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Institute for the Study of Civil Society
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Family

As a precursor to the election, this briefing sets out figures on today's families, and the Labour government's performance over the past decade. It also explains what the Conservatives are proposing.

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The Position Today

England and Wales 2008, unless otherwise stated
  • Population, UK [1]
    • Under 25 - 30.9% (18, 969 400)
    • 25 - 64 - 52.9% (32, 483 900)
    • Over 65 - 16.2% (9, 299 900)

  • Fertility
    Total Fertility Rate [2] - 1.97 children per woman

  • Live births [3] -708,711
    • Live births to non-UK born women [4] -170,834 (24.1% of births)
    • Live births to women without English as a first language [5] -159 776 (22.5% of births)

  • Average age of first birth - 27.6

  • Dependent children by residence type, UK [6]
    • Married couple - 63.9% (8.320 000)
    • Cohabiting couple - 12.7% (1, 660 000)
    • Single parent -23.4% (3, 050, 000)

  • Total percentage of births outside marriage [7]- 45%

  • Marriage
    No. of marriages [8] - 232, 990
    % of those marrying for the first time [9] - 63%

  • Average age of first marriage [10]
    • Women - 29.9
    • Men -32.1
    % of marriages that are civil (non-religious) [11] - 67%

  • Divorce In 2008, at its lowest rate since 1975 [12] - 121, 779 divorces
    Average age at divorce [13]
    • Males - 43.9
    • Females - 41.4
    Median length of marriage, 2005 [14] - 11.6 years

  • Time spent caring for own children per day, UK 2005 [15]
    • Fathers - 15 minutes
    • Mothers - 32 minutes

  • Cost of raising a child from 0-21, UK 2009 [16] - £194,000

  • Average UK household size, UK [17] - 2.4 people

  • Median gross household income, UK [18] - £494
Other Briefings
The Party Positions

