for welfare reform, as outlined in the 2006 Green paper "A New Deal for Welfare", has as key objectives to: reduce the number of people claiming incapacity benefit by 1 million in 10 years; to get 300,000 more lone parents into work; and to increase the number of older workers by one million.
This policy review briefly examines some of the main policies in the UK and in Scotland, that relate to the Working for Families Fund. These include Child Poverty, Childcare, and Employability policies. This is followed by a brief literature review summarises some key research around parents and work. A more detailed account can be found in Technical Annex T2.
2.2 CHILD POVERTY
The UK Government aims to eliminate child poverty by 2020, an objective shared by the Scottish Executive. The key way advocated to tackle child poverty is through getting more parents into paid employment. Evidence, using DWP data, shows that the proportion of children in poverty (in low income households below 60% of the median income) is much higher for households where all are workless (although many children who are in poverty are in households where one or more parents work). 9
The government aspires to achieve an overall employment rate of 80% of the working age population, with a further goal of lifting 70% of lone parents into employment, which it is estimated would lift around 300,000 children out of low income. 10 The UK employment rate of lone parents has risen by 11.3% points since 1997 to 56.6% in 2005. 11 However, it remains below the levels of many other developed countries. 12
The New Deal Programme has been a key initiative set up to achieve these aims, particularly New Deal for Lone Parents, which helps lone parents with children aged 16 and under into employment and the Welfare Reform Green paper set out measures for mandatory Work Focused Interviews for to lone parents claiming Income Support. Working for Families specifically targets helping lone parents and parents in vulnerable or disadvantaged groups to move into or towards work, and so directly supports these goals.
Various other strategies at the UK level are also employed to reduce child poverty. These include easing the immediate transition into work and long-term support to 'making work pay' through: in-work benefits, tax credits, the national minimum wage and altering tax rates. There has also been considerable work on removing barriers to parents working, such as increased childcare access, provision and funding for parents through the National Childcare Strategy. Also in order to make it easier for parents to access and maintain work, work-life balance has been promoted, including the introduction of various statutory measures (such as increased maternity and paternity leave and pay, the right to request time off for childcare reasons etc.). The Treasury (2006) argues that the Government's policies are estimated to be responsible for around half of the rise in lone parent employment rates since 1997. Of the almost 659,000 lone parents who have joined NDLP since 1998, over 420,000 have been helped into work. Most lone parents moving into work through the NDLP would not have done so without assistance from the programme. 13
In Scotland, the Scottish Executive's Closing the Opportunity Gap ( CtOG) approach, launched in July 2004, aims "to prevent individuals and families from falling into poverty; to provide routes out of poverty for individuals and families; and to sustain them in a lifestyle free from poverty". The Working for Families Fund contributes to one of six specific CtOG objectives: 'To increase the chances of sustained employment for vulnerable and disadvantaged groups - in order to lift them permanently out of poverty'.
The UK government has achieved some success in meeting its child poverty targets. Child poverty has reduced: 17% fewer children were in income poverty (after housing costs) in 2004/05 than in 1998/99. 14 In Scotland Child Poverty rates (before housing costs) had fallen to 19% (27% in 1998/99) by 2004/5. On an after housing costs basis, the percentage of children living on relative low incomes (below 60% median, or "in poverty") has been reduced from 30% in 1998/99 to 23% in 2004/05. However, child poverty in the UK as a whole still remains higher in relative terms than in all but three of the 24 other EU countries. 15
2.3 EMPLOYABILITY AND LABOUR MARKET POLICIES
The concept of employability is a major component of national, regional and local labour market policy in many countries. 16 Employability is concerned with factors changing a person's probability of getting a new or improved job. 17 The need for strategies targeting "low-paid and unskilled job seekers [and] enhancing the effectiveness of active labour market policies and lifelong learning to maintain employability" continued to form the central focus of the Organisation's labour market policy agenda throughout the 1990s. 18
In addition to supporting parents to improve their employability at a UK level, the Department for Work and Pensions' welfare reform programme, set out in its Green paper 'A new deal for welfare: Empowering people to work' (2006), emphasises the shift in policy towards additional support to help the high numbers of people who are economically inactive into work, which is likely to include many WFF clients.
The Scottish Executive's Employability Framework 'Workforce Plus' uses the definition of employability as " the combination of factors and processes which enable people to progress towards or get employment, stay in employment and move on in the workplace". 19 The framework, which has been designed to support CtOG targets, seeks to work with particularly vulnerable people and disadvantaged groups including people who face multiple barriers to gaining work and need additional help, people who are in low skilled and/or low paid jobs and people who are in work but are at risk of leaving because of health difficulties. As discussed in section one, a major purpose of WFF is to improve the employability of disadvantaged parents moving them towards or into work or to improve their progress in work. 'Workforce Plus' highlights the Executive's belief that work, for most people and their families, is the best way out of poverty. The framework recognises the important role of childcare in labour market growth.
2.4 CHILDCARE
Prior to the 1998 UK National Childcare Strategy, childcare was largely seen as a private family matter. 20 Provision at that time was poor and was a major barrier to employment among low-income families, and especially lone parents. The National Childcare Strategy aimed to improve the availability, affordability and quality of childcare and also formed part of the government's strategy to reduce child poverty through expanding childcare to help more parents into employment.
