The Department of Social Security released a report on poverty and Social Exclusion in 1992. The main features of poverty and Social Exclusion that were highlighted in the Report were:
Social Exclusion.
There are a number of different definitions for Social Exclusion. Many believe that social Exclusion is a term that is used to describe marginalisation. Marginalisation from everything, employment, income, social networks, decision making and in general, an adequate quality of life. The social networks that are mentioned include family, neighbourhood and the community. Another, equally popular definition of the term Social Exclusion is the way that people are excluded from the accepted norms in society. The ways in which these people are excluded can be either politically, socially, economically, culturally, or a combination of these ways.
It was in the summer of 1997 when New Labour came into power that the topic of Social Exclusion became a focal point of attention. By the end of the year we saw the emergence of the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) whose main aim was to develop policies that would combat Social Exclusion. This was described as, joined-up policies for joined-up problems. "New Labour appears determined to do little to modify the existing inequality in Britain. However, it is this that has always formed the main barrier to the success of schemes designed to reduce poverty", (Jamie Percy-Smith, 2000).
The Department of Social Security released a report on poverty and Social Exclusion in 1992. The main features of poverty and Social Exclusion that were highlighted in the Report were:
> Need of opportunities to work.
> Need of opportunities in which to acquire education and skills.
> Childhood deprivation.
> Disrupted families.
> Barriers to older people living active, fulfilling and healthy lives.
> Health inequalities.
> Poor housing.
> Poor neighbourhoods.
> Fear of crime.
> Disadvantaged groups.
Burchadt et al. has a slightly different view of this. They considered that there were five different areas of social exclusion in terms of the normal activities that is vital for citizens to participate in.
The first would be the consumption activity that relates to traditional measures of poverty, leading to the savings activity which consisted of pensions, savings and home ownership. Political, social and production activities also fell under the areas that Burchadt felt were important.
One form of Social Exclusion is Single Parent Families, especially young single parents. This is seen to lead to Social Exclusion for both the parents and the children as a consequence of poverty, especially for young mothers due to their detachment from academia or training.
Through all the policies that have been released by the New Labour Government on Social Exclusion what comes to light immediately is that these policies expect individuals to take a greater responsibility towards their own welfare. This succeeds to move the attention from the focus upon structural causes an onto the excluded. Many have described the New Labour view of inclusion within a society as "part of a strategy aimed at restoring social cohesion through fostering conformity ad criminalizing dissent", (Cooper and Hawtin, 1998).
There are a number of problems with trying to quantify, define and measure a social phenomena. There is a major difficulty with trying to find indicators of Social Exclusion as there is no agreed upon definition of this phenomena or any of its causes. It is really difficult to try and measure the extent of Social Exclusion as there are no clear indicators. For example it is well known that having divorced parents is an indicator of instability, but it is unclear if it is also an indicator of Social Exclusion.
In the Social Exclusion Unit ...
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There are a number of problems with trying to quantify, define and measure a social phenomena. There is a major difficulty with trying to find indicators of Social Exclusion as there is no agreed upon definition of this phenomena or any of its causes. It is really difficult to try and measure the extent of Social Exclusion as there are no clear indicators. For example it is well known that having divorced parents is an indicator of instability, but it is unclear if it is also an indicator of Social Exclusion.
In the Social Exclusion Unit this phenomena is defined as a 'shorthand label for what can happen when individuals or areas suffer from a combination of linked problems such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime environments, bad health and family breakdown' (SEU, 1997).
Some other definitions include Duffy's statement that the "inability to participate effectively in economic, social, political and cultural life, alienation and distance from the mainstream society", (Duffy, 1997) and Walker's definition that Social exclusion is "the dynamic process of being shut out... from any of the social, economic, political and cultural systems which determine the social integration of a person in society", (Walker and Walker: 1997-1998).
Social Exclusion can be defined in many different ways but it generally boils down to the fact that Social Exclusion is a multi-dimensional problem that is related closely to poverty and deprivation. Many claim that Poverty and Social Exclusion go together hand-in-hand, therefore it is necessary to define poverty.
