Single parent charity warns against strong-arm approach

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05/03/07 One Parent Families welcomes the recognition in David Freud's welfare review of the need to get more employment support to lone parents, the great majority of whom want to work, but warns against a 'strong-arm approach', which ignores the barriers - including the lack of affordable childcare - that prevent many of them working.

Responding to today's report, One Parent Families Chief Executive Chris Pond said:

"Most lone parents with children at secondary school are already working and if they are not it is because there are obstacles in their way or their children need them at home. Often they are sacrificing their own work ambitions and a better income in order to put their parenting responsibilities first. Taking a strong-arm approach to these parents would be wholly counter-productive, intensifying the pressures on them while deterring those lone parents who are work-ready from coming forward for the excellent voluntary, New Deal scheme. The Government should be investing in childcare, skills-training and job-retention help for those who are ready to work not punishing those who are having to put their parenting role first."

Seventy per cent of lone parents with children aged between 11 and 16 are working.

In 2005 the Department for Work and Pensions' own research found that: "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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