I'd like to see some devolved spending so local councils can work on what matters to them. It's really funny since some TV moved up North how suddenly it's slowly getting recognised that the North of England is a vast and diverse landscape, with vast and diverse economic climates and needs.
My youngest is at school in the local primary. It's a poor area, high free school meals and 10 different ethnicities in just her class. Shes year 4 and her class of 30 has 4 new children this term. 2 non English speakers, just into the country. 1 a child who is taxi dropped to school so some form of additional family/ social/ emotional need and one who was moved from another school. I don't know how her teacher keeps his head. In her school the FSM money is used for various activities and in school clubs directed at those children. The thing is that actually causes social grouping as they are mixing significant amounts of traditional downtime with other FSM children. Likewise the non FSM children are left to mix so friendship groups form - reinforcing parental financial background. Rather than levelling the playing field it draws a clear division in it.
I'd love to see libraries back in all schools. It's not just about the books. For me the library was a quieter place to be in my own head during the school day. My childhood school librarian oversaw children doing their homework and spellings in breaks/ lunchtimes. Not as a punishment as something they'd been reminded they needed to do but for what ever reason didn't get done at home.
Austerity cuts in school funding, cuts in school support staff and drops in academic achievent particularly in the middle cohort of children all appear to have a similar timeline. Can't be a coincidence. Not everything can have a metric or be fully quantifiable but support staff are the ones who remember to congratulate a child on an achievement, give an ear when they know not everything is okay at home. Those few moments of someone giving a damn can change a child's life. Yet with such a high erosion of support sstaff in schools children's mental health issues are at a record high.
I'd like to see every Tory MP with children look at the schools their child has had the privilege to attend and compare it honestly with the schools in the poorest area of their constituency. Visit them and observe. If that school is not good enough for your children why is it good enough for societies?
The background of many of the parents at my local school is a sad tale. Many have had a really rough time. Abuse, jail time, evictions, sofa surfing, poverty. We have 4 foodbanks in our local area. There are lots of chips on lots of shoulders and massive emotional barriers to children being able to break their parent/ carers cycles of behaviours.
I think that the philosophy behind universal credit was a good one and when it was starting to be established Ian Duncan Smith appeared to work hard to really understand some of the barriers around why work didn't pay and how people did actually want to work. Then austerity measures ment the system and philosophy behind it wasn't what was designed. It isn't the system that's been pushed through. A few good stop gap measures are being put in place with being able to borrow against a claim and the new deal for those setting up tradding on their own, but money really needs to be invested in the system and to accept the hit that support of the system will be needed to change and turn around lives before savings can be made by people sustainably working and a new work ethic being created across the next generation.
An example of this is a local nursery has just gone bump effecting lots of minimum wage just about coping workers in our playground (some employed by the same nursery), plus a couple of the teachers/ support staff at our school. Why did it fail? It wasn't lack of children, or need. It was that people weren't able to pay on time, so wages couldn't be paid. Why couldn't people pay? An element of very poor money management and debters taking money from accounts before it could be used but also debts existing because of benefits not being paid and the rediculous five week month rules which are complex to understand with a degree level maths based qualification. For someone without even GCSE maths working for minimum wage working out how to balance the five week months against the four week ones is causing so much hardship.
I have broken the benefits cycle of being a carer and unemployable. I run my own business but my story if getting off benefits is the stuff of nightmares. Carers at DWP, who are lovely people doing their damndest in a hard situation, are 18months in arrears on paperwork. Give them some money to catch up. Its costing the country a fortune. It has a ripple effect on tax credits, paid based on income a year in arrears. It's been a headache and since thinking I was no longer entitled to carers its taken 3 years and I'd estimate 100 hours to get the various agencies paperwork sorted. Thats whilst trying to work and still be a carer, do the significant amount of paperwork needed to support a disabled child and fight for the needs of that child.
Making work pay at or around minimum wage means the safety net needs high elasticity not to close around claimants and hold them on the ground. Its not just an easily quantifiable numbers game either. Lots I know who aren't or barely work have significant mental health issues. If/ when they work they are happier, they are at the GP less, A and E less and need less crisis support from the mental health teams. But the current benefits back logs and irregular unpredictable methods of making payouts mean working is such a big gamble. People are scared to try in the first place, the poor benefits administration means it's even harder to give it a try. It's not that more money needs to be sent to the claimants, it's that it needs to be available when needed.
The press love to talk about who couldn't live on 25k etc But who, with no regular bank account, credit facilities or family support could live on random small amounts for 6 months then get a big payout then random amounts again? It's no wonder the money lenders grew so big so fast. Whilst it's great they've officially almost gone, where do people think these people in real hardship are getting money from now, que the rise on the men in black suits knocking on doors and kids being told to hide behind the sofa and pretend they're not home.