The 1995 Copenhagen World Summit define poverty as, "lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods: hunger and malnutrition; ill health; limited or lack of access to education and other basic services; increased morbidity and mortality from illness; homelessness and inadequate housing; unsafe environments and social discrimination and exclusion. It is also characterised by lack of participation in decision-making and in civil, social and cultural life", (United Nations, 1995).
There has been an indepth assessment that has been carried out on the Governments record on Social Exclusion. This assessment shows that although there have been a number of improvements in many key areas. Britain is still a society that remains very unequal. There are a number of political parties that that have seen the negative effects that Social Exclusion has on society.
However, the author of this assignment is going to look at the impact that New Labour has upon Social Exclusion. New Labour has helped reduce the impact of Social Exclusion on society through a number of their schemes. They have made great progress especially amongst families with children. When New Labour was elected in 1997 the poverty and inequality levels had reached an unprecedented high. New labour was committed to tackling Social Exclusion. New Labour started by introducing targets to try and tackle child poverty to try and ensure that in a decade or two no one will be seriously disadvantaged by their locality. It can now be noticed that the areas that the Government has concentrated on has now shown significant improvement.
Child poverty has now been improved in terms of it's tax and benefit reforms. What new research has shown is that it is low income families with children that have mainly benefited from this scheme. These families have now increased spending money on items for their children like games, clothes and toys. The research however, argues that there are gaps within the Governments strategy. An example of this is that poverty amongst the working class families without children has reached higher levels. This shows the flaw, in the strategy of New Labour government, whilst certain vulnerable groups were targeted, other groups were ignored.
A significant way to address the problem of inequality with children was carried out in the education department. 'In relation to both truancy and school exclusions, the government will produce statistics and targets at both school and local authority district level... teachers' unions have once again expressed their concern, particularly because targets as in the past, tend to 'ignore the varying circumstances of schools''. (Labour Research 1998: 24)1
There are other areas of Social Exclusion that have increased more than before, especially in the areas of unemployment, housing and income, mainly regarding asylum seekers. What is somewhat surprising is that in the case of asylum seekers, these strategies and policies were reversed. The rights of asylum seekers were reduced. "The rhetoric of New Labour highlights some issues at the same time as excluding others from the political agenda", (Janie Percy-Smith, 2002).
What New Labour was noticed to have done was miss out and avoid certain terms when discussing Social Exclusion. One such term was 'redistribution'. The Government is alleged to prefer talking about Social Exclusion rather than Social Inequality. Theories of poverty and Social Exclusion represent the intolerable face of inequality in terms of the experience of them that are the most deprived by them. This enables the attention to be removed from the other side of inequality, the large incomes and wealth that is possessed and enjoyed by a certain portion of the population. "The government has reinforced this acceptance of the overall structure of inequality with its commitment not to raise personal taxes and to remain for two years within the budgeted spending limits laid down by the previous Conservative government", (Townsend, 1998).
Professor John Hills, the Director of the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, has claimed that the New Labour policies to eradicate Social Exclusion although have not succeeded, have definitely made an impact in reducing Social Exclusion from society. Professor John Hills claims that, "however, it does not follow that policy has already succeeded, or that Britain has yet become a more equal society. In virtually all of the areas discussed there is still a very long way to go to reach an unambiguous picture of success. Sustained and imaginative effort will be needed to make further progress and to reach groups not touched by policy so far."
Many definitions of social Exclusion are not accurate, one such definition is that given by the SEU. The aims that the New Labour set forth were to try and reduce truancy and school exclusions, street sleepers and to try and develop "integrated and sustainable approaches to the problems of the worst housing estates, including crime, drugs, unemployment, community breakdown, bad schools", (SEU, 1998). What the New Labour wanted was to put forward interventions with children and all the aspects of Social Exclusions that affect ethnic minority groups. New Labour considered different ways in which to try and improve access to services for poor localities and poor individuals. New Labour has been criticized for focusing on the wrong things. New Labour was said to concentrate on deprivation as opposed to Exclusion. This can be seen in the way that New Labour concentrates on 'Rough Sleeping' as opposed to Homelessness, this shows more of a concern for Social Order.
