News Insight: Child benefit controversy dominates Tory conference

Children and families took centre stage during David Cameron's first conference as Prime Minister, with the decision to scrap child benefit payments for top earners dominating the four-day event.

During his keynote speech Cameron highlighted investment in early years, helping troubled families and ensuring children from poor backgrounds get to go to good schools as key priorities.

But as far as solid policies go, it was the impact of the child benefit shake-up, wider benefit reforms, and their impact on child poverty that proved the key talking points.

While the decision to scrap child benefit for top earners is badged as the party's attempt to be "fair" with spending cuts so those with the "broadest shoulders" feel more of the pain, the details of the proposal have thrown up some arguably unfair anomalies particularly for single parent families (see box, right).

Plans to cap benefits for families at £26,000 have also prompted fears that poor families could be forced to move out of expensive areas where housing benefit makes up a large portion of their welfare income. The Conservatives hope that the benefit cap will incentivise parents to go out to work.

Fairness for all families

Meanwhile, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith claimed the introduction of a single tax credit, a "universal credit", will be better for families with children. In his speech, Cameron echoed Duncan Smith's sentiments and attempted to alleviate concerns by stressing that changes to the benefit system would be fairer for all families.

"Fairness means supporting people out of poverty, not trapping them in dependency," he said. "So we will make a bold choice. For too long, we have measured success in tackling poverty by the size of the cheque we give people. We say: let's measure our success by the chance we give. Let's support real routes out of poverty: a strong family; a good education; a job.

"So we'll invest in the early years, help put troubled families back on track, use a pupil premium to make sure kids from the poorest homes go to the best schools not the worst, recognise marriage in the tax system and most of all, make sure that work really pays for every single person."

The combined effect of the changes has prompted concern from child poverty campaigners, with Alison Garnham, new chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, warning they could cause "more pain for the poorest families".

On education, new policies were light, with no fresh detail on the pledge to introduce a pupil premium to boost attainment levels for children from the poorest backgrounds.

Questions over youth justice

One of the very few new announcements — Michael Gove's assertion that empty Department for Education (DfE) buildings will be used to house new academies — threw up a number of questions. Are the empty buildings about to become vacant as a result of DfE quangos being axed and how much will it cost to make the buildings fit for purpose?

Questions also remain over the future of youth justice, with Justice Secretary Ken Clarke's conference speech making no reference to young offenders. It is believed that plans to get providers to reduce reoffending on a payment-by-results basis will be adopted for young people although whether this will be the case for plans to introduce proper work to prisons is less clear.

To read all the news from the Conservative conference, go to cypnow.co.uk/toryconf

HOW FAIR IS THE CHILD BENEFIT REFORM?

Not only is the decision to scrap child benefit controversial, ending the principle of universality, it has also thrown up questions of fairness.

Anomalies include the fact that a single parent of several children earning more than £43,876 will lose their child benefit while a couple earning a combined income of some £86,000 would continue to receive the benefit.

Calculations by CYP Now show that before factoring in possible student loans or pension contributions, a single parent of four children earning a salary of £43,876 and in receipt of child benefit would have a total monthly "take-home" pay of £2,945.

This is thanks to child benefit payments of £20.30 a week for the first child, and £13.40 for each additional child, paid every four weeks.

With the removal of child benefit payments - working out at £262 a month for four children - this would shrink to £2,683, a reduction of 8.9 per cent.

Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, described the cut as "a tax on children".

"Families are right to ask why it is just parents taking this hit rather than all taxpayers," she said. "It is the destruction of a one-nation system that unites all parents under a shared national belief in childhood and the support and recognition it deserves from our government."

But Cameron insists that while people earning £45,000 are not "rich" it is "quite difficult" to justify spending £1bn on child benefit for people who are better off.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE FRINGE: A taste of the debates on children's issues outside the main conference hall

While the Conservative Party attempted to bat away criticism of announced reforms of the benefit system, services for children and young people were the focus of many meetings away from the conference floor. CYP Now reports on the highlights of the fringe.

Education

In what could be a worrying admission for Education Secretary Michael Gove, the Conservative chair of the education select committee has expressed reservations over whether more school independence will revolutionise the system, as the government hopes.

At a fringe meeting on free schools, Graham Stuart MP said: "I do not believe that autonomy and freedom alone are the key to transforming the education system."

Describing supporters of the free school movement as "gleamy-eyed supply-side revolutionaries", Stuart added that academies were not the "magic wand" that would conjure up great teachers.

But in another meeting, schools minister Lord Hill said greater freedom would boost school achievement and went on to criticise the Labour government for saddling head teachers with too much guidance.

The government found an ally in the former chair of Ofsted Zenna Atkins, who voiced support for the decision to end the requirement to inspect schools on wellbeing indicators.

Family

While Prime Minister David Cameron and Conservative members of his Cabinet were forced to defend proposed changes to child benefit, a Conservative minister's former aide poured scorn on the party's long-standing pledge to introduce tax breaks for married couples.

Ryan Shorthouse, who was special adviser to Maria Miller when she was shadow families minister before the election, said: "I hope the expenditure cuts mean the marriage tax allowance is shelved. We had these allowances in the 1990s and they had no impact, the marriage rate plummeted."

But Shorthouse, who is now a researcher at the Social Market Foundation think tank, welcomed the government's plans under Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith to pool all out-of-work benefits into a single payment.

In a fringe meeting hosted by the Centre for Social Justice, Duncan Smith, the organisation's founder, said the introduction of a single benefit payment for people out of work will ease pressure on families. "Getting rid of all the disincentives (to work) and the complications in the system puts massive pressure on individuals and through them on their families," he said.

But audience members expressed concern that there was no-one at the centre of government to uphold the interests of families. Camilla Cavendish, columnist at The Times, said Gove is focused purely on education despite the fact that much family policy falls under his department's remit.

Child protection

In a move likely to anger the unions and the British Association of Social Workers, children's minister Tim Loughton dismissed the idea that maximum caseload limits for social workers would help improve child protection systems.

In another fringe event Diana Sutton, the NSPCC's head of public affairs, urged the government not to abandon the vetting and barring scheme in its entirety.

"The review of the vetting and barring scheme is concerning because it had put essential safeguards in," she said.

Sutton also urged the Munro review of child protection to now focus on the recommendations on child health made by Lord Laming in his 2009 report, which were not implemented by the last government.

These included enabling accident and emergency staff to tell if a child has recently visited A&E or is subject to a child protection plan and that children's services, police and health services have protected budgets for the staffing of child protection services.

Youth justice

Youth justice minister Crispin Blunt shed some light on possible alternatives to custody for young people during a fringe meeting staged by the Transition to Adulthood Alliance. Addressing the event, he said more effective community punishments need to be identified. Blunt suggested that young offenders could have their community sentences cut if they are deemed to be working hard while completing an order.

Describing community payback schemes as a "wasted opportunity", he stressed the importance of identifying new models in order to give the public confidence in their effectiveness.

While it was unclear whether Blunt was offering serious policy proposals or just getting in the spirit of creative thinking, he did go on to offer an insight into the coalition's youth justice policy by saying that youth offending team workers will be given a say over the shape of community punishments for offenders under changes to the system currently being considered.