Commenting on David Cameron’s Big Society re-launch today, Michael Trend, Executive Director of the Relationships Foundation, said:
“Once again, it is encouraging to see the Prime Minister’s heartfelt belief in the power of strong families to deliver social change.
“But once again, he is missing the opportunity to set out concrete policy proposals for achieving the objective. As our new Pressure Gauge has shown today, Britain is nearly the least family friendly country in Europe, and we need a strategy to dig us out of that hole.
“Broken families birth a Big State: sideline family policy and you court systemic failure. We have heard what the Government believes: now we need to hear what it will do.”
Immediate priorities should be to establish a family policy unit in the cabinet office, family proofing policy, and triple testing all Government activity for economic, environmental, and social impact. Medium term should focus on strengthening relationship skills, not least through Couple Relationships Education. Longer term priorities are reducing the pressures families face, not least high mortgages and rents, high debt, and anti-social working hours.
For further information, please contact John Ashcroft, Research Director, on
01223 909 408, or j.ashcroft@relationshipsfoundation-org.stackstaging.com
Notes to Editors
Policy Proposals
• As we have shown in our Penumbra report, stable families are at the heart of success in health, education, crime and justice, and the economy. We have called for a joined up strategy to be pushed from the centre.
• Our report calling for the so-called Triple Test (Economic, Environmental and Social) is here.
• Current Impact Assessments cover Competition, Enviromental, Greenhouse Gases, Health, Human Rights, Justice, Rurality, Small Firms, Equalities, and Sustainable Development. Why not Family Proofing Policy? Our report Progressive Families, Progressive Britain: Why Britain Needs Family Proofing of Policy sets out the case.
• Early Intervention is key in a society which is losing the ability to build long term relationships. We set out the evidence and the policy recommendations for couple relationships education – a low level, pre-crisis intervention – in Built to Last.
• Our Pressure Gauge sets out the wider pressure on families
• Relationships Foundation has today published its Pressure Gauge, comparing the pressures on families across Europe. It shows there is much to do, and highlights where the Government should focus its activity.
o British families are the third most pressured in Europe, with only those in Romania and Bulgaria being worse off. This is despite the fact that in 2009 the UK’s GDP per capita was $35,165 (World Bank figures). Romania’s was $7,500, Bulgaria’s $6,423.
o The Pressure Gauge can be found here.
• The greatest pressures in the UK are financial, with household debt (excluding mortgages), childcare costs and living costs pushing us to the top of the table.
o 14 % of UK and German households with dependent children experience ‘highly critical’ debt burdens (more than 100% of monthly income) compared to 1% of Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian households.
o For UK families childcare costs represent 23.5% of family income, twice the percentage for French families, three times that for German families and four times the percentage for families in Sweden.
o 15.4% of Britons live in households that experience housing cost overburden (more than 40% of disposable income on rent/mortgage). By contrast, only 1.8% of the French population experience housing cost overburden.
o Britons work some of the longest average weekly hours in Europe (43). The Scandinavians work some of the fewest hours: Norway (39.2), Denmark (40.2), Finland (40.3) and Sweden (40.9). 25% of men in the UK work over 50 hours a week compared to 8% of Norwegian men.
o The Dutch work the most unsocial hours with about a fifth of the Dutch workforce (20.9%) usually working in the evening and/or at night. However, the UK comes third with 17.7%. Norway is among the least pressured at 10.2%.
Government Failure
• The Coalition is widely agreed to have failed to take up family policy seriously.
o In a Centre for Social Justice report card on 10th May 2011, they were awarded just 2 out of 10.
o The Childhood and Families Taskforce, once billed as the driving force of family policy, is invisible and rarely, if at all, meets.
o One of the specific pledges that was common to both the Conservative and Lib Dem manifestos and which was pledged anew in the coalition document – the extension of flexible working – has been significantly delayed.
• In his Spring Forum speech of 2008, David Cameron set out his ‘long-term vision of making Britain the most family-friendly country in the world’.
• For the General Election, the Conservatives said: ‘in this manifesto we set ourselves an ambitious goal: to make Britain the most family-friendly country in Europe’ (p. viii). It went on to say ‘‘We will help families with all the pressures they face: the lack of time, money worries, the impact of work, concerns about schools and crime, preventing unhealthy influences, poor housing.’ (p. 41). The Manifesto even included a quotation from one ‘Judy Fallon’, who had been persuaded by Cameron at a Cameron Direct event because of this pledge: ‘one thing he said that really took hold with me was that he wanted Britain to be one of the most family-friendly countries…how brilliant would it be if we could achieve that?’ (p. 41)
• This survived into the Coalition Agreement: ‘The Government believes that strong and stable families of all kinds are the bedrock of a strong and stable society. That is why we need to make our society more family friendly’ In an appeal to his grassroots members after the coalition agreement was signed, David Cameron wrote in the Daily Mail ‘making Britain more family-friendly is still a crucial objective of this coalition government’ (21 May 2010).
• As recently as May 4th 2011 Sarah Teather, the (Liberal Democrat) junior minister with responsibility for family policy, told the House of Commons: “It is vital that we support families as much as we can, and this Government believes that we should do much better. It is our ambition to make this country the most family-friendly in the world.” (Hansard, 4 May 2011: Column 279WH)
• The latest speech is here: www.number10.gov.uk/news/speeches-and-transcripts/2011/05/speech-on-the-big-society-64052