Paul Kellagher: Why we need action on child poverty now

We know this policy is a major driver of child poverty across the UK, but its impact is felt disproportionately in Northern Ireland with data from the Cliff Edge Coalition indicating that 21.4 per cent of families here have three or more children compared to 14.7 per cent in the UK.

Whilst the initial proposal was significantly watered down by amendments, it was the discussion that interested me. Sitting in the public gallery, I was struck by the small number of MLAs in attendance and by the debate itself. This Assembly feels somewhat more cordial than its predecessors.

There was broad cross-party consensus that the two-child limit is a cruel policy originating in Westminster and it is within the powers of the Northern Ireland Executive to break parity and deliver real changes for families here.

Last week's comprehensive coverage in this paper highlighted the burden of childcare on families. In an almost perfect storm, the absence of a childcare strategy along with the absence of an anti-poverty strategy is driving families towards part-time working, zero-contract hours or out of work completely due to the crippling costs and a lack of adequate childcare infrastructure.

But will an anti-poverty strategy deliver the much-needed policy changes that will make a real difference to families? If the recent Northern Ireland Audit Office report examining child poverty gives us any insight, it’s not positive. The report published by the Auditor General considers the effectiveness of the 2016-22 Child Poverty Strategy and sets out a lack of significant progress on the main child poverty indicators.

The Audit Office noted the strategy had “no clear targets for poverty reduction, nor was there any ring-fenced budget attached to it”. It also notes a “lack of focus on early intervention and preventative actions”. The report also notes that departments had “gaps in understanding of accountability arrangements, and a lack of joined-up working between them in the delivery of the Strategy”. There are lessons here for future strategy.

We know that child poverty has chronic long-term impacts on children’s lives with life expectancy for a child growing up in poverty being as much as 11-15 years less than more well-off children. We also know that it impacts children’s educational outcomes, thus affecting future earning potential.

A recent review by Action for Children, led by Professor Alexis Jay, examined Child Criminal Exploitation and made a clear link between poverty and vulnerability to exploitation by criminal gangs. In a Northern Ireland context that means exposing children to the risk of paramilitary exploitation.  

The report notes that no strategy to reduce exploitation and violence could succeed without comprehensive systemic interventions to tackle poverty. Similarly, Professor Ray Jones in his review of Children’s Social Care arrangements points to the need to address poverty as a key priority. We already know there is a strong correlation between poverty, child protection and children being looked after by the state.

Last week’s Assembly debate was perhaps most notable for its caution. The Minister for Communities, Gordon Lyons MLA, committed to bringing an Anti-Poverty strategy before the assembly by the end of the year, noting the need to work together and the need to address the multifaceted issues needed to address it.  On addressing the two-child limit the minister noted there the annual cost would be around £56 million per annum plus an as yet unknown IT and staff cost to mitigation. He went on to note that removing it by the end of 2024 is not possible.

The debate largely focused on the cost of doing something but as Robbie Butler MLA pointed out there is also a cost to doing nothing. The Audit Office report puts the cost of child poverty here to be between £825 million and £1 billion annually. The evidence indicates that choosing to do nothing now or delaying decisions further is the more expensive option.

Regardless of the terrible human cost of suffering, we are paying the financial cost anyway. The economic impact of failing to address poverty spans every single aspect of government. In the short term, these costs are often borne by Health and Social care in everything from increased hospital admissions due to living in cold damp homes to increased pressure on children’s social care and mental health services.

Beyond this, our education settings often have additional pressures with children not fully able to engage in learning and social development, our local businesses are impacted through reduced spending as household budgets are constrained.

Charities have been at the leading edge of trying to find solutions whilst facing ever-growing demand with reduced capacity and real terms cuts to their funding. The longer-term implications of poverty and failing to address it will continue to be felt in our economy for an entire generation, potentially locking Northern Ireland into a cycle of low pay and deprivation.

A week after the NI Audit Office report was released, Minister Lyons’ own Department released the Northern Ireland Poverty and Inequalities Report 2022-23. This makes even more shocking reading than the Audit office report which relied on data for 2021/22. Relative child poverty (meaning children living in households with 60 per cent or less of the median household income average) is up to 24 per cent (or one in four) from 18 per cent the previous year.

We know from local statistics that in Fermanagh, the most rural county in Northern Ireland, the figures are several percentage points higher again. The figures come as no surprise to any of us working in the wider family of children’s services.

