The Present Policy

POLICY ANALYSIS
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Policy Analysis
The health policy concerning child welfare is at stake in the UK with the impacts of the present policy. The available Welfare Reform and Work Act are inadequate in addressing child poverty and health needs going by the prevalent data. Historically, there was a significant change in Tony Blair’s era that came with the revitalization of social care service initiatives. One of the commitments that Blair made at the onset of his administration was eliminating child poverty in the UK by 2020 with an insightful focus on improving children’s health. As a show of commitment to that pledge, Blair sponsored, successfully, the Child Poverty Act of 2010 (Bradshaw, 2016). The Child Poverty Act was to oversee the commitment towards elimination of child poverty through different social ties until its repeal in 2016. Successful elimination of child poverty would offset challenges to health determinants, including access to healthcare services and prevention of diseases among children. However, the abolition of Blair’s policy and the adoption of the ensuing Welfare Reform and Work Act would soon revitalize child health in the UK. The Welfare Reform and Work Act has attracted debates with support and opposition registered in equal measures (Bradshaw, 2016). This paper develops a child poverty policy as a social determinant of health in the era of the failing Welfare Reform and Work Act. The escalating numbers in child poverty within the UK coupled with poor measurement techniques warrant more debates and analyses on how to adjust the Welfare Reform and Work Act to commit to the real-time needs in social service care within the UK.
The Present Policy
The child poverty policy stems from the abolished Child Poverty Act implemented in 2010, which was a commitment by Prime Minister Tony Blair to eradicate child poverty, which was a primary cause of child health issues in the UK, by 2020 (Dermott et al., 2018). Blair’s policy defined child poverty on four grounds: relative poverty, combined low income and material deprivation, absolute poverty, and persistent poverty (Dermott et al., 2018). Child poverty defines relative poverty as living in low-income families with an income of 60% below the median. The increasing child poverty cases trigger the need for a change.
Any policy change proposal should be accompanied with insightful understanding of the present policy and its downfalls. The eightfold path creates a ground for policy analysis in which the weaknesses of the Welfare Reform and Work Act can be unearthed to form grounds for a better policy. The path defines eight key prospects worth exploring while analyzing a policy (Earle, 2007). Primary among the paths is the definition of the problem. In the case of the Welfare Reform and Work Act, the problem to be addressed is the increasing number of children whose living standards fall below the poverty line within the UK (Dermott, et al., 2018). More children are falling below the poverty line. The new child poverty policy intends to address that challenge before more children are subjected to the impacts. The second step in analyzing a policy constitutes the assembly of evidence. The data on child poverty should be proof of the effectiveness of the policy. For purposes of specificity, the focus ranged from 1997 to 2010, then a second phase between 2010 and 2020 (Dermott, et al., 2018). The first phase saw a reduction in the number of children living below poverty, 600,000 in the first four years of the Blair administration. In the second phase, the number of children in poverty increased consistently. Adopting a policy that reflects on contemporary issues should manifest better outcomes even if compared to Blair’s policies.
The third path constitutes constructing the alternatives. The primary change that the proposed policy must adopt is the inclusion of the minimum basic needs (MBN) thresholds in defining child poverty (Baggott, 2004). The new alternative should extend beyond parents’ employment status to address child poverty as a prospect that accommodates healthcare, education, basic services, and housing. Accommodating more factors in devising data on poverty should give better reflections. Dermott, et al. (2018) assert that the fourth path is a selection of criteria. In addressing child poverty, the policies must explore defined criteria. Welfare Reform and Work Act fail to address child poverty in terms of the presented needs hierarchy. A new policy with insights into the criteria of needs should help in addressing more pressing aspects of the matter.
The eightfold path addresses more prospects for consideration while implementing a new policy. Principally, the policy should be pegged on outcomes. In this case, the efforts should be geared towards changing the data and targeting a reduction in the number of children living below the poverty line. In its ten years of operations, the child poverty policy should manage a reduction in relative poverty to less than 10% among UK children, minimize the combined low income and material deprivation to less than 5%, reduce absolute poverty to less than 5%, and eradicate persistent poverty. The success of the policy should be measured on its achievement of the targets. In the sixth stage of policy analysis, any policy must accept tradeoffs. The child poverty policy will eliminate the savings from the present Welfare Reform and Work Act. The decision to implement this policy is reached based on the nation’s challenges on child poverty.
Rationale
The development of a new child poverty policy stems from the changes that the UK has experienced with the advancement of the Welfare Reform and Work Act. The abolition of the Child Poverty Act opened avenues for the new Welfare Reform and Work Act of 2016 that has since revitalized avenues of managing child poverty issues in the UK (Child Poverty Action Group [CPAG], 2021). The Welfare Reform and Work Act instilled changes that bore direct impacts on the measures to contain child poverty. CIPAG (2021) notes that the act lowered the household benefit cap from £26,000 for a family and £18,200 for a single person to £23,000 in London (£15,410 for a single person) and £20,000 (£13,400 for a single person) elsewhere in the UK. Further, the act implemented a 1% reduction of social housing levels from 2016/17. The other changes that the act initiated included replacing support for mortgage interest with loans for mortgage interest, abolition of employment and support allowance, and limited support through universal credit. With the above changes in place, the nation would save £27.9 billion between 2017 and 2020. The proceedings would be directed to more needy areas of child poverty indices. The analysis of child poverty data would also change with employment or lack thereof considered the primary factor in child poverty trends. Based on the prevalent data, the abolition of the Child Poverty Act in favor of the Welfare Reform and Work Act has proven ineffective considering the prevalent data on child welfare.
Child poverty is a cause of multiple health concerns. Child poverty in the UK is defined as growing up with limited or no access to the resources that a child needs to develop healthily. According to Bradshaw (2016), each nation has its resource threshold that, if not met, can be defined as child poverty. In the UK, child poverty is defined as living in a household with an income that is below 60% of the UK’s average (CPAG, 2021). Child poverty is a social problem that affects a range of an individual’s determinants of health, including access to education, food, transportation, healthcare services, and social support systems. A child living in poverty is likely to attract illnesses or live longer than recommended without receiving the necessary basic education. There is a range of factors that are considered vital to the prevalence of child poverty in the UK (Bradshaw, 2016). Parental lack of work and low earnings are primary causes of child poverty. The other factors that fuel the spread of child poverty within the UK include family size, family financial stability, parental ill health, and low parental qualifications. Addressing child poverty remains a concern for multiple policymakers in the UK.
Child poverty can be eliminated if the right policies are put in place. By its basic definition, stakeholders and policymakers must address child poverty by exploring the causes. For instance, the nation should be structured to manage according to its citizens the necessary skills that warrant their qualifications for well-paying jobs. On most occasions, however, nations develop policies that bear direct impacts on the problem itself. Some of the approaches that the UK has developed over the years to address child poverty include securing the right to basic needs for families living below the poverty lines. Such an approach accommodates healthcare programs, housing supports, and food assistance to families who deserve the services (Naidoo & Wills, 2010). There are also efforts towards easing the financial burdens of families below the poverty lines. All low-income families can be rendered subject to better tax credits that cover their needs, universal preschool and affordable child care, higher minimum wages, permanent paid family and medical leaves, and strengthened unemployment insurance (Baggott, 2015). Ultimately, the nation can approach child poverty by prioritizing structural reforms that address historic marginalization and generational poverty issues with policies geared towards bridging the economic class gaps in the nation (Dermott, et al., 2018). While attempts have been made through some of the policies above, success has not been reache...