By Laura Burgess, Head of Policy and Research at Resolve Poverty
With news that the Child Poverty Strategy is now expected in the autumn, all levels of government should use this time to consider how they can play their part in the national mission to “break down barriers to opportunity.”
Our latest Mission Critical report makes clear that delivering better outcomes for those experiencing socio-economic disadvantage requires a whole-system approach across all tiers of government and public bodies. In this article, we outline our proposal for a national Shared Outcomes Framework to set the Child Poverty Strategy wheels in motion, plus we explore how local and regional government can pave the way for it.
This begins with central government action on social security: we repeat our calls for removal of the two-child benefit limit and overall benefit cap and introduction of an Essentials Guarantee, to ensure Universal Credit covers basic living costs, among other reforms. A Child Poverty Strategy which does not end the two-child limit and benefit cap cannot, fundamentally, be considered credible.
But it does not end there. At the heart of the Child Poverty Strategy should be a Shared Outcomes Framework (SOF) that realigns the public sector around a strategic priority to reduce and prevent poverty, and empowers all parts of the public sector to deliver on it. The SOF should underpin the Strategy, enshrining binding targets for poverty reduction and other measurable outcomes with actionable timelines. Further, it should define the high-level roles of central, regional and local government, including their broad responsibilities and actions.
The immediate impact would be threefold: i) to build a shared understanding of poverty throughout the public sector; ii) to support public sector stakeholders’ understanding of how they can prosecute their role in tackling it; iii) to ensure political leadership is both responsible and accountable.
We recommend further that the remit of the Mayoral Council and Leaders’ Council includes accountability for delivery on SOF targets, in both outcomes and their timescales. This would ensure that political leaders at central, regional and local levels each hold one another to account, in order that meaningful progress is made on the mission. Alongside our proposed Officers’ Council, whereby local and regional government anti-poverty officers would convene directly with central government officials, these forums would also ensure that action at all levels of government is coordinated, and all levers are pulled in the same direction.
At the crux of the SOF, therefore, is a role for central government in steering, not rowing, delivery of the Child Poverty Strategy. Central government must set ambitious but realistic poverty reduction targets, at the same time as empowering local and regional authorities with the requisite funding, powers and resources to deliver them. A credible Child Poverty Strategy must include clear, binding targets and adequately strengthen the role of local and regional government, including through ring-fenced funding.
Local and regional government need not wait for central government to act, however. Indeed, it would be fruitful for them to consolidate existing progress on the anti-poverty agenda and prepare for the national strategy to take hold in autumn. For a start, all authorities have the power to set a strategic priority for poverty reduction and prevention across all their services and functions, such as health, housing, transport, education and economic development.
At the local level, this should be enacted through a council-wide anti-poverty strategy and voluntary adoption of the socio-economic duty. These actions ensure that all policies and strategic decisions, and the teams carrying them out, recognise and execute their role in delivering better outcomes for those experiencing poverty. They ensure that no levers are left unpulled and generate new touchpoints for people to access support.
Central to delivering these actions is unified political and officer leadership at local and regional levels. As outlined in our report, this should be led by regional mayors, local authority leaders and anti-poverty portfolio holders in regional and local authorities. While political leadership is critical to drive the strategic priority, officer leadership is necessary for effective delivery. Thus, regional and local authorities should each appoint named officers to be operationally responsible for delivery on the SOF and to work collaboratively across teams.
Ultimately, if the commitment to “break down the barriers to opportunity” is to be fulfilled, the entire public sector must be engaged and united in this mission. Our proposals for social security reform, a Shared Outcomes Framework, strong leadership and prioritisation would ensure the Child Poverty Strategy has the structural integrity to do just that. Without them, it risks structural failure.
This is the first in our serialisation of policy recommendations from our Mission Critical report. Our next article will consider our proposals for local crisis support and what should happen to the Household Support Fund (HSF), particularly in the light of the Spending Review on 11 June.
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This article is featured in our 4 June newsletter.
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