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All Party Parliamentary Group on Poverty
Measuring child poverty
Introduction
This submission from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Poverty is based on a specially
commissioned debate, held on 24th January 2013, between Professor Jonathan Bradshaw (York
University), Christian Guy (Centre for Social Justice), and Alison Garnham (Child Poverty Action
Group).
The debate revealed that the issue of measuring poverty is contested. At the same time, there are
important principles agreed by all parties to the debate.
In the light of this, the following submission is in two parts. Part I is a synthesis of areas of common
agreement about the principles that should underpin the measurement of poverty. Part II is a
record of the main points made during the debate in which some points of disagreement are
evident.
Part I: Points of agreement in measuring poverty
There is consensus across all parties in the debate on a number of important items. First, all parties
wish to end poverty. Second, there is universal agreement that the main causes of poverty lie in
economic and social factors over which individuals have little control. Third, emotive language (for
example, comparisons between 'strivers' and 'skivers') is unhelpful and has no place in serious public
discourse.
On the issue of measurement, there is general agreement that there are many dimensions to the
issue of poverty. For this reason, no single measure can capture the essence of poverty. It follows
that there need to be a number of different measures, each contributing something important while
making up for the deficiencies of other measures. Combining measures can provide insight and
statistical analysis may give suggestions about what policy makers and practitioners might usefully
address. However, a combined measure is of little use when it comes to measuring progress
because, without isolating different items, it impossible to assess which factor is driving any change.
Everyone in the debate agreed that income and other measures of financial resources are essential
measures. What tends to divide people is what, if any, other items should be included.
There is general agreement that any measure of poverty should be:
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Clear
Transparent
As simple and unambiguous as possible
Valid (measuring the core concept as opposed to correlates of the core concept)
Reliable (suitable as a repeat measure change year-on-year)
Recognisable to people in poverty
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Part II: Notes from the debate
This section summarises the contributions of the three main speakers at the debate, notes of
contributions from the floor, and a final comment of the Chair of the debate, Kate Green MP.
Contribution from Jonathan Bradshaw, University of York
The consultation document is of poor quality; it is conceptually confused. It ignores five decades of
research by Government and academics, including the development of the child poverty target in
the 1990s.
It ignores the ‘Opportunity for all’ indicators developed by the last government, the Cabinet Office
work on social exclusion, the indicators discussed by this Government in the Child Poverty Strategy
and the Frank Field review, as well as the work undertaken by the Office for National Statistics on
child well-being. It fails to distinguish between:
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Measures of child poverty;
Characteristics of poor children;
The drivers of poverty;
The consequences of poverty.
Poverty is a lack of material resources – this definition is the consensus of social scientists all around
the world. While multi-dimensional measures of poverty exist, these are focused on material
resources, unlike the proposals in the Government’s consultation document.
We also have the concept of social exclusion, which includes material resources, but also other
elements. This is different from poverty. Child wellbeing is also different from poverty – although
material deprivation is one element of it.
We are told that a new measure is needed because the threshold [60 per cent of median income,
the threshold for one of the measures of child poverty contained in the child poverty act] has fallen.
However, this is not a good reason to throw away the measure when we already have a portfolio of
poverty measures in place. On other measures, the absolute poverty measure, and the measure of
low income and material deprivation combined, poverty hasn’t fallen.
While the existing measures don’t capture the barriers to poverty, analysis will; some of this is
contained within the annual Households Below Average Income publication – and extensive analysis
is carried out by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The consultation states that we need data on the numbers of children in poverty, the severity of
poverty, the acceptability of the measure, and its robustness, but all of these are already provided
by the current measure. The material deprivation measures are based on public consensus, building
on the work of the Poverty and Social Exclusion survey. They are indicators of what people believe
should be had in today’s society.
The dimensions selected within the consultation are not good indicators of poverty; for example,
most poor children are not in workless households.
If the intention was to re-establish multidimensional indicators of poverty that would be fine – but
the Government’s intention is to develop these at a micro level – to identify individual children who
meet a certain threshold on these dimensions. We have to remember the context for this measure,
which is that child poverty is increasing.
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Contribution from Christian Guy, Director, Centre for Social Justice
The Centre for Social Justice has spent a decade immersed in the most deprived communities. We
run a network of 330 charities, which show the realities of life in poverty.
The common ground in this debate is that we all want to end child poverty – this includes the
government.
We need to review the way we define poverty and that we understand poverty. Visits to families
mean that the current measure doesn’t work.
