Ao4 Government Response Paper

AO4 - Government responses to social issues and welfare needs

Introduction

Tony Blair came into power in 1999, he then declared that child poverty should be eradicated from the UK by the year 2020. The Child Poverty Act was introduced and recognised in 2010; it was made legislation to meet four targets for child poverty by 2020. These targets are to reduce the amount of children living in relative poverty to less than 10%, the second target is to reduce the amount of children that live in a low income household and material deprivation to less than 5%, the third target is to reduce the amount of children suffering from persistent poverty and lastly, to reduce the amount of children living in absolute poverty to less than 5%. The legislation involves the state considering a new child poverty strategy every three years, where policies are set to attempt to meet the targets established. Child poverty fell to 2.3 million in 2010/11, however this did not meet the Governments target of halving child poverty, this number remained consistent up until 2012/13 (Kennedy, 2014).

Universal Credit

Universal credit is a new benefit that is paid to those who are on a low income or unemployed. Introducing this system allows individuals to be eased into working, it is seen as an incentive to get individuals into employment. It will

This encourages individuals to work and the more the individual earns the benefit gradually reduces. Additionally, another strength is that many individuals will benefit from a monthly payment, this may encourage individuals to learn to budget this payment to be able to calculate when bills are due and when to pay them without spending all their money at once and having no money left over for