'In work, better off': A Response to the Green Paper from Gingerbread

October 2007

In work, better off[PDF, 145KB]

Introduction

One Parent Families|Gingerbread (the two charities recently merged) is the national charity representing the 1.9 million lone parents and their three million children in Britain. The charity aims to tackle the poverty, stigma and social exclusion still faced by too many one-parent families today.

The charity campaigns actively on policy issues, runs a help and advice line, and runs training and back to work programmes for lone parents.

We receive an average of around 20,000 calls a year from lone parents, on a wide range of issues including benefits and tax credits, child maintenance, employment, housing, and family law.

We also run the lone parent strand of Marks & Spencer’s Marks & Start programme, providing training and work experience to help lone parents gain paid work.

We welcome the opportunity to respond to ‘In work, better off’ and the constructive engagement we have had with the Department for Work and Pensions during the consultation period.

However, we remain opposed to the most significant proposal in the Green Paper, that is to ask lone parents to claim Jobseeker’s Allowance when their youngest children reach 12 from 2008, and seven from 2010.

We believe that ‘it would be wrong simply to move lone parents from income support onto the Jobseeker’s Allowance regime: an unrestricted requirement to search for work is inappropriate given the complex and difficult circumstances many lone parents face. We think such an approach
would expensive, unfair and ineffectual.

This was also the view of the Department for Work and Pensions in 2005, and we do not see good reasons for this to have radically altered.

Issues covered:

1. Lone parents, paid work and family life

2. Helping lone parents to access employment: what works?
   Progress to date in Britain
   Evidence from abroad
   Evidence from the UK

3. What further support is needed?

4. Problems with the regime proposed

5. A more constructive approach

6. Specific consultation questions


Formed from the merger of the National Council for One Parent Families and Gingerbread.	Search:
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