Poorest families hit hardest by coalition policies, warns commissioner

The commissioner's report – A Child Rights Impact Assessment of Budget Decisions – says that funding reforms introduced already or planned to take effect by 2015 are seeing low-income families with children lose more as a percentage of net income than high-income families.

Families with children in the poorest 10 per cent of the population are losing on average £40 per week, while families in the poorest 20 and 30 per cent of the population are losing £30 per week.

"Losses of this magnitude represent a very serious reduction in income when the poorest families with children live off approximately £370 per week," the report says.

It adds that the cuts to the household incomes of the poorest 10 per cent of families with children is equivalent to a one-fifth reduction in their net income, while the richest 10 per cent of families with children have seen an equivalent fall in net incomes of around seven per cent.  

The assessment is based on analysis carried out for the children's commissioner by Landman Economics, using models to assess the likely impact of tax-benefit and public expenditure changes on children living in different family settings.

On average, couples with children have experienced the largest losses in cash terms of any type of household, but the largest percentage losses have been felt by lone parents.

Meanwhile, families with disabled children are suffering slightly bigger average losses: compared to families as a whole, who have seen cuts equivalent to a drop in net income of 5.2 per cent, those with disabled children have lost between 6.3 and seven per cent of net income depending on the definition of disability used.

The analysis also shows that while families with children make up 32 per cent of working age families, they bear 51 per cent of the costs of benefit and tax credit cuts and increases in personal tax, with the biggest losers being couples with children.

The report predicts that between 2010 and 2015, the number of children in the UK living in poverty will have risen from 2.3 million to 3 million. In addition, the number of children living below a minimum income standard is expected to rise by 400,000 children to 6.8 million.

The report praises some spending decisions as having a positive effect – for example, protecting schools budgets and increasing early years provision for low-income families – but points out that these measures do not offset other funding changes.