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Single parent charity warns against further benefit sanctions
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30/01/07 One Parent Families today welcomed the focus in John Hutton's speech on helping lone parents out of poverty but warned that any moves to place tougher conditions on claiming benefits for parents with secondary school age children would be the wrong approach.
Chief Executive of the charity Chris Pond said:
"The vast majority of lone parents want to work when they are able to and two thirds of those whose youngest child is 11 already have a job. Those with children in this age group who are not working often have very good reasons for being at home full-time, with one quarter caring for a disabled child and many others simply trying to provide stability in the aftermath of a family break-up. Lone parents want help in getting over the hurdles they face when they are ready to work, not further impoverishment when they are needed at home. A coercive approach could deter those lone parents with older children who are work-ready from coming forward to use the excellent, voluntary New Deal scheme. Because most lone parents with secondary school-age children are already working, a big stick approach would be badly targeted. Even with a 100 per cent employment rate for this group the Government would meet neither its child poverty nor its lone parent employment target.
"The Government is right to look for inspiration to countries like Sweden where the lone parent employment rate is high but the single most striking characteristic of countries with a low poverty rate and high lone parent employment is the widespread availability of publicly funded childcare. On a day when the Daycare Trust has shown that, despite government investment, the costs of childcare remain astronomical, lone parents in Britain would welcome a commitment from Government to Swedish levels of spending on childcare.
"Investment in childcare, in education and training, and as the Secretary of State rightly highlighted, in measures to improve job retention would all help lone parents fulfil their own employment ambitions and should be the focus of future reform."
One Parent Families points out that the Government has already made significant changes in the way that lone parents claim benefits. The welfare reform Green Paper, published last year, increased the number of times that lone parents are required to attend the Jobcentre to talk to an adviser about work and introduced new measures to encourage lone parents with children aged over 11 to take part in work- related activity. But, as the DWP itself concluded in its five- year strategy, published in 2005: "an unrestricted requirement to search for work is inappropriate, given the complex and difficult circumstances many lone parents face.... Such an approach would be expensive, unfair and ineffectual."
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