There are a number of key areas that are under examination when one is discussing Social Exclusion.
) Child Poverty. New Labour have tried to reduce Social Exclusion by introducing Tax and benefit changes to ensure that children that are living in poverty, through these benefits live in more improved circumstances. Although the levels of child poverty are not as high as before, they are still higher than the average for the European Union.
2) Working Age Poverty. Poverty amongst the working age has only slightly fallen slightly since 1997 and has increased amongst those families without children. The employment strategies have been successful so that registered unemployment levels have fallen, however, many people are still dependant upon benefits with 'fixed values'.
3) Pensioner Poverty. The changes that have been brought about by the benefits for pensioners ensures that pensioners are not living in near poverty anymore.
4) Income Equality. This was one area that the New Labour Government was not much interested in and this can be seen as the figures for Income Equality have neither risen nor fallen since 1997. However, it can be said that if the tax and benefit system had not been changed than the inequality gap would have been greater.
5) Employment. Long-term registered unemployment has been at its lowest in Europe.
6) Education. The class sizes have fallen with the literacy and numeracy strategies in primary schools evaluated. The achievements in these schools have vastly improved, with the more poorer schools showing the greatest improvements. However, social class difference has worsened in terms of university access.
7) Health. The Health Inequalities have been a major cause of concern for the Government and the strategy of allocating NHS resources equally between the different areas has become more better tuned to the needs of disadvantaged societies. All the other strategies that have been introduced have all been rather vague or then limited. It is not yet possible to correctly measure the positive impact that some strategies have had on reducing Health Inequalities, but there does seem to be a gap that is narrowing between the social groups.
8) Poor Neighbourhoods. Research has shown that services and key indicators in the more poorer localities are improving to such an extent that the gap with the other better areas is starting to narrow. Despite this progress, there is still significant differences between the poorer and richer localities, and not all the poorer localities are improving.
9) Ethnic Inequalities. Despite the many different strategies that have been set up by the New Labour to try diminish Ethnic Inequalities, Ethnic Inequalities still remain quite high in many dimensions, with big differences in the different minority groups. Regardless of this, there has still been a lot of evidence that these strategies have made some difference.
0) Vulnerable Groups. There have been a number of strategies and policies that have been put forth by the New Labour to try and tackle problems amongst different vulnerable groups. These groups included children that were at risk from school exclusion and street sleepers. There were many groups that were not included in these strategies to try and reduce Social Exclusion, these groups were pensioners and disabled children.
Dr Kitty Stewart said that, 'more generally, there is no overall strategy for 'poverty proofing' policies to ensure that action for tackling social exclusion is treated as a mainstream priority in every area of government.'
There is inadequate work that has been carried out on the area of Social Exclusion that lacks precision. The reason for this is that data that has been gathered is not always appropriate or not all the areas of Social Exclusion have political implications, therefore not being of much interest to politicians. It is argued by many that politicians use Social Exclusion as a scapegoat to try and avoid larger issues such as poverty, which is not always tied in with Social Exclusion. By targeting selected groups that suffer from Social Exclusion politicians can claim success in reducing Social Exclusion without actually addressing issues regarding poverty and inequality that affect a large portion of the population.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
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Janie Percy-Smith. (2002). Policy Responses to Social Exclusion, Towards Inclusion.
SEU, 1997.
Social Exclusion Unit (1998). Bringing Britain Together: A National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal, Cm 4045. London: The Stationery Office.
Ruth Levitas. Measuring Social Exclusion: A Critical Overview of Current Proposals.
Cooper, M., Pettit, E., and Clibbens, J. (1998) Evaluation of a nursery based language intervention in a socially disadvantaged area. International Journey of Language and Communication Disorders, 33 (supplement): 526-31.
Labour Research (1998) Absent from the roll call, 87(October): 21-2