On the current measure, relative poverty falls in a recession. This is absurd. It also leads to a cynical
form of politics whereby a family can be lifted out of poverty by a few pounds a week. If you talk to
a family who has been ‘lifted out of poverty’ in this way they will be bewildered.
The measure fails to recognise the root causes and the different aspects of poverty. Drug and
alcohol abuse, worklessness and debt all play a big part of what goes on around poverty - and family
breakdown is also a root cause of poverty. As Frank Field has pointed out, the Child Poverty Act
straitjackets our current approach.
The four measures of poverty contained in the Child Poverty Act are financial, and that is therefore
what the Government discusses when it discusses poverty. The measures drive government action,
and this is what the Government machine is geared up to respond to.
The previous Government didn’t reach the child poverty target, despite spending a large amount on
tax credits. Do we think that the best use of this money was chasing a moving target? We think that
this money could have been put to better use.
No one is contemplating dropping the income poverty measure; this is a debate about what should
be added to it, and we believe that this should include a debate on the root causes of poverty.
We also need to think about what the source of income is as well as the level of income, including
what is earned income, and what is received. We could also look at a consumption measure, the
temporary income measure is a snapshot, and doesn’t tell us what happens to families over the
longer term.
Unmanageable debt does make a difference to families. Family stability, parental mental health and
skills matter. We also need to know more about in-work poverty – what is the level of work within
families who are working but poor?
Overall, we need to broaden the statutory effort and accountability around child poverty, and to
broaden our understanding of what child poverty is: growing up in a workless household, or being in
poor housing is a form of child poverty. Chasing a moving income target hasn’t changed children’s
lives. But the income measure isn’t being replaced – it’s being supplemented.
Contribution from Alison Garnham, Chief Executive, Child Poverty Action Group
We have an interest in the current measures, as the Child Poverty Act came about after extensive
lobbying from the voluntary sector, and we played a part.
The short answer to the question of how we should measure child poverty is: ‘why not add more
indicators, but don’t abandon the current measures, and don’t have a multi-dimensional index?’
There’s a confusion between causes and consequences of poverty within the current proposed
dimensions of that index. We should definitely have ambitions for other government departments
to do things about child poverty, but we don’t need new measures to make this happen.
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There are four measures in the Child Poverty Act:
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A relative measure, of children in households falling below 60 per cent of median income
A measure of low income and material deprivation – what families need but can’t afford,
this reflects costs as well as income.
A measure of persistent poverty; and
An ‘absolute’ income measure whereby the income measure is compared to a fixed
baseline.
The measures correct for each other's weaknesses, so although the relative measure has shown falls
in child poverty, the absolute measure has not. A good thing about the current measures is that
they’re transparent, so we can see what’s going on.
The Minimum Income Standards work done by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that people
think that essential items cost around 70 per cent of the median income. The Government has also
now usefully produced a measure of households falling below 50 per cent of the median, so we have
some idea of the severity of poverty.
We know that relative low income is associated with a whole host of other outcomes, for example
educational outcomes. The headline figure 60 per cent figure is also an EU requirement, and
enables us to compare poverty rates over time and between countries.
We also need to remember that the indicators are just that; not a full definition of poverty, but just a
measure.
It’s also worth noting that the idea that previous policy was ‘poverty plus a pound’ has been
comprehensively disproved by the IFS, who showed that policies under the previous government
increased incomes from anywhere between 40 per cent and 100 per cent of median income.
Of course we need to look at other indicators, and we could bring back the Opportunity for All
indicator set. But we need to be clear about what these indicators are – whether they are:
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Drivers of poverty
Indicators of child wellbeing; or
Groups particularly at risk of poverty.
If we bring together these things in a single indicator we would spend all of our time deconstructing
it – trying to work out whether the indicator has improved because of, for example, improvements
in health or improvements in education.
Although there are multi-dimensional indicators at the international level, these are not helpful on a
micro level.
We can produce typologies of people in poverty, but these are not a measure. A multi-dimensional
measure would be harder for the public to understand.
David Cameron committed to the relative poverty measure – and so far we’re pleased that Iain
Duncan Smith has said that the Government is committed to this measure, but we’re concerned that
statements have been made in response to Parliamentary Questions that they are downgrading the
measure.
We were on a good trajectory on child poverty, and if progress had continued on the trajectory it
was on prior to 2010, we would have hit the child poverty target by 2023. The Government now
says that there will be a million more children in poverty by 2020.
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There is a concern that the consultation is being motivated by worry about this increase in poverty,
rather than by concern about the measures themselves.
Comments and discussion
Christian Guy: We are worried that unless a new target is put into statute, it won’t drive
Government action.