582,000 new childcare and early education places in the UK had been created by 2005. 21 However, problems such as patchy provision between local authorities, insufficient places for disabled and disadvantaged children and children from ethnic minorities and that some services were not sustainable without sustained core funding were identified by a 2004 National Audit Office report.
Working Families Tax Credit was introduced in 1998 to support families with children while in work, and contribute towards childcare costs. This was replaced with the Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit in 2002.
In the 1998, the Green Paper, Meeting the Childcare Challenge: A Childcare Strategy for Scotland, the Scottish Executive recognised the need for accessible and affordable childcare as part of its strategy on supporting families, and identified three key problems:
- variation in the quality of provision;
- high costs;
- difficulty in finding childcare places.
The Childcare Strategy has at its core the aim of providing good quality, affordable and accessible childcare. A key component of the Strategy was the provision of Out of School Care. Childcare is believed to have both social and economic benefits for parents and children: parents are able to participate in work and/or training, while children are offered play, social and educational opportunities.
In Scotland Childcare Partnerships were set up in each local authority area and Childcare Strategy funding passed to each local authority. It is the responsibility of the local authority, in conjunction with the local Childcare Partnership to allocate the funding to meet local childcare needs in their area. In addition to Childcare Strategy funding, the Executive has made additional funding available for more flexible childcare. In two local authority areas, extended childcare provision from 6-9pm weekdays and all day at weekends has been piloted. Funding is also being provided to promote and develop the childcare at home service or sitter service. This service provides childcare in the child's own home from early morning until late evening 7 days a week.
Working for Families developed out of the Scottish Executive Partnership Agreement in 2003, specifically commitment 319 'to provide childcare support in areas of high unemployment in order to help those in work, training or education'. The subsequent funds associated with the programme were designed to complement activities in the Childcare Strategy. Working for Families was specifically designed to focus on the additional needs of some of the most disadvantaged parents and to provide the additional boost that they often require in order to engage with work.
2.5 PARENTS AND WORK
This brief literature review examines issues around parenting and paid work, in particular lone parents and households facing particular stresses or disadvantage. 22
2.5.1 Parenting and Paid Work
Studies indicate that, for women, the constraints of private responsibilities remain strongly felt and that 'family comes first'. Research on Transitional times, such as when women are returning to paid employment, both highlights and echoes concerns that are being experienced by many already in the workforce. 23 The issues identified by the women were: "finding local, good quality, affordable childcare; managing other family/domestic roles and responsibilities; the job opportunities available, their hours of work and locality; social pressures and pressures and support or discouragement from a partner and/or other family members" (p. 12). Other studies describe job-related issues for low income working mothers, such as: transport/ timing problems; availability of very poorly paid or inflexible work; stress and overload; feeling the need to set high personal standard of worker reliability to counteract negative perceptions of potential domestic intrusions; settling for jobs at lower grades than merited by education/experience; finding few (or counting themselves out of) prospects for training/ career advancement; managing children's' educational and leisure commitments.
2.5.2 Lone Parents
The message is that it is important to acknowledge and respect diversity in the caring and work aspirations of lone mothers. Analysts and lone parents themselves point out that tensions and difficulties in combining paid work and parenting are increased where financial margins are tight or even non-existent, and that this may particularly characterise the experience of lone mothers. 24 The caring work of lone mothers and the time they spend with their children may be particularly important for their children's welfare, especially if, as seems likely, they may struggle in one-income households to achieve sufficient income to compensate for time deficits, although it can be argued that purchased goods, or services, for children do not necessarily compensate for time spent with them. 252.5.3 Households facing particular stresses or disadvantage
A literature review by the Scottish Poverty Information Unit found that: people with disabilities face particular barriers, such as lack of qualifications, employer discrimination and accessibility issues; those with mental health problems face additional issues of stigma in Transitions to work; and people with learning difficulties require ongoing support once in work. 26 A qualitative study of the labour market experiences of 50 people with multiple problems (including substance abuse, homelessness, mental and physical ill health and experiences with the criminal justice system) confirmed findings from other research that such respondents needed personalised, intensive and flexible forms of support. This study also found a range of expressed strategies, such as self-development (needing a CV) or self assertion (personal anger at or boredom with the system) which could feed back into increased feelings of self blame. Dean concluded that those facing multiple problems or needs may require extended time to achieve job readiness and that for many of these respondents "it was hard to see how employers could be persuaded to allow them the kind of latitude they would require without guaranteed support and some measure of compensation". 27
2.6 CONCLUSIONS
This brief review has summarised some of the key UK and Scottish policy initiatives that relate to the Working for Families Fund. The Working for Families Fund addresses several key policy aims for the Scottish Executive, with the principal priority of reducing child poverty through improving access of disadvantaged parents to employment, education and training.
The literature review outlines the key issues for mothers, particularly lone mothers, entering and maintaining paid work and the personalised, intensive and flexible forms of support required to help parents with other disadvantages or stresses into employment. As will be shown later in the report, this is the kind of support Working for Families aims to give to low income and disadvantaged parents.