Social and Economic Factors That It Influenced Children Act 2004 - Essay Example

Social and Economic Factors That It Influenced Children Act 2004 (UK) Name Institution Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Key Content and Features of the Act 3 Aspects of Social and Economic Climate of the Time that it was enacted 4 The Relationship Between those Aspects 6 What Happened Just Before 7 Impacts of Children Act 2004 9 Conclusion 10 References 12 Introduction In the United Kingdom, the legal basis for child protection system is stipulated by the Children Act 2004, which requires the local authorities to protect and advance children’s welfare (House of Commons, 2012). The Children Act 2004 was passed to provide a legal underpinning for how social services should attend to issues that relate to children. The Act has several steering principles for caring for and supporting children. The principles include enabling children to be healthy, enjoy life, and feel secure in their environment. It also seeks to ensure that children can adequately achieve successes and economic stability (Claridge, 2017). This paper explores the social and economic factors that the Act influenced. Accordingly, it explains the features and contents of the Act, the prevalent aspects of the social and economic climate of the time that it was enacted, pertinent examples of the time, the relationship among those aspects and issues that came up before the Act was enacted. It is argued in this paper that the Children Act 2004 was conceived from the conception that single-parenthood, unemployment, and poverty are connected to child poverty and low educational attainment. Key Content and Features of the Act The Children Act 2004 requires the local authorities to protect and advance children’s welfare. The Children Act 2004 set out a new duty under section 10 of the Act that requires local authorities to collaborate at the strategic level with children’s services partners and PCTs to make sure that children’s welfare is protected and fostered. Therefore, the local authorities are tasked with assessing children’s needs and promoting the safe and secure upbringing of children within their households (Morrin et al., 2011). The Act makes a prerequisite for a child to be cared for by the local authorities and stipulates the duties of authorities in that respect. Lord Laming steered the passing of the Act after an inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié, who was eight years old at the time. It sought to offer a legislative underpinning for a government initiative called “Every Child Matters” and substantially restructured the manner in which children's services should operate in England. It also led to the creation of other agencies such as LSCBs and Children’s Trusts. Indeed, section 11 of the Act provides local authorities with a statutory obligation to “protect and uphold the welfare of children in need” (Morrin et al., 2011). Aspects of Social and Economic Climate of the Time that it was enacted High poverty rates, unemployment, and single parenthood prevailed in UK’s social and economic climate at the time the Children Act 2004 was conceived and enacted. A major challenge at the time entailed pinpointing the causes of child poverty. Morrin et al. (2011) recalls of a persistent poverty and high levels of social inequality and even cites a 1998 report by the HM Treasury called “Persistent Poverty and Lifetime Inequality: The Evidence,” which pinpointed growing up in poverty as a fundamental factor that determined what adults experienced, particularly within the labour market and recommended that interventions should be provided in the early stages of development, or during childhood, to sever the cycles of intergenerational poverty. This provided a basis for child protection policy development that would serve to end child poverty. After the findings by the HM Treasury, more resources were allocated to child protection agenda, including family nursing, maternity care, and childcare. The idea was that children should be provided with an optimal start in life by improving family and health support, early education, and improved childcare (Melhuish, 2012). Between 1997 and 2010, child poverty was at the focal point of political discourse and policymaking. In 1997, the Labour government lacked any explicit policy target to eliminate child poverty in its manifesto. Then new Labour Government came up with explicit poverty measures rooted in its Welfare to Work policies, which placed emphasis on tow fundamental themes: reduction of dependency on welfare by ensures that benefit claimants were absorbed into the workforce through the ‘New Deal’ programme, and secondly, improving the living stands of people who lived on minimum wage. The ‘the New Deal’ programme came up as a medium to get people to work in 1997. Pertinent to the development of the Children Act 2004 was the New Deal for Lone Parents (NDLP) that was launched in 2004. It was targeted at single parents, who were found to be at high