This afternoon I listened to the Budget speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer [1] in which he devoted some detail to diverse Government expenditure he grouped under his term ‘Family Benefits’. Much of this welfare at the family level will be frozen for the next four years. Given that the Department of Work and Pensions [2] associates child poverty with morally defective adults such as workless skivers, spendthrift debtors and immoral addicts, I grew increasingly concerned for a specific, disadvantaged population of families.
One in two families with a disabled child live in poverty.[3] In January 2014, the Department for Education reported 1,492,950 schoolchildren had special educational needs (SEN).[4] Since 2014, under the Children and Families Act, clinicians will increasingly be called upon for new assessments of disability for “Education, Health and Care Plans”. Poverty i.e. material deprivation is already common among pupils with SEN, for example compared to 13.4% of other children getting free school meals, 29.1% of children with disabilities need these meals. As well as the population of children attending school, a majority of the children permanently excluded from school (72%) have SEN.[5]
Years of caring for a child with disabilities can take a heavy emotional and physical toll on all the other family members, any one of whom may turn to their doctor for frequent support. Half the families currently struggle financially, too. My concern today is that freezing a range of Family Benefits will make that financial strain unbearable. Family breakdown and homelessness in this population will grow, and subsequently more children (both those with disabilities and their siblings) will end up in local authority care. The financial cost of such Corporate Parenting would be much more than the initial welfare saved, and the health costs to Society dire.
After the Children Act 2004 I became an active member of the campaign Every Disabled Child Matters and my Regional child public health information team. Compared to other children, we already knew “SEN status is the strongest predictor of a deterioration in wellbeing for boys and girls”.[5] Unless we want benefit cuts to make these families more hungry, cold, homeless... and forgotten, health professionals must speak up now.
1 HM Treasury. Summer Budget 2015. HC 264. Printed 8 July 2015.
2 Torjesen I. Government abolishes child poverty target. BMJ 2015;351:h3643
3 Mencap. Facts about learning disabilities. https://www.mencap.org.uk/about-learning-disability/about-learning-disab... (Accessed 8 July 2015)
4 Department for Education. Statistical Release. Children with Special Educational Needs 2014: An Analysis. SFR 31/2014. London: DFE, 2014.
5 Department for Education. Support and aspiration: A new approach to special educational needs and disability. A consultation. London: DFE, 2011.
Competing interests:
Former learning disability champion for Cambridgeshire
Rapid Response:
Poverty, blame and budgets
This afternoon I listened to the Budget speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer [1] in which he devoted some detail to diverse Government expenditure he grouped under his term ‘Family Benefits’. Much of this welfare at the family level will be frozen for the next four years. Given that the Department of Work and Pensions [2] associates child poverty with morally defective adults such as workless skivers, spendthrift debtors and immoral addicts, I grew increasingly concerned for a specific, disadvantaged population of families.
One in two families with a disabled child live in poverty.[3] In January 2014, the Department for Education reported 1,492,950 schoolchildren had special educational needs (SEN).[4] Since 2014, under the Children and Families Act, clinicians will increasingly be called upon for new assessments of disability for “Education, Health and Care Plans”. Poverty i.e. material deprivation is already common among pupils with SEN, for example compared to 13.4% of other children getting free school meals, 29.1% of children with disabilities need these meals. As well as the population of children attending school, a majority of the children permanently excluded from school (72%) have SEN.[5]
Years of caring for a child with disabilities can take a heavy emotional and physical toll on all the other family members, any one of whom may turn to their doctor for frequent support. Half the families currently struggle financially, too. My concern today is that freezing a range of Family Benefits will make that financial strain unbearable. Family breakdown and homelessness in this population will grow, and subsequently more children (both those with disabilities and their siblings) will end up in local authority care. The financial cost of such Corporate Parenting would be much more than the initial welfare saved, and the health costs to Society dire.
After the Children Act 2004 I became an active member of the campaign Every Disabled Child Matters and my Regional child public health information team. Compared to other children, we already knew “SEN status is the strongest predictor of a deterioration in wellbeing for boys and girls”.[5] Unless we want benefit cuts to make these families more hungry, cold, homeless... and forgotten, health professionals must speak up now.
1 HM Treasury. Summer Budget 2015. HC 264. Printed 8 July 2015.
2 Torjesen I. Government abolishes child poverty target. BMJ 2015;351:h3643
3 Mencap. Facts about learning disabilities. https://www.mencap.org.uk/about-learning-disability/about-learning-disab... (Accessed 8 July 2015)
4 Department for Education. Statistical Release. Children with Special Educational Needs 2014: An Analysis. SFR 31/2014. London: DFE, 2014.
5 Department for Education. Support and aspiration: A new approach to special educational needs and disability. A consultation. London: DFE, 2011.
Competing interests: Former learning disability champion for Cambridgeshire