Behind every statistic are real families and children who are struggling, what worries us is not just the numbers, but the depth of harm we see. Some of this damage will leave a long and deep scar on our society. It will potentially span generations and act like a brake to progress. I read daily reports from my teams of families struggling with not enough, leading to damaging impacts on the mental health of parents and children.

Disability and health concerns are exacerbated by poverty and young people leaving care or homeless are often trapped in a five-week wait for Universal Credit with only the kindness of strangers in our community to help them navigate what is a deeply destabilizing system supposed to protect our most vulnerable. Homelessness and “sofa surfing” is other barriers to work – how can a young person find a stable job without a stable, affordable home? 55,589 people in Northern Ireland are now legally registered as homeless, that’s almost equivalent to the population of Fermanagh.

We also know it’s not just the families we support in Action for Children. We see these challenges in our staff teams. Despite being a Real Living Wage Employer we know the problems of childcare outlined in last week’s paper are just one example of the pressures on our staff team.

We see this across our sector in reduced hours working requests and difficulty in recruitment and retention as highly skilled compassionate colleagues make impossible decisions on career breaks, changing jobs or leaving the sector. These challenges span across the sector impacting colleagues in nursing, community care, and the retail and hospitality sectors. Wages are simply not keeping up with inflation on a multi-year basis.

Observers of the political debate on poverty might be forgiven for labelling it toxic in some quarters, with some commentators frequently labelling people “lazy, work-shy or intent on rigging the benefit's system”. This narrative is harmful and fails to consider the evidence of how our systems and structures are at fault. Research by the Action for Children Policy team discovered that 58 per cent of children in poverty in Northern Ireland are living in work-constrained families.

Within this, it found that 8,000 children lived in families where two parents were working full-time hours but still found their household income at 60 per cent or less of the average household income in Northern Ireland. It also includes 21,000 children where one parent has a disability, and 8,000 children with disability who often require extra support from parents in the absence of local, accessible specialized services.  

Finally, this research identified the huge number of families where childcare costs push one parent into part-time working or simply quitting and that parents, including single-parent households with children of pre-school or primary age, are particularly hard hit.

The narrative in Westminster has been that the best way to stop children growing up poor is to “ensure that they do not grow up in a workless household” and yet, our research found that there are around 300,000 families with children living in poverty in the UK despite both parents being in full-time employment.” and working families would need to work the equivalent of 8 days a week to escape it.

It is however worth noting that despite the glaring failure of government at a national level, our local council has been working closely with the community and voluntary sector over the last few years to fill in some of the gaps. Some of this has been with direct financial support to address poverty through partnership with local services and some of it is at a policy level.

As I write this piece, our district council is much closer to finalizing an anti-poverty strategy for the local area than the Northern Ireland Executive seems to be. Local politics can deliver meaningful impact, but there is an issue of the depth and range of areas needing attention that requires complex cross-departmental working from every level of government.

Much of the gap in these last few years has been filled by the community and voluntary sector. A host of colleagues and volunteers across the sector have fed, clothed and kept families with a roof over their heads.

 However, whilst there is much to be commended in the level of community spirit that has saved lives and protected people from the worst possible misery, we need our government to provide a long-term solution to the problem of child poverty.

So, to sum up. Action for Children is calling for -

• Permanently scrapping the benefit cap beyond the mitigations package ending in 2025.
• Removing the two-child limit policy.
• Removing the five-week wait in Universal Credit.  

As a final thought on last week’s assembly debate I was left wondering, is a single departmental approach to delivering an Anti-Poverty Strategy by the Department of Communities and a Childcare Strategy from the Department of Education simply too narrow?

The absence of a program for the government that contains strong commitments to an anti-poverty strategy undermines the effectiveness of the cross-departmental work that will be needed to deliver it.  There is also a real opportunity to use a participatory democracy and community development approach within government departments.

I’m not simply referring to consultation with community groups, charities and people with lived experience. I’m suggesting radical steps and secondment of people who understand the nature and depth of the problem into government departments.

Many of us understand the need to move at pace and deliver local solutions in very short timeframes. The damage and long-term consequences of child poverty need to be treated as a national emergency. Drawing from the work of emergency planning may provide a more robust approach than debate and counter-debate in a timescale that fits the problem.