risk of unemployment (Department of Health, 2009). Because of the anticipated effects of family poverty on children’s development and performance at school, an attempt to increase absorption of parents into the labour force through the New Deal programme transformed into a key driver for preventing child poverty in the United Kingdom. Through the NDLP, the government urged single parents to seek employment and counseled on how to get into employment through Work Focused Interviews. The government also offered assistance with childcare costs. Providing employment to single or lone parents was considered a ‘lever’ for child poverty reduction (Department of Health, 2009). On the other hand, the Welfare to Work policy was targeted at reducing the social and financial challenges associated with joblessness. A clear policy initiative that the government considered critical in 1998 was an introducing a minimum wage. Besides being focused on child poverty, it also raised the level of income for individuals who earned low pay (Morrin et al., 2011). A related policy initiative called Working Families Tax Credit was passed in 1999 aimed at child poverty to offer families greater levels of care, including assisting with childcare costs. It was at this stage that pledges to enact the Child Poverty Act emerged. In the same year, Labour Government led by Prime Minister Tony Blair proclaimed his pledge to stamp out child poverty by 2020 (Morrin et al., 2011). The Relationship Between those Aspects The key aspects of significance include single parenthood, unemployment, and poverty. Collectively, the three are connected to child poverty and low education attainment of children. Studies have established a link between single-parent families and child poverty. A study by Jiumpanyarach (2011) showed children who originate from single-parent households tend to undergo less healthy lives and greater levels of poverty compared to children from both parents. The study also established that children who grow up with lone parent are at higher risks of dropping out of school (Jiumpanyarach, 2011). Single-family structures are also associated with poverty or low-income levels. The two also lead to children’s poor academic performance (Graham, 2014). As (Jiumpanyarach, 2011) indicated, low income is a critical factor for the differences in children’s performance at school. On the other hand, children from mother-only families tend to be poor due to women’s lower earning capacity. The situation, therefore, becomes aggravated when there is insufficient public assistance or in situations where there are no childcare subsidies (Badger, 2014; Mortimer et al., 2014). A clear reason for this is that the largest expenditure of lone parents is child care. Averagely, a poor mother in the UK would spend some 32% of her weekly income on caring for her child. This has prompted more than 65% of lone parents to turn to informal arrangements, like help from extended families to help in childcare (Badger, 2014). Elsewhere in the United States, more than one-third of single mother households have been found to live below the poverty line (Badger, 2014; Chetty et al., 2014). Unemployment is also linked to poverty. A recent study by the Social Mobility Commission (2016) in the UK showed that insecure jobs and low income placed significant stress on family life, leading to situations where children from low-income families miss out on opportunities for improved educational attainment at school (Social Mobility Commission, 2016). Another study by Main and Bradshaw (2014) provided evidence suggesting that low education attainment levels of children be linked to poverty and unemployment of their parents. At the same time, children who come from single-parent families complete fewer years in school (McLanahan, n.d.; Douglas-Hall & Chau, 2007). What Happened Just Before In the 1980s and early 1990s just before the Children Act 2004 was enacted, a clear shift was a discernible change in public policy discourse from poverty as a social and economic plight that originates as a result of old age, to poverty as an issue affecting low-income families. The key problem at this stage comprised shifts in labour market dynamics, an increase in the rate of single parent families, as well as shifts to welfare structures. The focus shifted to understanding children’s position in households where parents had no jobs and the experiences of single parent families (Morrin et al., 2011). This triggered much focus on policy initiatives on child poverty to target finding the parents employments. The media also started focusing on child poverty. Indeed, an analysis of printed media publications before 1999 shows comparatively, minimal coverage of child poverty (See figure 1). Figure 1. Frequency of child poverty in media publications in UK (Morrin et al., 2011). The peaks in media publications that corresponded to public debate regarding child poverty that arose from political discourse peaked in1999 and 2003 just before the Children Act 2004 was