Lack of concern about unemployment among school leavers; raised tuition fees; EMA cut; threats to children's centres; and a fifth of all children in 'severe' poverty: news of cuts, and their likely impact on children, have been frequent in recent weeks. [2]

But it took Riven Vincent's 'cry of despair' to get the plight of one disabled child's carer into the mainstream media.

Riven Vincent thought she had an assurance from David Cameron:

Vincent had, nine months previously, become a symbol of prime minister David Cameron's commitment to protecting society's most vulnerable citizens.

Cameron, whose late son Ivan, like Celyn, had cerebral palsy and severe epilepsy, had visited Vincent and her daughter at home in Bristol during the general election campaign and assured her that if he became prime minister he would not do anything to harm disabled children.

That promise last week began to look a little threadbare. Vincent put out a statement that said:

"I had hoped that after David Cameron came to visit me earlier this year following our exchange on Mumsnet he would have done more to protect families like ours."

Cameron replied that he was going to look "closely" at her case. But the prospects for disabled children and their families and carers look increasingly bleak as local authorities struggle with government-imposed budget reductions of up to 30%, and disabled people prepare for cuts to welfare benefits such as the disability living allowance.   [Gdn]

When she found Cameron's election assurance was somewhat lacking in authenticity, Riven Vincent asked social services to take her daughter into care.

The news that the coalition had allocated £800m to local authorities did not reassure campaigners:

The Princess Royal Trust for Carers says that when Labour allocated a similarly un-ringfenced £400m for respite care to NHS primary care trusts in 2008, only 23% of the cash found its way into carers' breaks.  [Gdn]

Nor should this surprise us: news of local government staff cuts comes in on a frequent basis, usually in poorer - and more Northerly - councils.

So what was the coalition's response when told of the extra risks to children in care living 'far from home'?

The government plans to enforce a "sufficiency duty" on local authorities from April.

Intended to cut the number of children being sent away, councils will have to increase care provision for children in their local areas.   [BBC]

So, a government which is forcing draconian cuts on local authorities, places another statutory duty upon them, ensuring that the local council takes the flak when the "sufficiency duty" fails to get carried out.

Of course, the council can make other - even more - cuts elsewhere, or - here's a thought - the 'Big Society' could find 'volunteers' from among the 'reserve army' to fill in for the cuts.

It's more than likely that ex-care workers - recently made redundant - will return to 'work' for a lower, er, 'wage' paid for by the DSS.

Like the man said: "It's a wonderful world"!

Survival or development? The infant policymaker

Dr. Sebastian Kraemer, Honorary Consultant, Tavistock Clinic ... looks at the evidence from developmental psychology to show the vital importance of a society which supports the infant to develop secure attachments.

Babies haven’t changed much for millennia.

Give or take a few enzymes this perfectly designed little bundle of desires and interests has not needed to evolve.

He’ll be fine provided there are some people there to care for him.

If not, evolution has taken care of that too.

You live in a cruel world and treat him roughly: he will develop into a compulsively self-reliant and ruthless individual with little concern for others.

Mean societies produce mean people ...

Family & Parenting Institute 

Deprived Children    Maternity

Where now for UK parenting?

'£580' cost of benefit change

In a letter to shadow Treasury secretary Rachel Reeves, the IFS reported that households with children would be £580.03 worse off as a result of tax and benefit changes to be implemented for the 2012/13 financial year ...

Ind  18 Feb 2012    IDS: Welfare 'Reform'    Inequality

Paediatricians condemn health bill

In a damning letter to The Lancet medical journal, members of the UK's Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said there was "no prospect" of improving the Health and Social Care Bill, currently going through Parliament ...

Today's letter said that "if passed, we believe that the Bill will have an extremely damaging effect on the health care of children and their families and their access to high-quality, effective services" ...

The signatories said the NHS already "outperforms most other health systems internationally and is highly efficient" and expressed fears over the potential role of private companies in managing groups of GPs, who will control most of the NHS budget, under the new system.

They added: "Competition-based systems are not only more expensive and less efficient but are associated with gross inequality in perinatal and child health outcomes, including child safeguarding.

"Far from enabling clinicians to control and determine local services, the new commissioning proposals are more likely to lead to increased power for private management organisations attracted to this lucrative opportunity to manage small Clinical Commissioning Groups."

The letter said using multiple private companies "will make it difficult to innovate, co-operate, plan, and improve the quality in children's services" ...

