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 of 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

opportunity 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

of 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

of 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

on 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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