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How to join up family policy

In our fifth press release for National Family Week, the Relationships Foundation highlights open letters it has written to three Secretaries of State whose spending departments are most affected by the strength of family relationships. Those responsible for Health, Justice and Welfare must recognize the role of families within their departments or they will fail to achieve the ambitious outcomes the government is seeking. We have asked them to identify what role they see families playing within their departments and encouraged them fully to support an integrated government-wide approach to strengthening families with clear central leadership on the family and family policy. The reality is that with budget cuts much of the heavy lifting in enabling improved social outcomes will fall to families.

During National Family Week we have been highlighting the prospect that the family-friendly agenda is unlikely to succeed without a champion at the heart of government. There needs to be clear top-level leadership on the family and family policy should have a central role in government, based perhaps at the Cabinet Office. Becoming family-friendly requires a coordinated plan as there are implications for every government department. The Government has recognised this is true of the Big Society – it has Cabinet level responsibility and a clear strategy.

Below are extracts from each of the letters:

- Health – The Relationships Foundation estimates that the annual health and social care costs linked to family breakdown are over £13 billion a year, with the health status of men and children being particularly influenced by family relationships. This exceeds the additional welfare and benefit costs that can be linked to family breakdown. These costs arise from increased use of GP services, costs of domestic violence, prescription costs, children in care, and impaired mental health, amongst others. Families provide social care and support worth some £73 billion a year and, given the future care needs of an ageing population, families’ capacity to provide care will be an essential element of any solution.

- Crime – The Relationships Foundation estimates that the annual civil and criminal justice costs linked to family breakdown are over £7 billion a year. These costs include a significant proportion of police, prison and court costs spent dealing with those from broken families. It also includes the amount spent on family court cases and the costs of running the Child Support Agency and the new Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission. 70% of young offenders are from single parent families. Half of under-18s in prison have a history of being in care or social service involvement, and 27% of all prisoners were taken into care as a child. The Cost of Domestic Violence report estimated that domestic violence alone cost the criminal justice system around £1billion in 2001.

- Welfare – Our report, Counting the Cost of Family Failure, notes that family breakdown will cost almost £42bn this year, or £1,350 per taxpayer. £12.38bn of those costs fall under DWP and represent almost 10% of its departmental budget. Lone parents receive more child-contingent support (in tax credits and benefits) than an equivalent couple household. Lone parent households are five times more likely than couples to be receiving welfare payments and more than twice as likely to be receiving tax credits. Lone parents receive average tax credit and benefit payments five times larger than couples. On the flip side, family business forms the backbone of the economy, family members provide employment contacts and families currently lend each other £25 billion.

Executive Director Michael Trend comments, “The new government has spoken positively about making Britain more family-friendly: the difficulty is making this a reality. While we recognize the goodwill towards the family of the new coalition, it has yet to give a clear signal that it understands how easily sidelined the family will become in government unless clear, central responsibility is defined. Achieving the desired outcomes in health, welfare and criminal justice and many other areas depends on what happens in families.”



ENDS

Notes:

National Family Week runs from 31st May – 6th June 2010. For more information see www.nationalfamilyweek.co.uk

For the costs of family failure see: When Relationships Go Right/When Relationships Go Wrong (2009) http://tiny.cc/WhenRelationships; updated for 2010 in Counting the Cost of Family Failure http://tiny.cc/FailureCost

The individual letters, with references, can be found at the links below:

Andrew Lansley http://tiny.cc/ALol

Iain Duncan Smith http://tiny.cc/IDSol

Kenneth Clarke http://tiny.cc/KCol

For more information please contact: Peter Lynas:

p.lynas@relationshipsfoundation.org   01223 341286  07899 898066