This report looks at what the United Kingdom can learn from systems of benefits for children in Australia, Canada and the United States.

In 2003, the UK will radically reform the way it delivers such support, by introducing the Integrated Child Credit. For the first time there will be a single system for making means-tested payments to families in and out of work. Other countries in the study have been going down similar routes, and making difficult decisions such as how steeply to withdraw benefits as families' incomes rise.

The discussion in this volume, based on an international study being published simultaneously as a larger report (Benefits for children: A four-country study), brings into sharp focus the questions the UK needs to answer in planning its new system.

Summary

Download as PDF 0 MB