Helen Goodman MP: The material deprivation measure gives a rich definition of poverty. What’s
more, people aren’t saying that family breakdown isn’t a problem, but it’s not the same as poverty.
At the moment, the Government is ignoring the poverty measures other than the relative income
measures – the absolute, material deprivation and persistent poverty measures. Last year, 1390
children went to food banks. The consultation is a diversion to distract people from what is really
going on.
Paul Nicholson, Zacchaeus 2000: The Poll Tax made people live well below a necessary minimum
income. The localisation of Council Tax Support will result in similar outcomes.
Family breakdown is not the only route into poverty, debt is a real problem. We also need to look at
maternal mental health, which can be significantly affected by debt. Poverty and debt can be causes
of family breakdown.
Christian Guy: Tax credits may have played an important role for families, but the need for them
means that we are letting off low pay employers. Food banks were around before this year; there
are now more available, and this Government has allowed them to have access to Jobcentre Plus.
The use of food banks hasn’t risen because of Government policies, but because of supply.
Maeve McGoldrick, Community Links: We need measures of ‘distance travelled’ on poverty, in the
way that we also do with welfare to work programmes, to show how far someone has moved. We
also need to think about the difference between causes and consequences of poverty – for example,
poverty of aspiration is a consequence of poverty, not a cause.
Carol Evans, The Phone Co-op: We need to look at access to services – this is particularly the case in
rural areas. 26 per cent of rural jobs are in the public services, so cuts may affect rural areas more.
Public services are harder to access in rural areas; there is an hourly bus service in 46 per cent of
rural areas, compared to 97 per cent of urban areas. The cost of living in the countryside is higher.
How do we capture access to services in any new measure?
(No name given, working with Young People): Aspiration is the key to getting young people out of
poverty. There are many people who are living in poverty who are happy. We need to be careful
not to stigmatise people living in poverty by saying that they are failing as parents and failing as
individuals.
Debbie Abrahams MP: There is a tendency to blame poverty on the individual, but poverty is a social
issue as much as anything else. As a North Western MP, I get awful cases of poverty within my
surgery. And previously, as a health academic, I know that poverty is a key determinant of health
outcomes. Children from poor families are twice as likely to die as kids from rich families. We need
to focus on the causes of poverty as well as addressing the effects –for example, poor housing.
Christian Guy: The language being used around strivers and shirkers is wrong. We are not trying to
point the finger – we are blaming the system for family breakdown, not the individual.
Liam Allmark, Caritas: Are the material deprivation indicators adequate?
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Jonathan Bradshaw: The indicators were developed out of the Poverty and Social Exclusion survey.
The last one was in 1999, but it has been updated this year. The deprivation indicators are designed
to be an index – and the indicators have been selected that are most indicative of deprivation. The
index is probably the best part of the current poverty measures. We could potentially report the
measures without the low income condition.
Barry Knight, Webb Memorial Trust: We have some confusion about terms including 'definition',
'measure', 'indicator', 'correlation', 'cause', 'effect index'. We could usefully understand better what
these mean.
Jonathan Bradshaw: Britain had the biggest reduction in child poverty of anywhere in the developed
world during the 2000s. We have also seen significant improvements in child wellbeing, which will
see Britain move up from the bottom to the mid-point of Unicef’s child wellbeing index.
Paul Nicholson: Returning to the issue of maternal deprivation in pregnancy, could the Office for
Budget Responsibility estimate the savings from lowering child poverty?
Christian Guy: We are not saying that the Labour years did nothing; we are simply asking whether
what they did was the best possible use of the money spent.
Kids Company representative: We deal with poor children every day, and their situation is getting
worse. The important thing is that Government is held to account for doing something about this.
Carena Rogers, Scope: At present Disability Living Allowance is included in household income. It
should be disregarded, as it helps meet the additional costs of living faced by disabled people.
Maeve McGoldrick: We need to link up Government policy, so we need to ensure that the social
justice strategy is linked to the child poverty strategy, and to the welfare strategy.
Jonathan Bradshaw (concluding remarks): Poverty is a lack of resources – we need to stick to this
definition.
Christian Guy (concluding remarks): We need something additional to the income measure.
Alison Garnham (concluding remarks): We need to get the facts straight in this debate – the
previous Government’s strategy wasn’t just about income transfers, lone parent employment rose
by 14 per cent. Poverty is about resources, and is multidimensional.
Kate Green MP, Chair of the APPG on Poverty (concluding remarks): There are many dimensions to
the experience of poverty. The government needs to advance progress across all dimensions of
poverty; but not to lose the importance of income.
6th February 2013