Social exclusion indicators take a turn for the better – but poverty levels remain high

But the situation with regard to income poverty is much less clear. The latest available data on the number of children and people living in poor households reveals little change, confirming the slow start for the Government’s policy commitment to eradicate child poverty within a generation. A time-lag on official figures means that it is not yet clear whether poverty went down in Labour's first term. The Government says that its policies took 1.2 million children out of poverty during the last Parliament, but a major change will need to have taken place in the year before the general election for child poverty to have fallen by this amount.

Statistics for the year ending April 2000 show that the number of people living in households with less than 60 per cent of the mid-point (median) income was 13.3 million compared with 13.4 million a year earlier. The number of children living in homes with net incomes below this officially-recognised poverty line had declined by 300,000 since 1996/7, but still stood at more than 4 million – nearly one in three children.

The report highlights more positive trends in education, where fewer children are leaving school without basic qualifications, and in employment, where the number of non-working adults who would like to have a paid job has fallen to 3.5 million from 5 million recorded in 1993. Housing conditions have also improved, with levels of overcrowding, lack of central heating and extent of mortgage arrears all substantially lower than a decade ago.

Guy Palmer, co-Director of the New Policy Institute and co-author of the report, said: "There is good news in these latest indicators to the extent that important factors diminishing the life chances of children and young adults, such as lack of educational qualifications, are in decline. Even so, it is disappointing that the number of people living on low incomes has remained largely unchanged since the early 1990s, having doubled in the 1980s. The lack of change in 1999/00 suggests there is nothing about the current dynamics of the British economy that will help the Government to achieve its targets for substantial reductions in child poverty. Thus, any future reduction will have to depend overwhelmingly on direct Government policies."

Most of the data in the report –the fourth in the annual series – relates to 2001 or late 2000. As in previous years, the indicators are grouped under six main headings:

Income

• While one in five adults overall lived in households with less than 60 per cent of median income in 1999/00, more than half of all lone parents were below this level of income (60% of median income after housing costs is one of the preferred thresholds of income poverty used by both the European Union and the UK Government).
• The number of long-term claimants of Income Support and other means-tested benefits continued to fall, from 3.2 million in 1996 to 2.7 million in 2001, but the level of Income Support paid to unemployed adults is now 20 per cent of average earnings – down from 30 per cent in 1983.
• There were significant regional variations in the income distribution. For example, 27 per cent of Londoners are in the poorest fifth of the population nationally, compared with 16 per cent of people living in the rest of the South East. But London also had one of the highest proportions of residents in the richest fifth of the population.

Children

• Children continued to be more likely than adults to live in low-income households – a third of all children compared with a quarter of the overall population.
• In spring 2001, around two million children were living in households where no adult had a paid job.
• The proportion of children finishing school without any GCSE ‘C’ grades or above fell by 20 per cent between 1991/2 and 1999/00. Even so, 150,000 pupils still leave school without a GCSE pass above grade ‘D’ and 25,000 get no grades at all.
• The proportion of 11-year-olds who fail to achieve level 4 or above at Key Stage 2 in English and maths has fallen by a third since 1996.
• The Government has already met its target of reducing school exclusions by a third from their 1997/98 levels by 2002. However, exclusions are still four times as common for Black Caribbean pupils as for white pupils.
• The number of accidental deaths among children has halved in the last decade. The number of births to girls conceiving before their 16th birthday has fallen by a fifth since its peak in 1996.

Young adults

• The number of 16- to 24-year-olds who are unemployed has fallen from one million in 1993 to 500,000. However, the unemployment rate of 10 per cent is double that for older workers.
• Around one in four 19-year-olds lack a basic qualification (NVQ2 or equivalent) compared with a third in 1995.
• Suicides among young adults in England and Wales have declined since 1997, meeting Government targets as far ahead as 2010. This does not apply in Scotland, where suicide rates appear to be three times higher.
• Around 30,000 young adults start treatment for problem drug use each year – double the levels of ten years ago. Two-thirds of treatment is for heroin addiction.

Adults

• The fall in the number of non-working adults who would like a paid job (from 5 million in 1993 to 3.5 million) has been slower than the decline in official unemployment because of an increase in the number of people classified as ‘economically inactive’ .
• Almost half of all lone parents did not have paid work in 2001, compared with one in 20 couples with children.
• The number of adults earning less than the National Minimum Wage dropped sharply following its introduction from one million to around 250,000. However, 1.5 million employees aged 22 and over were still earning less than half the median level of male earnings (around £4 an hour) in 2000, compared with 2 million in 1998.
• After rising for much of the previous decade, the geographic concentration of deaths among adults aged under 65 fell for the first time in 2000. Scotland continues to have by far the highest proportion of premature deaths, followed by London.

Older people

• Around 1.25 million pensioners have no income other than their state pension and benefits – a fifth of all single pensioners and a tenth of couples.
• Around 20 per cent of pensioners remain in the bottom fifth of the income distribution. However, the Government’s Minimum Income Guarantee for pensioners was raised substantially in April this year.
• The proportion of people aged 75 and over who receive support from social services to continue living at home has fallen substantially since 1994.
• Poorer pensioners are twice as likely to live in badly insulated homes as those who are better-off.

Communities

• The number of low-income households without central heating has reduced by a third since 1994/5. The level of overcrowding in homes has almost halved and the number of mortgage holders in serious arrears with repayments is at its lowest level for a decade.
• The number of homeless households living in temporary accommodation has nearly doubled since 1997 to reach 80,000. More than half have dependent children.
• Burglaries are at their lowest level in ten years. However, uninsured households are three times more likely to be burgled than those with insurance.
• People in low income households are twice as likely to report that their quality of life is significantly affected by fear of crime than the average and almost twice as likely to feel very dissatisfied with the area in which they live.
• One in six of the poorest households have no bank or building society account compared with one in 20 households on average incomes. These figures show no change from five years earlier.
• Around two-thirds of heads of household in social housing do not have paid work, compared with one-third in other tenures. Three-quarters are on weekly incomes of less than £200, compared with one-quarter in other tenures.

Peter Kenway, co-Director of the New Policy Institute and co-author of the report, said: "There is a surprising amount of change in many of the statistics. The scale of the improvements in education and housing is substantial. But the deterioration in social services support for older people, the situation of the homeless and the relative poor health in Scotland are all matters of particular concern."