Ind  17 Feb 2012    Coalition Log    NHS 'Reforms'    Outsourcing

Cuts to children's services risk greater social inequality

A key government adviser on wellbeing and fairness will warn on Wednesday that cuts to children's services at the same time as increasing taxes on the poor are of deep concern and could exacerbate already high levels of inequality.

Professor Sir Michael Marmot, whose work on health inequalities in 2010 has been incorporated into the government's public health reforms, said:

"Cutting services has a selective impact the lower down you go in the social hierarchy.

"We see increases in child poverty and are moving from direct to indirect forms of taxation, which are regressive.

"I am really concerned about these things and their impact [on inequalities]."

Marmot said on the six measures that affect health – relating to employment, education, income and health, child development and environment – he was "not sanguine that we are doing enough on any of them" ...

Gdn  15 Feb 2012    Inequality

Welfare bill defeated in Lords

Lord Mackay said the proposals could put single mothers off seeking the financial support they were entitled to.

He said: "The motivation for these charges is said by the government to bring people to voluntary agreement.

"I am entirely in favour of that but if that proves impossible where the woman is at the stage where there is nothing more she can do, the only thing she can do is pay.

"And what does that do? If anything that might make her not go to the Child Support Agency at all and the child may lose their maintenance.

"I can't see that asking for money at that stage is an incentive for anything that the government wants to do".

He said it was not fair to charge single parents when they are not responsible for creating the need to use the service.

He pointed out that 97% of CSA cases are initiated by mothers seeking money from their father ...

Gdn  25 Jan 2012    IDS Welfare 'Reform'

Families forced to rent whose children pay the price

... figures from the English Housing Survey ... (show) ... that families with children living in the private rental sector are 10 times more likely to move than those who own their own home.

In 2009-10, 30% or 310,000 of the 1 million families in the private rental sector moved.

In comparison just 3% or 122,000 out of 3.8 million property owning families moved.

Those living in the private rental sector were also less settled than those in social housing: 66% of private renters moved in the last three years compared with 23% of social renters.

The charity would like the government to construct a private rental model based on those in Europe, where notice periods and tenancies are longer ...

Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, says:

"With the doors to home ownership or social housing firmly closed for many, the number of families who are privately renting has increased by almost 80% in the last two years. But there's mounting evidence that private renting is failing to provide the stability that children desperately need." ...

The problem is acute in central London.

Emily Norman, headteacher at the St Matthew's CE primary school in Westminster, says 35% of the school's pupils leave every year because of relocation ...

Gdn  21 Jan 2012    Ponzi Housing Market    Third Meltdown Log    

Assured Shorthold Tenancies

English Housing Survey

Assured Shorthold Tenancies

Shelter

Child offenders 'dumped in prison' as cuts erode social care

The Centre for Social Justice warns that a worrying dynamic has developed in which courts and prisons are effectively being used to "parent children".

A report published tomorrow, utilising input from senior police officers, magistrates and youth justice officials, calls for a dramatic cut in the 5,000 children currently given custodial sentences a year, claiming too many are imprisoned for relatively minor offences ...

The report concludes that the imprisonment of young people between the ages of 10 and 17 in England and Wales is too high and should be restricted to the "critical few" guilty of serious crimes and posing a serious public threat.

Instead, too many youngsters are appearing before youth courts for trivial reasons with some effectively prohibited from certain types of future employment following minor incidents such as "playground fights".

The biggest concern, however, is the way the youth justice system is increasingly expected to sweep up cases that other departments, such as social services, are failing to address ...

Obs  15 Jan 2012    Prison & Probabtion    

70,000 children living in temporary accommodation

According to government figures highlighted by the charity, there are 69,846 children in England living in temporary accommodation such as hostels, bed and breakfasts and refuges.

Many of them will be forced to move repeatedly with their families over the coming months and, in some cases, may have to wait years before they find a permanent place to live.

The figures reveal that 35,680 households have been accepted as homeless by local authorities since the beginning of 2011 ...

Gdn  29 Dec 2011    Housing Benefit 'Reform'    Third Meltdown Log    Whither Britain? Log

A Compassionate & Caring Society?     Rough Sleepers

Barnabus

Crisis

Housing

Shelter

Child poverty warning as cuts threaten to close 3,500 Sure Start centres

Naomi Eisenstadt, Sure Start's first director at its launch in 1998, said ...

"The original aim of Sure Start was to help that bottom 30% of families living in poverty, getting money into the areas where the poorest people lived, supporting whole communities in areas where you could improve social mobility. Helping people mix and support each other, building communities.

