The Child Poverty Strategy for Wales: a missed opportunity?

In January 2024, the Welsh government published its much-anticipated new Child Poverty Strategy for Wales. The strategy aims to ‘set the objectives for contributing towards the eradication of child poverty and the eradication of the worst effects of being in poverty in Wales for the next decade or more.’1 But does the new strategy do enough for children in Wales? What does the strategy include? And crucially, what is left out?

The Child Poverty Strategy for Wales has a clear focus on eradicating child poverty, which is welcome. But many working in this space, including CPAG, were deeply disappointed with aspects of the strategy - see below - Joint response to the Welsh Government’s Child Poverty Strategy for Wales. The strategy has some obvious omissions and misses an opportunity to drive forward change. For example, there is no action plan for policies and approaches, and there are no targets or other measurable elements to help ensure the work is effective in reducing child poverty.

That said, it contains much that we would support. It is good news that we now have a published strategy that highlights some of the issues affecting too many young people in our communities. Early insights from our project currently running with schools across four Welsh local authority areas, Cost of the School Day: Every voice heard, suggest the strategy is focusing on the right areas such as reducing costs and challenging poverty stigma. These are factors that parents, carers and young people tell us are challenging for them.

The consultation process that created the strategy meant people in Wales have been thinking and talking about child poverty. Decision makers and campaigners alike have been reflecting on how poverty affects children and their families, considering what can or should be done and by whom. This is all positive.

However, when compared to work happening elsewhere, notably in Scotland, the strategy does fall short.

What’s in the strategy?

The new Child Poverty Strategy for Wales is based around five objectives. Broadly speaking, the objectives are:

1. Reduce costs and maximise family incomes.
2. Create pathways out of poverty for young people and their families.
3. Support the wellbeing of those living in poverty.
4. Ensure those impacted by poverty are treated with dignity, and challenge poverty stigma.
5. Ensure effective cross‐government working and strong collaboration regionally.

Each objective is assigned a priority that will hopefully deliver the change needed to reach the objective. The priorities are:

• Priority 1: entitlement (putting money in people’s pockets).
• Priority 2: creating a Fair Work nation (leaving no one behind).
• Priority 3: building communities (accessible, joined up services to meet community needs).
• Priority 4: inclusion (kind, compassionate and non‐stigmatising services).
• Priority 5: enabling collaboration (at the regional and local level).

But devoid of a specific action plan for each priority, government instead is relying on a set of existing commitments made across wider Welsh government work. For example, objective one, to reduce costs and maximise family incomes, will rely on a wider commitment made to accelerate work between the school inspectorate Estyn, the Welsh government and other stakeholders (including local authorities and the education consortia) to ensure education is cost‐neutral for young people.

To CPAG and others supporting young people and families living in poverty, the objectives make sense. They broadly focus on areas we know are a challenge to low‐income households. Through Cost of the School Day: Every voice heard, we listen to the experiences of young people, their parents/carers and teachers. Feedback from parents and carers so far suggests that many are worrying about mounting school costs.

The strategy’s objective to reduce costs, combined with a specific commitment to ensure cost‐neutral education, is addressing an area we know is increasingly difficult for low‐income families.

It is worth noting that other commitments to the strategy’s priorities map across more than one objective. Commitments include work to focus on delivering a compassionate benefits system (the Welsh Benefits Charter) and removing barriers to employment by providing affordable, quality childcare that makes going to work pay for parents and carers. Through our research with families, we continue to see challenges for parents around juggling work and childcare.

The strategy rightly highlights the importance of children’s rights and the need to reduce poverty stigma. At a recent focus group with primary‐aged learners, we heard directly from young people about the pressures they feel to have the right brand school bag, shoes and even snacks to avoid stigmatisation from others.

What’s missing?

The gaps in the strategy’s approach are considerable, and let children down.

Without measurable poverty reduction targets or indicators for stakeholders to aim for, how can progress be monitored? How do we know if policy decisions and actions are effective in reducing the stubborn levels of child poverty here in Wales if their outcomes cannot be measured? As highlighted in the joint statement by children’s organisations across Wales, ‘we will not be able to determine whether public money being spent in Wales is reaching those children, whose lives are being so severely affected’.2

The strategy places an emphasis on maximising family incomes which, given CPAG has long championed approaches that put money in families’ pockets, is welcome. But it falls short of looking at ways to increase household incomes. It is true that the Welsh government does not have all the tools needed to make significant changes to taxation and the social security system; those powers remain with the UK government. However, the strategy missed an opportunity to influence change. It could have added agency to how Whitehall and Cardiff Bay work together to make more devolved powers a near future possibility.

As a result, pressure is on the Welsh Benefits Charter to make headway in this incredibly critical area. The charter is an agreement between all local authorities and the Welsh government to make it as easy as possible for people to claim entitlements through a better connected system. The Charter will also look at the experiences of those accessing support and take‐up rates.

Looking ahead

CPAG remains involved in the process and dedicated to making sure progress is made on eradicating child poverty in Wales. We are members of the External Reference Group on the implementation of the Child Poverty Strategy for Wales, the role of which is to support the Welsh government in developing a much‐needed monitoring framework for the strategy and to support its wider implementation. This work is ongoing, but it does give some measure of confidence knowing a network of stakeholders and organisations are collaborating to ensure the strategy has an impact.

Frustratingly, we have an example of how devolved powers in relation to the social security system have a measurable impact on poverty levels. The strategy could have put in place the building blocks towards something akin to the Scottish child payment, which parents and carers in families receiving universal credit get for every child they look after under the age of sixteen. Importantly, receiving that payment (currently £26.70 a week) does not prevent parents and carers from receiving other family payments they are entitled to. The Scottish government’s assessment is that this could reduce relative child poverty by 5 percentage points.3 The Welsh strategy could have been a catalyst for thinking about a similar policy in Wales.

Interestingly, unlike the Welsh strategy, the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act does have legally binding targets. Those targets include having fewer than 5 per cent of children in absolute poverty, fewer than 5 per cent living in low income and material deprivation and fewer than 5 per cent living in persistent poverty by 2030.

Having those targets does appear to be effective in focusing work to mitigate child poverty. We can see from the Scottish context that when targets are included in a child poverty strategy, progress can be monitored. And if necessary, changes can be made to policy to increase the likelihood of hitting those targets. Sadly, with no targets in the Welsh strategy and a lack of bravery in calling for more powers, an opportunity to work effectively and efficiently in reducing child poverty has been missed.