Policy Area Labour Conservative Liberal Democrats
Parental Responsibility
  • Fathers
 -Introduced tougher measures to ensure non-resident parents pay child maintenance, including the power to seize property and freeze bank accounts. Only 53% of non-resident parents contacted by the CSA in 2009 were paying the full amount of maintenance while the proportion of non-resident parents paying no maintenance is at 27%. These are improved figures on recent years.[19]
-Greater support and advice for fathers at birth: 600,000 copies of a 'Dad's Guide' have been distributed.		 'Proactive engagement' strategies for fathers:[20]
-Meaningful inclusion of fathers by health visitors in maternal and child health care, with the assumption both parents should attend meetings.
-At Children's Centres through sessions on tax and benefits, English language classes and sports activities.		 -Aim to allocate parental responsibility equally according to each family's convenience. (See childcare and parental leave arrangements.)
-Child Support Agency would be disbanded and moved to the Inland Revenue, which already administers Child Tax Credit. It would have a quick appeal system for people in hardship.
  • Grandparents
 -Committed to expand the legal rights of grandparents to act as legal guardians for, and gain access to, children in the event of family breakdown, without court permission. -Kinship carers - the Conservatives had initially suggested that the right of grandparents to retain access to their grandchildren be recognised in law.
Marriage and separation
-Legislated for civil partnerships. These will now be able to be carried out in places of worship.
-Legislated against forced marriage
-Promotion of mediation services and parenting support for couples separating; current consultation about whether mediation assessment sessions should be compulsory and pilots of 'Parenting Together Apart' for separating parents.
-Labour's working tax credit has been charged as undermining marriage as couples can only make one claim between two people.		 -Commitment to reward marriage and civil partnership in the tax system. The proposals will be spelt out before the election; it is likely the breaks will initially apply to families with young children and will take the form of a Transferable Personal Tax Allowance (TPA) on the income of one partner. -They view funds promoting stability for poorer children as better invested in the education system than by marriage tax breaks or tax and benefit gains.
-Encourage all divorcing parents to attend at least one mediation session before separating to minimise the number of hostile separations.
Childcare
  • Parents' Entitlements
 -Changes to paternity and maternity leave regulations: the introduction of two weeks paid paternity; an increase in Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) to £123.06 (£55.70 in 1997) and in paid maternity leave entitlement to 39 weeks, from 18 weeks in 1997.
-From 2011, fathers will have the right to use the second six months of the leave entitlement (3 months of which paid).
-The number of non-working households fell by 20% in the decade following 1998.[21] The Child tax credit and Working tax credit were created in 2003 from the Working Families tax credit. Child tax credits are direct payments to mid and low income households with children and working tax credit tops up the incomes of low-paid workers. The tax credits have been praised for encouraging individuals to return to work.
-The Childcare tax credit element of the Working Tax credit allows eligible parents to claim back up to 80% of their childcare costs up to a weekly maximum.
-Parents of under-17s, disabled children and carers of adults have the right to request flexible working hours after 26 weeks in a firm.
- £73 million put towards Free Childcare for Training and Learning for Work up to a weekly maximum for low income households.
-Every time a full-time vacancy is advertised at a job centre, the employer will be asked if the position can be offered as a part-time post or job share.
-Employers of over 250 workers will have to disclose differences between men and women's pay.		 -Parental leave: parents would be able to split the 52 weeks leave equally, a right to be extended to same sex parents.
-Extend the right to request flexible working to all parents with a child under 18, this would include same sex couples.		 -Single parents would be entitled to Statutory Parental Pay (SPP) payments even if they returned to work, to assist with childcare costs.
-19 months of fully flexible leave to be shared between parents. (No parent could take more than 12 months).
-All parents on leave would receive SPP at current SMP levels and a right to return to their old job.
  • Provision
 -Labour introduced the first guaranteed nursery places.
-There is now an entitlement to 12.5 hours a week of free childcare for 3 and 4 year olds. This will increase this to 15 hours by 2011.
-Free childcare places for the 15% most deprived two year olds of between 10-15 hours a week - 250,000 places by 2015/16.
-Registered childcare places are up by around 644,000 - from one in eight children, to one in four.
-Investment in training and recruiting a childcare workforce: the workforce grew by 21% from 1998 to 275 000 by 2001.[22]		 -They support the provision of free nursery care to pre-school children.
-They would recognise more diversity of provision by inviting voluntary and independent organisations to run children's centres.		 -A childcare package for parents of children over 18 months. This includes an entitlement to 20 hrs/wk free care for children from 18 months to school age, regardless of the work or income of the parents, and free parenting classes.
-Childcare could be given by any registered provider.
-Childcare should be free at the point of use.
-Ensuring all childcare workers are qualified to a minimum of NVQ Level 3.
-The role of Children's Centres should be expanded to include outreach to the most hard to reach families, including transport in rural areas.
Early Years
-£25 billion was invested in early years education between 1997-2009.[23]
-3,500 Sure Start children's centres have opened (one in every UK community).
-Child Trust Funds are now created for each child at birth with an initial government deposit at birth and another age 7. More money for those in poorer families.
-Extended schools offer services, such as childcare, study support and sport at their facilities outside school hours. 91% of schools offer childcare and activities after school and two thirds before.[24]		 -Refocus Sure Start as a service only for the neediest families, rather than a universal service.
-Sure Start centres to become independent institutions which, like academies, would operate outside local authority control and under central government.
-4,200 new Sure Start health visitors would be employed and a guaranteed programme of home visits introduced.
-More transparent spending to make programmes more accountable - money would then be directed to programmes which had worked best, such as outreach schemes and family nurse partnerships.
-A new Early Years Support Team within the DCSF funded by a dedicated Early Years budget to bring together the current multiple streams of funding and provision.
 -A priority to increase spending on early years' education for the most deprived children - funding would be allocated by child rather than area.
-Recruit and train thousands more health visitors and midwives and offer a comprehensive health visitor service.
Expenditure
-Stop tax and national insurance contribution exemptions for childcare vouchers provided by an employer introduced in 2005- annual savings of £500million. -Cut working tax credit entitlement for families earning over £50,000.
-Scrap Child Trust Funds for all but the poorest third of families (those earning under £16,040) and those with disabled children.
-Freeze council tax for two years.		 -Get rid of Child Trust Funds and divert the money saved to cut primary school class sizes.
-Stop child tax credits for the top 20% of current claimants.
-Half the size of the Children Schools and Families Whitehall department.
Child Protection
-Since 2002, a Criminal Records Bureau check is required for all those working with children or vulnerable people. A new Vetting and Barring scheme requires adults who work with these groups to register centrally; the BBC estimates that 11.3million will be expected to do so.[25]
-Local authority employment of children's social workers grew by 15% between 1997-2006.[26]
-The 1999 Teenage Pregnancy Strategy has focused on better sex education for young people and wider distribution of contraceptives; £26.8 million was allocated this year.[27] Teenage pregnancy has fluctuated in the years since but remains largely stable; conceptions to girls under 16 have fallen minimally, it stood at 7,577 in 2008.[28]
-Compulsory Personal, Social and Health Education in primary and secondary schools from September 2011. Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) will be integral to this, addressing the benefits of stable relationships; the challenges of parenthood and the pressures of sex. Parents will have the right to withdraw their children from the SRE component to age 15.
-Following high profile child deaths, changes to social care will include the creation of a College of Social Work for the profession; a licensing system which includes a year on probation and a career structure in which career development is realised on frontline services rather than through management roles. £109m will be invested in the workforce over the coming two years.[29]
-Measures against the sexualisation of children: Papadopoulos Home Office review; Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) scheme through education, family intervention programmes and victims' funds and a campaign for better online safety.
 -Create 'Social work practices' - social workers operating out of their own GP-style practices to get out of the cycle of local authority underperformance and to improve the standing of the profession.
-Scrap the children's database ContactPoint and spend the money on employing frontline social workers.
-Tackle the 'premature sexualisation' of children by measures including banning firms found guilty of inappropriate campaigns from bidding from government contracts for 3 years.
-The Conservatives advocate better sex education and efforts to lower conception by emphasising under age sex as illegal, teaching 'consent' in schools and getting rid of an image of teenage pregnancy as an 'easy lifestyle'.
-National Citizen Service for Young People. A flagship programme of community engagement for 16 year olds, to be run by charity and community groups and promote social renewal.		 -Scrap the ContactPoint database and spend the money on backroom staff to take pressure off social workers. Improving training: secondments to build better relationships with other professionals involved in child protection like police and teachers and ensuring all those working with vulnerable children have adequate qualifications.
-Emphasise child protection as an issue which is not just the responsibility of professionals: a government led communications campaign to highlight to society routes to report cases of child abuse they encounter.
-Provide advocacy services within all local authorities and giving key workers the right to see a child alone.
Promote better role models:
-Prevent the use of enhanced or altered images in advertising aimed at the under-16s.
-Ensure age-appropriate modules on body image, media literacy and rights within relationships are taught in schools.




