Listen to social workers if you want to tackle poverty, says BASW chief

BASW’s chief executive Dr Ruth Allen has called for “brave and compassionate politicians” to “listen to the evidence” from social work if they want to turn the tide on worsening poverty in the UK.

The call comes as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation released its UK Poverty 2024 report showing 14.4 million people - or a fifth of the population - were living in poverty in 2021-22.

The charity also found six million of the poorest people in the UK would need to double their incomes to move out of hardship, describing the findings as a sign of “social failure at scale”.

Responding to the report, Allen said: ‘As a profession, we do not accept the inevitability or acceptability of such high and worsening levels of poverty and the blighting of people’s lives.

“Much of our politics, particularly in Westminster, is about cutting taxes and further reducing services and support. The irony is, we cannot afford this poverty. We cannot afford the lost potential, stored up health needs, the next generation failing to thrive and mental health crises associated with intractable want. 

“We have to turn the tide on this, and we need brave and compassionate politicians who will listen to the evidence and the solutions for change that social workers bring”.

The JRF report states: “Foodbank use and the number of families living in temporary accommodation are at record highs. Extreme forms of hardship, like having to rely on charity to be able to eat or stay warm, have become shockingly commonplace.”

McGowan said the benefit system was "not fit for purpose". He added: "It is disgraceful that barriers are in place to assist the children, families and adults who need state help most. Social workers are not fooled by trickledown economics. Austerity means waiting lists grow and benefits decline."

The report reveals:

• More than one in five people in the UK (22 per cent) were in poverty in 2021-22 - or 14.4 million people
• Some local authorities report 40 per cent of children live in hardship
• 8.1 million people in poverty are working age adults, 4.2 million are children and 2.1 million are pensioners
• Nearly a third of children in the UK (three in ten) are in poverty

Paul Kissack, chief executive of JRF, said: “This is social failure at scale – a failure we pay for twice over. First, there are the human costs resulting from the blighted lives of millions of people who face avoidable hardship. 

“Going without basic essentials strips people of their dignity and damages their social connections. Living in a cold, damp or insecure home, or not having enough food, damages people’s physical health.

Such "failings", said Kissack, "pile pressures onto already stretched public services" by worsening physical and mental health conditions thereby increasing the number of people unavailable for work through long-term sickness. 

He added: “Local councils spend more and more money on temporary accommodation in the face of growing homelessness. Teachers are unable to close attainment gaps for children who turn up at school from damp or temporary homes and without food in their stomachs. Poverty becomes the enemy of opportunity: talent and potential are wasted in its wake.”

The number of children and pensioners in poverty has risen since 2020, and rates are now at pre-pandemic levels.

For people in poverty, incomes were on average 29 per cent below the poverty line for 2021-2, up from 23 per cent in the mid-1990s. The poverty line hits when a household has an income below 60 per cent of the average.

For those in very deep poverty, incomes were on average 59 per cent below the poverty line, an increase of two-thirds in the past 25 years.

The poverty line for a family with two children aged under 14 is £21,900 - income below £14,600 is defined as very deep poverty.

In two decades in the UK, very deep poverty has also risen. Six million people were in very deep poverty in 2021-22 compared to one and a half million in 2001-2.

Nearly four million people experienced destitution in the UK in 2022 - a 148 per cent increase in five years, including one million children - three times as many as in 2017.

Kate Schmuecker, principal policy adviser at JRF said: “It has been 20 years and six prime ministers since we last saw a sustained fall in poverty in our country. And over that same time period, we've also seen poverty deepening and growing more severe for more people.”

The JRF is calling for more secure affordable housing to be built and for the rebuilding of the social security safety net, joining with other charities and BASW to call for an 'Essentials Guarantee' built into universal credit.

A government spokesperson said it was supporting families with the cost of living, while absolute poverty has fallen since 2010, adding: “Children are five times less likely to experience poverty living in a household where all adults work, compared to those in workless households.”

Further reading

BASW has just published a report with the University of Edinburgh on poverty, social inequality and domestic abuse.

It draws findings from data covering 5,000 children living in Scotland, examining how poverty and other factors impact on mothers' experiences of domestic violence.

Key findings include: 

• The poorest mums were most likely to experience domestic abuse
• Younger mums were more likely to report domestic abuse
• Younger mums who were the poorest reported the highest levels of abuse
• Children of mums who had experienced domestic abuse generally had poorer scores on different measures of social and emotional development.