Major inquiry to create 'new social policy blueprint'

The Breakthrough Britain II study will explore the causes of poverty and social breakdown, which the CSJ has identified as welfare dependency, family breakdown, educational failure, drug and alcohol addiction and serious personal debt.

It will also consider ways in which the voluntary sector can play a more fundamental role in tackling disadvantage.

The first Breakthrough Britain report by the CSJ - which was set up by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith - was published in July 2007.

It is credited with shaping the Conservative party manifesto for the 2010 general election on issues including welfare reform, the expansion of the academies programme, and plans to recognise marriage in the tax system, which are yet to come to fruition.

The CSJ commissioned a YouGov survey of 1,700 adults to coincide with the launch of the inquiry. The poll found that 55 per cent of respondents believe their local communities are plagued by “broken families, crime and poor schools”, while 89 per cent think better parenting is vital to overcoming such problems.

A further 85 per cent of respondents identified work as the “only reliable route out of poverty”, while 60 per cent said the decline in marriage is having a “damaging effect on the country”.

Christian Guy, managing director of the CSJ, said the original Breakthrough Britain report was a turning point in understanding about the causes of deprivation.

“We travelled the length and breadth of the UK, took evidence from over 2,000 organisations in 3,000 hours of public hearings and visited other countries to ensure this study was the most comprehensive ever done,” he said.

“It challenged the tired arguments that poverty was about income alone and provided a host of robust solutions to improve communities and allow people to fulfil their potential.

“It has influenced cross-party thinking and the CSJ looks forward to building a new policy consensus that will enable us to make further inroads on poverty in the years to come.”

Guy added that the inquiry would be led by a team of experts with “frontline poverty-fighting experience”, who would be instrumental in drawing up “a new social policy blueprint to tackle the challenges of the 21st Century”.?

“As we have discovered to our cost as a nation, simply throwing more money at social problems is not enough and can even be counter-productive,” he said.

“We have to give people every chance to change their lives and acquire the tools that will enable them to support themselves, their families and the wider community.”

Helen Dent, chief executive of Family Action, said the first Breakthrough Britain report “set the agenda for Conservative thinking on family and welfare ahead of the last general election”.

But she argued that the Centre for Social Justice vision has been “put through the mincer by the Chancellor” since the creation of the coalition government.

“We know from the direct work we do supporting disadvantaged and vulnerable families that family breakdown and dadlessness aren’t the only causes of child poverty, income and services matter,” she said.

“This government is presiding over a wholescale attack on family income through cuts to welfare support and austerity is chipping away at the support services these families need.

“If early intervention is going to be a long term legacy and children are going to be lifted out of poverty by this government, then the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions needs to fight his corner with the Treasury better.”