Notes to Editors

[1] Table 1: Mid-2008 Population Estimates: United Kingdom; estimated resident population. Population estimates for UK, England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, Office for National Statistics.

[2]Population Trends No 138, Office for National Statistics, Winter 2009. Pp. 11 http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_population/Pop-trends-winter09.pdf

[3] Population Trends No 138, Office for National Statistics, Winter 2009. Pp. 85. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_population/Pop-trends-winter09.pdf

[4]Population Trends No 138, Office for National Statistics, Winter 2009. Pp. 88. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_population/Pop-trends-winter09.pdf

[5] FM1 Chapter 9: Parents' Birthplace, Births in England and Wales, 2008. Table 9.1. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=14408

[6] Of those children living with parents. Social Trends, No. 39, Office for National Statistics. Pp. 16

[7] Birth Statistics 2008, Series FM1 No.37, Office for National Statistics. Table 1.1. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_population/FM1-37/FM1_37_2008.pdf

[8]UK Marriages, Society, Office for National Statistics website. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=322

[9]Marriages in England and Wales, Statistical Bulletin, Office for National Statistics. pp. 2. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/marr0210.pdf

[10]Marriages in England and Wales, Statistical Bulletin, Office for National Statistics. pp. 2. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/marr0210.pdf

[11]Marriages in England and Wales, Statistical Bulletin, Office for National Statistics. pp. 2. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/marr0210.pdf

[12] Divorces in England and Wales 2008, Statistical Bulletin, Office for National Statistics, 28 January 2010. Pp. 1.

[13]Divorces in England and Wales 2008, Statistical Bulletin, Office for National Statistics, 28 January 2010. Pp. 2.

[14]Marked fall in divorce rates, National Statistics News Release, 31 August 2006. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/div0806.pdf

[15]The Time Use Survey, 2005, Office for National Statistics, August 2006. Pp. 11. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/nojournal/time_use_2005.pdf

[16]Press Release, Liverpool Victoria report, 23 January 2009. http://www.lv.com/media_centre/press_releases/lv=%20cost%20of%20a%20child

[17] Social Trends, No. 39, Office for National Statistics. Pp. 14, Table 2.1

[18] Table 4.8. [Mean is £682]. Usual gross weekly income by tenure. General Lifestyle Survey (GLF), Office for National Statistics, 2008. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_compendia/GLF08/GeneraLifestyleSurvey2008.pdf

[19] The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission and the Child Support Agency's Operational Improvement Plan, Third Report of Session 2009-10, House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee, February 2010. http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmworpen/118/118.pdf

[20] Much of this comes from notes on a meeting between Conservative Party representatives and the Fatherhood Institute. http://www.fatherhoodinstitute.org/index.php?id=0&cID=1042

[21]Tom MacInnes, Peter Kenway and Anushree Parekh, Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion Report 2009, The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2009. Pp. 8; 9; 52 & http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/monitoring-poverty-social-exclusion-2009-full.pdf

[22]The Daycare Trust Annual Lecture; http://www.epolitix.com/mpwebsites/mpspeeches/mpspeechdetails/newsarticle/daycare-trust-annual-childcare-lecture///mpsite/stephen-byers/

[23]Early Years section; Labour Party website

[24] Wallace,E; Smith, K; Pye, J; Crouch, J; Ziff, A & Burston, K, Extended Schools Survey of Schools, Pupils and Parents, Research Report DCSF-RR068, Ipsos MORI. Pp. 6. http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/_doc/14086/DCSF-RR068.pdf

[25]BBC website, 11 September 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8249020.stm

[26] The State of the Children's Social Care Workforce 2008 summary report, Children's Workforce Development Council http://www.cwdcouncil.org.uk/assets/0000/1348/State_of_the_children_s_care_workforce_summary_report.pdf

[27] Dawn Primarolo, Hansard, 29 January 2009. http://services.parliament.uk/hansard/Commons/ByDate/20090129/writtenanswers/part018.html

[28] Conceptions to women by age, year and quarter. Conceptions in England and Wales, 2008, Office of National Statistics, February 2010; http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=15055

[29] Press Notice, DCSF website, 01 December 2009. http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2009_0231

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