enacted, as well as between 2007 and 2008 following the effects of the Act (Joyce, 2007). The long-term trends in child poverty in the UK since 1961 show high rates of relative income poverty levels of children. The relative poverty of children was stable between 1960 and 1970, which was the lowest for a long time. Later in the 1980s, it rose to a peak of 29 percent in 1992, from 13 percent in 1979 (See figure 2) (Joyce, 2007). Figure 2. Relative poverty rates in UK (Joyce, 2007). The sharp rise in comparative child poverty in the 1980s happened on a scale that was far intense. However, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was a remarkable decline in child poverty. An additional dramatic shift that occurred in the 1980s was a swift rise in relative poverty in the 1980s in addition to a general increase in inequality right across the domain of income distribution (Joyce, 2007). Impacts of Children Act 2004 The Children Act 2004 was instrumental in resolving the challenges that central and local government experienced in their drive to end child poverty. As Graham (2014) observes, the policy developments that followed the Children Act 2004 centred on the challenges that the local authorities and the central government had to endure, and consequently provided an integrated approach toward a variety of public services that would lead to improved outcomes for children’s development and assist in eradicating child poverty. Toward this end, the Government created the Child Poverty Unit in 2007, which would integrate government agencies as well as offers a single point of contact to address child poverty matters. In 2008, the government created another programme called the “Ending Child Poverty: Making it Happen” to provide the main building blocks that could be relied on to resolve (Main & Bradshaw, 2014). The Act also reduced health inequalities. It allowed the Department of Health to target schooling for intervention on issues of health and children’s changing behaviour, particular those from low-income families. The strategy was supported by government initiatives that provided funding to schools to extend health services to children from low-income families, and to integrate health care for families to eliminate poverty and child poverty (Main & Bradshaw, 2014). The Act also minimised child poverty. It embodied the government’s pledge to eliminate child poverty. Indeed, Graham (2014) explains that the Act ensured delivery against the poverty eradication targets. Indeed, it specified four taxing country-wide targets that had to be met by 2020. Collectively, the targets provided a clear visualization and description of what ending child poverty would imply. The targets were anchored in the fraction of children who lived in relative low income and absolute low income. Conclusion As established, the Children Act 2004 was conceived from the conception that the rising rate of single-parenthood, unemployment, and poverty are linked to child poverty and children’s low educational attainment. The Act requires the local authorities to protect and advance children’s welfare. Under the act, the local authorities are tasked with assessing children’s needs and promoting the safe and secure upbringing of children within their households. Indeed, studies have shown that single-parenthood and unemployment are linked to child poverty. High poverty rates, unemployment, and single parenthood prevailed in UK’s social and economic climate at the time the Children Act 2004 was conceived and enacted. Between 1997 and 2010, child poverty was at the focal point of political discourse and policymaking. In 1997, the Labour government lacked any explicit policy target to eliminate child poverty in its manifesto. The Act has been instrumental in resolving the challenges that central and local government experienced in their drive to end child poverty. The Act also helps reduce health inequalities and minimised child poverty by providing lone parents with employment opportunities. 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(n.d.).,The consequences of single parenthood for subsequent generations. Semantic Scholar. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ec9e/36f87c6c2cd23e5a64a28040091dc681b914.pdf Melhuish, E. (2012). The impact of early childhood education and care on improved wellbeing. Retrieved from http://www.britac.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Edward%20Melhuish%20-%20The%20Impact%20of%20Early%20Childhood%20Education%20and%20Care%20on%20Improved%20Wellbeing.pdf Morrin, M, Johnson, S., Heron, L. & Roberts, E. (2011). Conceptual impact of ESRC research: case study of UK child poverty policy. Final Report to Economic and Social Research Council Mortimer, J., Zhang, F., Hussemann, J. & Wu, C. (2014). Parental economic hardship and children's achievement orientations. Longit Life Course Stud, 5(2), 105–128. Social Mobility Commission. (2016). Socio-economic influences on children’s life chances. 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