What Works in Tackling Poverty Beth syn gweithio wrth daclo tlodi - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

What Works in Tackling Poverty Beth sy’n gweithio wrth daclo tlodi

Launch Lansiad

www.ppiw.org.uk

Professor Steve Martin

Director, Public Policy Institute for Wales

Four key themes

 Promoting Prosperity  Reforming Public services  Tackling Poverty  Transmitting good Practice

Using evidence to improve policy

 Advise Ministers on their knowledge needs  Encourage independent experts to be aware of and responsive to policy needs in Wales  Connect Wales with the What Works network  Coordinate What Works in Tackling Poverty

What works in tackling poverty



Open call, UK wide  Add to knowledge about what works  Significant, salient and scalable solutions  Cross- jurisdictional learning  Different tiers of government (separately and together) and non-state actors  Direct access to Welsh Ministers

Julia Unwin CBE

Chief Executive, Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Maureen Howell

Deputy Director, Tackling Poverty Division, Welsh Government

Corporate slide master

With guidelines for corporate presentations

Gwerthfawrogi Pobl / Valuing People

Welsh Government Approach to Tackling Poverty

“The creation of the Public Policy Institute for Wales is an exciting and innovative approach that which gives Ministers direct access to independent expert advice. It reflects the growing recognition, in Wales and around the world, that evidence and knowledge derived from research can play an important part in helping to improve policy decisions.” - First Minister “Tackling Poverty - We know we will have to make some tough choices and we will be guided by evidence of what is likely to have the most positive impact for people in Wales, both now and in the future”. – Minister for Communities and

Tackling Poverty & Deputy Minister for Tackling Poverty

Tackling Poverty Policy: Background

• 2005 - Child Poverty Strategy,

– commitment to support the UK Government in the eradication of child poverty by 2020

• 2010 - Children and Families (Wales) Measure

− placed a duty on Welsh Ministers to publish a new Child Poverty Strategy

• Child Poverty Strategy, 2011

– setting out its commitment and aspiration to eradicate child poverty by 2020

• 2012 & 2013 Tackling Poverty Action Plan

Policy Focus in Wales

Helping people into work Mitigating the impact

• f poverty

Preventing Poverty

Tackling Poverty

Poverty in Wales

• 1 in 3 children
• 1 in 4 adults

Tackling Poverty Action Plan

• Sets targets and

milestones

• Embed agenda across all

departments

Deputy Ministers’ Priorities

• Early Years
• Educational Attainment Gap
• NEETs
• Inverse Care Law
• Tackling Workless Households
• Housing and Regeneration

Partnership Working

Deputy Minister for Tackling Poverty Tackling Poverty Implementation Board Tackling Poverty External Advisory Group Welsh Government Tackling Poverty Champions Local Authority Anti Poverty Champions End Child Poverty Network / Third Sector Knowledge and Analytical Services

• Research

Community

The Challenges

• Wider UK / Global Economy.
• Non-devolved Policy Levers.
• Firefighting effect of UK changes to Welfare

Reform – limiting time on prevention agenda.

• Pressure on WG funded services /

programmes (reducing budgets).

• Capturing information / data sharing.
• In-work poverty / rural poverty / persistent

poverty.

Why Evidence on What Works is Essential…

• Reducing budgets – making evidenced based

decisions on where to invest.

• Need to use all available levers to tackle poverty in

Wales.

• Strong emphasis on supporting households to

achieve better outcomes: What works best…?

• Households living in poverty are not a homogenous

group.

• Supporting those with protected characteristics is

essential.

• Poverty during the life cycle.

Corporate slide master

With guidelines for corporate presentations

Gwerthfawrogi Pobl / Valuing People

Diolch yn fawr / Thank you Maureen Howell Deputy Director, Tackling Poverty Welsh Government

Professor Paul Gregg

Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission

Child Poverty and Social Mobility

Professor Paul Gregg Commissioner

15 April 2014 web: www.gov.uk/smcpcommission @smcpcommission

15 years on since Blair’s commitment to end child poverty by 2020, there still remains work to do

“And I will set out our historic aim that ours is the first generation to end child poverty forever, and it will take a generation. It is a 20 year mission but I believe it can be done” Tony Blair

The problem: over the last 50 years, mobility and

• pportunity has stagnated

Today’s CEOS rode a wave of opportunity in the 1960s with many the first to go to University… ...but in the decades since mobility has stagnated.

• For the generations born in 1958 and 1970, economists have

found top professions like law, banking, and accountancy becoming more socially exclusive – even as IQs become more like the norm.

• Cross-national studies find the link between parents’ and

children’s income is 1.5 times higher in the UK than Canada, Sweden, Germany and Australia.

• Today, three years out of University, graduates who went to an

independent school are 9% more likely to be in a top job than identically qualified state school graduates. And life is becoming harder for those entering the labour market, and in ordinary jobs.

• 1 in 5 workers was low paid in 2013, up from 1 in 7 in the 1970s*
• Recent research finds that three quarters of workers in low

pay in 2002 failed to escape from it over the next decade.

• Over half of working age adults in poverty, and two thirds of

children in poverty are in households where at least one adult

• works. In three-quarters of these cases, they work full-time.
• Nearly a million young people are unemployed and long-term

youth unemployment (2 years plus) is at a 20 year high.

*Low pay here means less than two-thirds of gross hourly median income - £7.44 an hour.

Commission: purpose, vision and structure

• The Commission is an independent body,

established in statute to monitor progress in improving social mobility and reducing child poverty in the United Kingdom, and to support and encourage business, the professions, Universities and others to improve performance on social mobility.

