This report has been developed by the A Different Take London panel. We are a group of children, young people and parents with experience of living on a low income, and people from Child Poverty Action Group and the University of Leeds. Between January–June 2019 we have been discussing our own experiences and priorities and talking to the people in our communities, to develop our own agenda around the most important issues affecting the lives of people in poverty and what we think should be done about them.
Tower Hamlets has the highest rate of child poverty in the UK: 57 per cent, after housing costs are taken into account. In 2017, Tower Hamlets became one of the first boroughs in London to become a universal credit ‘full service’ area. The London Borough of Tower Hamlets commissioned CPAG to research the experiences of families with children in receipt of universal credit.
Secure Futures for Children and Families will ask the question: What does a social security system that provides a secure future for children and families look like? This launch paper sets out where the social security system is now and what needs to change.
Living Hand to Mouth, by Rebecca O’Connell, Abigail Knight and Julia Brannen, brings the latest research on food poverty together with the voices of children and young people experiencing food poverty first hand.
Financial support to low income families to pay for childcare through working tax credits is being replaced by the childcare element of universal credit. This Early Warning System report examines the impact of this change on parents and childcare providers.
In the second in this series, our report looks at problems with understanding decisions, challenging errors and protecting the rights of people claiming universal credit (UC). It outlines some of the problems claimants experience when they try to challenge a decision about their UC award. These problems have been identified by analysing case studies received via CPAG’s Early Warning System (EWS).
Universal credit: what needs to change to reduce child poverty and make it fit for families? calls for design and funding changes to improve claimants’ experience of universal credit and to reduce child poverty.
This report presents the findings of a small-scale, local study of the costs of education in secondary schools in Oxford, from the viewpoint of parents. The research was conducted by the Oxford and District Action on Child Poverty group, whose goals were: to assess the costs of education for children in secondary schools in Oxford; to find out how families perceived these costs and their impact, and if and how they managed to cover them; and to learn what schools had done to respond to the impact of these costs on families and the outcomes of their responses. The focus was on pupils in year 7 in secondary school.
This report presents case studies and analysis from CPAG’s Early Warning System to highlight problems with the information provided to people claiming universal credit.