Policy Library

The government has changed but the challenges haven’t.

This report outlines seven policy areas sitting in the new Government’s in-tray that will demand their immediate attention. Some of these are urgent and recent, such as overflowing prisons and children missing from school. Others follow longer term trends, such as the decline in family stability and rise in economic inactivity.

But all of them are important and in five years’ time the public will once again have the chance to judge this Government on their progress in these areas.

The Centre for Social Justice has been researching and advocating for the most disadvantaged individuals in society for 20 years and believes that none of the challenges we face are intractable. In fact, alongside each of the problems presented here are deliverable solutions, informed by data, expertise, and most importantly the hundreds of grassroots poverty-fighting charities with whom we work.

Five years is a long time in politics, but as days turn to weeks, turn to months, it will go fast, and if we are going to see the results of any action, that action needs to begin today. There will be trade-offs and tough choices, but if this Government can demonstrate improvements in these areas, they may just be trusted with five years more:

1. Economic inactivity
   1. Deliver the “into work guarantee”
   2. Roll out Universal Support
   3. Devolve employment services and adult education
2. Family poverty and instability
   1. Give parents choice with a family credit
   2. Make tax allowances fully transferrable, frontload child benefit, and pay childcare in cash.
3. Crime and Justice – Prisons
   1. Introduce a new form of sentence – the Intensive Control and Rehabilitation Order
   2. Restore control, order, and hope to the prison estate
4. Crime and Justice – Police
   1. Ensure stop and search remains part of the wider toolkit of violence reduction
   2. Use Redirect methods against knife and firearm searches online
   3. Make cuckooing a criminal offence
5. Ghost Children
   1. Role out attendance mentors nationally
   2. Create a national parental participation strategy
   3. Roll out family hubs nationally
   4. Invest in school sport and youth clubs
6. Housing
   1. Ban no fault evictions
   2. Roll out Housing First nationally
7. Better service delivery
   1. Engage small charities in service delivery