Britain remains ‘very unequal’
The Government has made some “genuine progress” in reducing poverty and social exclusion, yet Britain remains “a very unequal society” according to a report launched today.
While the Government is on track to hit its target of reducing the number of children living in relative poverty by a quarter by 2004/05, poverty among working-age adults without children – an area not focused on by the Government – has reached record levels.
In launching the Child Trust Fund on Tuesday, a flagship plank of the Government strategy for tackling child poverty, the Chancellor Gordon Brown repeated his desire to give every child the best start in life.
“The Child Trust Fund will ensure that every child in our country will have savings and assets, and ensure that no child is left out and all children in Britain have a stake in the wealth of the nation,” he said.
But today’s report by researchers at the London School of Economics shows just how much work he and his colleagues have to do reduce social exclusion in all areas of society.
The Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, based at LSE, warned that for some groups, such as asylum seekers, the Government’s policies have actively increased social exclusion, particularly in relation to employment, income and housing.
Researchers detailed the Government’s progress in tackling inequalities across a range of policy.
In education, they found that strong social class differences in attainment remained and may have worsened in terms of university access.
In health, they report that the formula for allocating NHS resources between areas had become better for disadvantaged communities, but overall there was little evidence of narrowing gaps between social groups.
And on employment, they warn that the New Deal may have “lost steam”, despite the record levels of employment.
Professor John Hills, director of CASE and co-editor of the study, said the Government’s progress on tackling poverty was “no mean achievement”, but it did not follow that Britain had yet become “a more equal society”.
“In virtually all of the areas discussed there is still a very long way to go to reach an unambiguous picture of success. Sustained and imaginative effort will be needed to make further progress and to reach groups not touched by policy so far,” he said.
The study, ‘A more equal society?’, was published by the Policy Press and its contributing research was supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Economic and Social Research Council.