"But now there seems to be a policy shift with a lot of language being used about instead helping just the neediest, the most disadvantaged, the bottom 1% to 3% essentially, the very hardest to reach and I think that is potentially very destructive.

"You take services that are already spread very thin and spread them even thinner."

Obs  13 Nov 2011    Deprived Children    Third Meltdown Log    

Cuts hit 47 children's centres

"Local authorities are responsible for spending decisions" - Sarah Teather, Children's minister

At least 47 children's centres in England have either been closed or are being earmarked for closure because of funding cuts, research shows.

The survey by shadow children's minister Sharon Hodgson also suggests eight out of 10 of those who responded have cut funding in the past year.

A further nine out of 10 are planning to do so in 2012 ...

National Children's Bureau ... chief executive Dr Hilary Emery said cuts to local authority services such as play facilities, support for disabled children and youth services, are all painting a picture of children as the biggest losers of the recession ...

BBC NEWS  18 Oct 2011    

A 'modern and compassionate party'    Coalition Log    
Cutting the Deficit    Third Meltdown Log

Marginalised Home Page

Children

Four-in-10 disabled children 'in poverty'

Four in 10 disabled children in the UK live "in poverty", according to the Children's Society.

In the population as a whole, about one-in-three children lives in poverty.

The charity is calling on the government to rethink planned changes to welfare benefits in the UK, saying more than 100,000 disabled children could lose up to £27 a week ...

At the moment, families with a disabled child may currently be entitled to support through the disability elements of child tax credit.

Under plans set out for Universal Credit, this support will be given through what is is called "disability additions", within household benefit entitlements.

The government plans to halve the maximum level of support provided through the disability additions - from £54 per week, down to £27 per week ...

BBC NEWS  07 Oct 2011    A 'modern and compassionate party'    Deprived Children    Third Meltdown Log

Take a pay cut, or else ...

Childcare costs put parents in debt

The survey of 4,359 parents found 58% had cut spending on other essentials like clothing, heating and other bills.

Nearly two-thirds said they could not afford not to work, but struggled to pay for childcare.

Four out of 10 families surveyed said the cost of childcare was on a par with their mortgage or rent.

The study suggests the cost of childcare has the greatest consequences for the poorest families.

Of those who completed the Daycare Trust and Save the Children questionnaire, 250 had an annual household income of £12,000 or less.

A quarter of these low-income parents said they had given up work and a third had turned down work because of childcare costs.

More than half (58%) of these families said they were no better off working and paying for childcare.

This compared to just 19% of those with household incomes of more than £30,000.

BBC NEWS  07 Sept 2011    Falling Living Standards    Inequality    

Iain Duncan Smith to unveil payment by results welfare system

Iain Duncan Smith will set out groundbreaking plans on Saturday for billions of pounds of private sector money to be invested in helping children early in their lives.

He will also announce plans for an innovation fund aimed at getting the hardcore of 40,000 unemployed teenagers ready for work.

Investors, including those from the voluntary and private sectors, will receive a return drawn from the public spending savings Duncan Smith hopes will result from a subsequent fall in crime, welfare spending and other costs of social failure ...

Duncan Smith has been working on separate plans on early intervention and teenage unemployment through his chairmanship of the cabinet social justice committee, and alongside a government-commissioned report to be released on Monday by the Labour MP Graham Allen ...

Duncan Smith and Allen, drawing on a wealth of social science, both hold near-deterministic views on the importance of the first two years of childhood ...

Gdn  01 July 2011    Barriers on the Road to a Green Economy    Coalition Log

Branch Offce Britain    IDS & The Third Face of Power    The Myth of Full Employment    Youth Unemployment

Martin Rowson on Iain Duncan Smith

Businesses reject call ... to employ more Britons

A licence to get tough on welfare

Bombardier jobs 'disaster' feared by council leader

Frank Field

'Super-nannies' to help parents

It's easier to work than to mother

Abused teenager appeals to Cameron over the closure of children's homes

Essex county council, which is cutting its overall budget by £98m this year, is set to close all seven of its homes, leading to redundancies for up to 119 staff.

Children will be moved into "alternative placements".

It was this threat that prompted the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to write to David Cameron.

"I am worried and scared about my home being taken away from me," he wrote.

"I come from a background of physical and emotional neglect and have had 15 foster placements before settling [in a children's home] and in my view there is a need for consistent residential care ...

