How would you tackle child poverty and improve outcomes?

Enforce a proper CMS system.. yearly bank statements automatically for these self employed men. Its 2025! You'd think we was still in the 90s.

Over half a million people have had to leave the workforce or drastically reduce hours in recent years due to long covid. That’s not going to help family finances.

Many people who work are also on UC, so either firms pay properly or stop calling it a personal benefit rather than a business one.

Surestart centres and help when it’s needed. Early intervention helps.

Childcare costs are one of the most expensive in the world here.

Invest in education, help reduce prime reason for absence (illness) by actually trying to reduce illness, not just increasing attendance when ill. The cost of presenteeism in this country is sky high - false economy which reduces productivity and increases overall long term illness and need for stronger interventions down the line

Someone about mentioned ‘crappy parents’. How refreshing to hear such a frank expression!

Something which would help disadvantaged children and society as a whole would be to dump our squeamishness about judgement. I’ve always worked in education and I’ve certainly seen some crappy parenting. But you’re not allowed to make even the slightest criticism. I’ve seen colleagues bend over backwards like Olympic gymnasts to defend what is quite clearly feckless, selfish, irresponsible and anti-social behaviour with endless excuses because they’ve been brainwashed into a non-judgemental mindset. It’s not helping children!

Might not be a terrible idea in some cases 🤔

@Goldenbear I’m with you on education post 18. We know growth depends on having an engaged and educated workforce but pretending all degrees are getting us to this goal is ludicrous. We import labour (and grads) and need to redirect labour to where we need it if we can. Not easy but more degrees in subjects that don’t get anyone anywhere isn’t the answer.

So do parents in relationships on UC. In fact UC will pay for them to be a SAHM (or dad) long after single parents are forced back to work. It is a huge source of inequality with UC. I became a single mum when my youngest was 2 and had to keep on working to pay my mortgage, no year off for me until he was 3. Plenty of us take the same maternity leave as married/partnered mums (or less) because that is all we can manage financially.

Contraception and vasectomies perhaps

I don't think graduates shouldn't work but I actually do think it benefits society to have as many people as possible to.pursue post 18 education, whether that be a trade or an RS degree as it is just better to have people use their brain and learn things. It helps with all sorts of things including self confidence and mental health, resilience maybe?

Cheaper child care and more availability of places, helps all parents into work and to stay in work.

Invest in NHS so shorter waiting lists, quicker treatment for health conditions so parents are more able to work/get back to work

Would you just let the kids die that came into those households or raise them in care?

I would divert some funding away from benefits and into schools and support services. Breakfast clubs, homework or sports clubs after school to support children with their learning. Some children get to do lots of extracurriculars and parents help with their homework, some don't - so even the playing field to support, motivate, engage. The children that don't get to do it isn't always due to parents not being interested, its money and time, people working all hours to make ends meet.

And the one many others have mentioned - make absent parents pay for their children. My Mum used to joke when we were young that he was 'paying for another family' - for a bit I thought that meant he actually had another family, but they actually meant through tax. Which they found hard to take - my Dad was kicked out of home at 16 by alcoholic parents, and worked his way up through slog and integrity, so he felt others should be able to do the same. It can be quite demoralising I think for people to work their way up with no help and then have so much taken from them, and that feeling is becoming more widespread I think.

@Goldenbear In what world are you living? So, as a state, we have all this student loan debt (£ billions) and then grads don’t need to work? They just swan around in their intellectual ivory towers for the good of us all? No, I don’t think so. Of course they should work and understand how to achieve this for society.

We are not anti intellectual as a country. We have Oxbridge and other world leading universities. We value a top education. I’m talking about the bottom 20% (ish!) that should not go to uni and some unis are far from intellectual hothouse institutions. We are surely not comparing their grads with Oxbridge? We definitely need to enable dc to study trades more easily. We need them, we don’t need intellectual work shy grads costing us even more money. It’s pay back time.

I’ve stood behind people at the dentist, having forked out over a month’s pay for a necessary (not a cosmetic), procedure and ground a bit more tooth enamel away when they got all their treatment free. No - I’m not advocating people on benefits being denied dental care - of course not. But it is galling. I don’t know what the answer is!

My point is the same as yours really - that any government needs to realise that hard-working people who have to pay for everything themselves AND fund things for others (sometimes things they don’t have) can’t be pushed infinitely.

You make it sound like couples sit down and plan their divorce ahead. I was in my marriage for the long haul until it all came crashing down with no warning.

That's depressing.

On a sidenote, I'm sure there are vested interests in the maintenance of poverty. Apart from the economic power to keep people "on their toes". It creates a lot of professional jobs eg. the academic study and reporting on, the numerous initiatives trying to help mitigate against the fallout of it plus the legal profession would be smaller if poverty were eradicated?

A university education is not for the sole purpose of employability, encouraging anti-intellectualism, seeing everything as a consumable, even 'education', has not done us any favours.
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Single parents already get 3 years off.
There's no need to look for a job until you youngest child is three now is there?

I think people have just had enough haven't they. They are just sick of funding everything for everyone else whilst barely being able to get by themselves. I've worked for forty years through some really difficult times ( bereavement, young kids and barely taking any mat leave etc ) because I felt I just had to keep going as it was the right thing to do. But the area I work in and the sense of entitlement that I see everyday from people just taking all the time and the ridiculous waste that this government and previous ones seems to think is ok has just made me feel that enough is enough.

I know all that, see above, the data was to give people in an insight into the vast differences to 40 years ago. Actually, the most shocking figure of 1% of the population owning 70% of UK wealth is the reason that we have wealth inequality akin to the Victorian era. If people could just be a little less greedy then perhaps we could have less poverty - just a thought.

@Goldenbear You cannot fail to notice the government wants more apprenticeships in trades. We don’t necessarily need graduates. Some degrees are not leading to graduate jobs and around 20% of graduates could not get graduate work since Covid.

There is now a much bigger issue where graduate vacancies are down 33%. Where is that going to lead - except to more disillusionment? At the same time many building trades are difficult to source. We have a mismatch. Not that unemployed grads will get on trades courses, they are severely underfunded and scarce. The 37% at university take the lions share of the FE/HE money - but where has that got us? Yes we need an educated workforce but also a skilled one. Too many poor value degrees lead to neither.

Also educate parents how to be good parents. Educational outcomes are largely due to parenting I am afraid, school is only part of the picture. If the parent is not going to make time to read and talk to their child from an early age you are on a trajectory to nowhere. They will enter school year behind already and likely will never catch up. You cannot have a system that keeps rewarding shitty parents, it is already that way. Teachers are already having to make time constantly in primary for the parents who refuse to read with their kids and do nothing at home, at the cost of other children. SEND needs intervention, yes, but rewarding shitty parenting is not a good idea. I think better to channel funds away from crappy parents and apply them to clubs and food for the kids directly.

So when someone CHOOSES to have a child whose responsibility is it to bring up that child?

Honestly, change the law and make all fathers pay up and automatic deductions from their wages and no benefits from them whatsoever if they do not pay.

Kudos do you (I mean this sincerely and not patronisingly)