From time to time, Polly Toynbee
In darkest January all governments need
a lift. David Cameron needs a breather from banging on about Europe with something
eye-catching and domestic.
What better than the family, and the dysfunction of
the poor? He does it well, if you disregard the disconnect between what he says
and everything he does
He’s like a ventriloquist with a dummy of himself on
his knee: keep listening to his puppet, don’t look while he does something
quite different.
At the weekend he followed up his conference speech, promising “an assault on poverty” – though it will feel more like an
assault on the working poor, who will still lose some £1,200 in cuts to universal credit.
His current welfare
reform bill abolishes the official poverty measure because, he explains, lack
of money is not the cause of poverty.
The fault is not miserable pay and
exorbitant rents, but personal failings.
Praise where it’s due, one key announcement yesterday was an extra £290m urgently
needed for the mental health of women with postnatal depression: three-quarters
of sufferers get no help, with a high suicide rate.
But for the rest, see that
familiar Cameron cognitive dissonance.
He talks of poverty caused by drink and
drug addictions as if unaware of the punishing cuts NHS commissioners are
making to services that tackle them.
He boasts of the promise of 30 hours a week of free childcare, yet no one
knows how these nonexistent places are to be found by next year, as nurseries
close.
But most striking is his
sympathetic eloquence about the social disadvantage some children face, with
references to all the latest child development research:
“Neuroscience shows us
the pivotal importance of the first few years of life in determining the adults
we become.”
By the age of three, some children have heard three million more words
spoken to them than others, as some parents fail to talk to their children. For
parents who struggle, he offers parenting class vouchers.
Yet as he speaks, the services that deliver family help
are being dismantled.
Sure Start children’s centres are where much family
support is based. The best are the lifeblood of communities, meeting places
that welcome isolated families.
But they are closing fast, with those that
survive often stripped of essential services.
David Cameron knows it: he protested at his own Tory council’s closure of
Oxfordshire children’s centres, saying “I firmly believe they should
remain open.”
His letter had no effect on a council facing a 37% budget cut.
In 2010 there were some 3,500
children’s centres, one of Labour’s proudest achievements.
Those in the most
deprived areas had the most extensive services, some with beautiful new
buildings and play spaces to entice families in.
The best had childcare, health
visitors, midwives and teachers; mental health, training and jobseeking
services; dads’ groups, drop-in play times, speech and language therapy – and,
yes, parenting classes.
They were the only service designed for the poor that
attracted instant middle-class enthusiasm too.
It was an odd critique that they
were “taken over” by the better off – but they were for all, without social
stigma.
No wonder the education department chose just before Christmas to sneak out a study showing the positive
impact of children’s centres –
and the cuts they face.
Council cuts to children’s centres doubled last year, and
their numbers have fallen sharply every year since 2010.
There are now 763
fewer “designated” centres, according to Labour’s freedom of information
requests. Some are virtual, with no physical presence, simply directing parents
to services elsewhere.
Take Swindon, run by another Tory
council: it had 11 centres in 2010, cut to five last year. Now the council
plans to close them all.
Parks and Walcot children’s centre, in one of the
town’s most deprived areas, is chaired by the Rev Linda Fletcher, who is fighting alongside
parents against its closure.
“The council claims there are ‘other voluntary
groups’ for toddlers,” she says. “But there’s only a half an hour a week
storytelling in the library.”
She talks of the grandmother caring alone for three
grandchildren, her daughter too acutely depressed to cope.
“She was completely
isolated, very depressed, knowing no one else and close to losing her
grandchildren to care. But at our centre she made new friends and began talking
and reacting to the children:everything looked up.”
She tells of the single
mother with one child already in care, perilously close to losing the next.
“But she did so well with support from services based here, she’s fine.”
She can list many of the 500 families who have used the centre in the past
year, some domestic violence victims, saving the state a fortune. “So what kind
of saving is it to close us down?”
But what can councils do when their funding
barely covers the basics?
I
called Downing Street, but they said it was the Department for Work and
Pensions’ baby. I called the DWP: they would check with Downing Street.
Eventually
they said, “It’s one of the things the PM said. But right now there is no
detail at all, I’m afraid. It’s one of those things announced as a possible
thing but there’s nothing on it we know of.”
This rings a bell.
In 2012, after the London riots, Eric
Pickles, then communities secretary, announced a trial in three areas of £100
vouchers issued free from Boots and GPs for parenting classes.
But only 5% of
eligible parents took them up. The scheme cost £3.5m, or £1,192 per parent who
attended.
What should the government learn? That support for parents needs to
come from a community children’s centre where people feel welcomed and
included.
I have sat in on children’s
centre parenting classes, where people of all backgrounds swap anxieties and
solutions.
Listening to Cameron’s speech, who would guess his government had halved the early intervention grant and removed the ringfencing ensuring
councils spent it on Sure Start?
Health visitors, protected until now, risk
being next in the line of fire, now responsibility for the service is being
transferred to councils.
Some cash-strapped local authorities have suggested
abolishing them altogether. Devolution to penniless councils is the easy way
for the chancellor to wield his axe.
Meanwhile, for all the crocodile tears,
the Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts a steep rise in child poverty
by the time Cameron leaves office.
No comments:
Post a Comment