• Our vision is a society where the life

chances of individuals do not depend on the accident of their circumstances at birth, where every individual is able to make the most of their talents.

• Commissioners are supported by a small
• secretariat. We have formal accountability to

three Ministers – the Deputy Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and the Minister of State for Schools and the Cabinet Office. There are 10 Commissioners from a diversity of backgrounds including politics, business, academia, charities and civil society:

• The Rt Hon Alan Milburn (Chair)
• The Rt Hon Baroness Gillian Shephard (Deputy)
• Tom Attwood, Non Executive Director at the Centre

for Social Justice and formerly Managing Director of the Intermediate Capital Group

• Paul Cleal, Government & Public Sector Leader at

PwC

• Anne Marie Carrie, Chief Executive of Kensington

and Chelsea Education Ltd

• Paul Gregg, Professor of Economic and Social

Policy, University of Bath

• Christian Guy, Director, Centre for Social Justice
• Douglas Hamilton, Director, RS Macdonald

Charitable Trust

• David Johnston, Chief Executive, Social Mobility

Foundation

• Catriona Williams OBE, Chief Executive, Children

in Wales

Our key activities

• 1. State of

the Nation Report We make an independent annual report monitoring the progress made by government, business and others on reducing child poverty and improving social mobility, laid before Parliament.

• 2. Social

mobility advocacy We undertake advocacy to support and encourage business, Universities and others to improve their performance on social mobility: for example, carrying out analysis, and making the business case for action.

• 3. Advice to

Ministers We provide expert advice to Ministers on request - covering both activities to improve performance, and questions of

• measurement. All advice is

published.

• 4. Research

We undertake and commission research, with Ministerial agreement, in support of our other activities.

We cover four key areas relating to child poverty and social mobility, and publish our work extensively

Over five publications launched each aimed at creating change in government, business and education (HE, FE and schools):

Annual Report: State of the Nation 2013 (28 November 2013) Business and Social Mobility: a Manifesto for Change (7 October 2013) Social mobility: the next steps for government (10 September 2013) Higher Education: the Fair Access Challenge (10 September 2013) Measuring child poverty: Commission response (15 February 2013)

Equality of Opportunity and Equality of outcome are different concepts but they are strongly linked

The chart shows countries with low levels of inequality have some of the greatest mobility, while the two countries with the high level of had some of the lowest mobility. The UK could do much better.

Our work challenges others to create real and practical changes to improve social mobility

Business and Social Mobility: a Manifesto for Change To be successful businesses need to recruit the brightest and the best from all backgrounds. Our manifesto laid out the challenge and gave five key ‘asks’. Currently big businesses are in the process of signing up to our recommendations:

• Engage strategically with young people and

schools through a targeted multi-pronged approach including mentoring and work placements.

• Adhere to best practice on internships including

advertising and paying interns the minimum wage.

• Reform selection processes including using

contextualised grade data, recruit from a wider range

• f universities and run name and university blind

applications.

• Open up well-structured non-graduate routes
• Monitor and evaluate

“We work with the world's best companies. To do that successfully we need to attract and retain the best people regardless of background, including socioeconomic standing. Diversity and inclusiveness are not just ends in their own right but means to an end.”

Senior Partner, Big 4 Firm

The Welsh Government has its own child poverty and a dedicated Minister but several challenges remain…poverty and education

Poverty

• For children living in poverty there was some progress: In 2013, there were 16.1% (Q4)

children in workless households, which was similar to levels in 2004/5. However, over half

• f Welsh children in poverty (52%) are in working households.

Education

• In 2013 in Wales, 25.8% of FSM students gained 5 A*-C grades in their GCSEs (including

English or Welsh and maths), compared to 38.1% in England. So, over 50% more disadvantaged children in England leave schools with these basic qualification in England than in Wales

• Wales performs worse for children eligible for free school meals than every English region

and Wales as a whole does worse than all but five English Local Authorities for children eligible for free school meals.

The Welsh Government has its own child poverty and a dedicated Minister but several challenges remain...youth unemployment and economy

Youth unemployment Young people’s unemployment remains a problem. In 2012, 10% of young people aged 16- 18 years old were not in education, employment or training – or NEET. A welcome fall from 12.2% in 2011 but still higher than pre-recession rates of 9.7%. For 19-24 year olds the problem is starker with almost a quarter (23%) of young people NEET, which hasn’t changed since the recession. Economy The low wage labour market remains a problem:

• Some 25% of Welsh workers are low paid – (<2/3 median UK wage) and just under a

quarter of those on low pay lived in poor households compared to just 3% of those on higher pay (Resolution Foundation and JRF).

• Almost a quarter (23%) of people in Wales (690,000) were in low-income households

(JRF). Since the early 2000s, the numbers and proportion of people in poverty in Wales have changed little.

This programme of work offers unique opportunities

• With economic forecasts remaining tough and public finances remaining

tight, this work comes at a critical time to offer radical and timely insights on the efficacy of programmes and interventions designed to eradicate child poverty.

• The Welsh Government’s commitment to adopting an evidenced based

approach is bold and commendable. It is a big step: committing to total transparency to ensure that there is a clear and undisputed knowledge base

• n what works and what doesn’t.
• Areas of initial focus which would be beneficial include:
• What policies or interventions demonstrably improve social mobility for

young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds?

• How can progression in work help eradicate poverty – how can the

labour market contribute to reducing poverty not exacerbating it?

• Which social security systems are most cost-effective and how can this

learning be translated to reform social security?

Discussion

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