Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats

Breaking the Cycle of Deprivation Taking Account of the Recession - seconding the debate

In seconding the theme for this debate, I am going to focus on the question: What can we do across whole systems to help struggling families? No one in 21st century Britain should have life chances as bleak as those described by Cllr Patrick. But plenty do: the rising tide does not lift all boats. Between the 74 of us we have been on every doorstep in Oxfordshire earlier this year, and we have all seen this pattern of life.

Improving educational attainment, crucial though it is, is not the only place in which the cycle of deprivation handed on from family to family can be broken.

The earliest years are a time to reduce later health inequalities by ensuring that routine infant health checks are carried out so that disabilities and long-term health conditions are identified as early as possible. Tackling this is the remit of Surestart, about which we'll be talking later.

The primary school years are the years where foundations for learning are laid. Despite our best efforts, too many children are still leaving our primary schools with literacy and numeracy skills below those expected of an 11-year-old. Primary school truancy and exclusion rates are increasing. And schools in areas of high deprivation tend to have above average turnover of pupils and staff which is a further hindrance to learning and to home/school relations. It is well known that parental interest is the single most important predictor for success at school. But parents struggling to keep a family afloat and suspicious of institution and authority are not always ready to be involved. This is one of the hardest nuts to crack. Informal help provided via the new Parent Support Association seems to be well appreciated where it is offered, and it is a pity that attacks are now being made on it.

We know that as children from disadvantaged families move through their teenage years targeted efforts need to be made to keep them in full-time learning. Others will be talking about educational attainment, but the lowest common denominator must be to keep children and young people out of crime and above all out of custody. Young people in trouble with the justice system are more likely to be locked up in this country than they are in other European countries or in the US or Canada: 3,000 children and young people were imprisoned at any one time in 2008. Yet Young Offender Institutes in this country are shameful places with inadequate opportunities for education or training and young people are likely to leave with nothing in prospect but existence on unemployment benefits and/or a return to petty crime. This is another key break point for the cycle of deprivation. A 17 or 18 year old with a custodial sentence is not going to find it at all easy to enter employment, and this is not an insignificant group. Further, 6 out of every 10 boys with convicted fathers go on to have convictions themselves. In the state of Ohio, you may care to know, local authorities pay the bills for the imprisonment of young people which has proved a powerful incentive to devise effective community penalties. An important stretch target for the Partnership should be the need to reduce the use of custody for under 18s.

A characteristic of many families trapped in the cycle of deprivation is dependence on welfare benefits, often because of permanent disability or chronic ill health or simply old age. It is well known that the system is so complex that many potential claimants give up and fail to claim the benefits to which they are entitled. It is odd that we have not got further in solving this between us.

An additional reason for parents to be at home dependent on benefits is the high cost of childcare. Subsidised childcare of some sort is now offered by many employers, but is still way beyond the reach of many of the lowest paid workers. This is something that members of the Partnership could give thought to.

A crucial requirement of disadvantaged families is decent housing. A lack of affordable social housing close to jobs and transport concentrates poor families in pockets of multi deprivation, and prevents the younger generation from setting up on their own. Private rented accommodation is often of a poor standard, leading to further inequalities.

Key to success in breaking the cycle of deprivation will be our partnerships with the voluntary sector. Local voluntary organisations and church and faith groups can often do more than statutory agencies. This is where important work involving communities can best be done. Yet this funding is often cut in hard times. We need to aim to protect funding to small voluntary groups

The barriers to the partnership's success in breaking this cycle are likely to be the predictable ones of lack of real commitment on the part of the members of the partnership; combined with the pursuit of quick wins and lack of a long-term focus on problems that will take a generation to solve, and insufficiently stretching targets.

The consequences of failure will be: increased health inequalities; reduced educational attainment a low skill base in the local workforce; an increase in youth offending; increased drug and alcohol misuse and rising homelessness.

This Council is in its first year. If we do not want these failures to be our legacy to Oxfordshire in 2013 we need to start work now.