Last year more than 10% of children in care were moved three times or more as placements broke down.

Figures show that 1,200 children had between five and nine placements during 2010, while 130 had more than 10 ...

Gdn  04 June 2011    FYB Log    'We're all in it together'

Children's home budget cuts

Poverty hitting pupils' learning

... 80% of teachers surveyed said they believed poverty had a negative impact on pupils' attainment - with problems including under-achievement, not having a quiet place to study at home, inability to concentrate and lack of access to computers and the internet.

"Every day I become aware of a child suffering due to poverty. Today I have had to contact parents because a child has infected toes due to feet squashed into shoes way too small," a teaching assistant in a West Midlands secondary school told researchers.

A Nottingham sixth form teacher said one pupil "had not eaten for three days as their mother had no money at all until pay day", while another teacher said a boy had come to school with no underpants and been laughed at by peers while changing for PE.

Anne Pegum, a further education teacher in Hertfordshire, said: "We have students who miss out on meals because they do not have money to pay for them and in some cases then feel unwell and have to be helped by our first aiders." ...

ATL's general secretary, Mary Bousted, said: "It is appalling that in 2011 so many children in the UK are severely disadvantaged by their circumstances and fail to achieve their potential."

"What message does this government think it is sending young people when it is cutting funding for Sure Start centres, cutting the Education Maintenance Allowance grant, raising tuition fees and making it harder for local authorities to provide health and social services?" ...

BBC NEWS  15 Apr 2011

Child maintenance changes will penalise single mothers

Calling for the government to reconsider its proposals, the letter signed by nine women's organisations and parenting charities, states:

"Ninety-seven per cent of parents with care who are eligible to receive child maintenance are women. It is our view that the proposed procedural and financial hurdles to be introduced from 2012 for all applicants to the statutory maintenance system will unfairly impact on them, rather than on non-resident parents (mostly fathers) who have failed to meet their responsibilities to their children."

The letter concludes: "There is a strong risk that, as a result of the government's plans, a considerable number of women, particularly if on a low income, or where the amount of child maintenance due is modest, will simply give up on child maintenance altogether or accept inadequate and irregular sums from the other parent." ...

Guardian  06 Apr 2011

Women's charities' letter to Theresa May on child support

Tax and welfare changes will hit women and children hardest

Young people bear brunt as councils reveal cuts to services

Cuts to council-run services will bring dramatic reductions in children's services, libraries and youth clubs and a new wave of privatisation for frontline services, the most comprehensive survey so far of town halls will reveal today.

It shows the cuts, which will begin to really bite today as budgets for the 2011-2 financial year kick in, have been disproportionately targeted at the young.

Youth clubs, play services and Sure Start centres are bearing the weight of above-average reductions.

The impact will be compounded by further cuts to libraries, cultural services, parks and leisure, triggering warnings that children and teenagers will be forced on to the streets with nothing to do.

The study, conducted by the Local Government Association (LGA), surveyed finance directors from 40% of local authorities. It also finds that two-thirds of councils are embarking on privatisation programmes to cut costs ...

Gdn  01 Apr 2011

Cuts putting 'a whole generation at risk'

Local Government

Severe poverty affects 1.6m UK children, charity claims

Save the Children says more than one in five children now lives in severe poverty in 29 areas of the country.

The highest proportion – 27% – is in Manchester and the London borough of Tower Hamlets.

More than 20% of children experience severe poverty in Birmingham and Liverpool.

Wales has the highest proportion of children living in severe poverty (14%), followed by England with 13%, then Scotland and Northern Ireland which have 9% each.

The charity said it was concerned that the government has proposed switching focus from traditional anti-poverty measures, based on income, to improving children's life chances.

Ministers have defended the controversial move, saying they are treating the causes of disadvantage not its symptoms.

Save the Children said: "You cannot ignore incomes when tackling child poverty."

It argues the government should adopt a severe poverty measure to give a true picture of the deprivation that some of Britain's 13m children suffer ...

Guardian  23 Feb 2011

Children in care far from home 'at risk'

Speech problems 'hamper children's reading'

Parents of disabled children speak out

Mother asks to put disabled daughter into care

Youth unemployment hits record high

EMA axe 'will hit students' ability to reach class'

Inflexible and stressful work 'harming families'

Many children's centres 'under threat of closure'

'Savage' cuts to youth spending

Children in care need better support

Child poverty: study shows fifth of UK youngsters severely affected