Posted: 07.04.2008

The Office for National Statistics report stating that the quarter of children brought up in lone parent families face poor housing and low incomes was no surprise to One Parent Families Scotland. We were set up back in 1944 to fight for equality for children of unmarried parents. Although the legal stigma of illegitimacy has gone, the struggle for equal opportunities continues.

The UK Government solution to poverty is to pressure lone parents to seek employment by requiring lone parents with a youngest child aged 12 to move to Job Seeker's Allowance in November, and for those with a child aged 10 to make this move in October 09 and aged 7 in October 2010. This ignores evidence internationally that compulsion is not productive and is more likely to result in disadvantaged families being even more stressed and poor. It also ignores the ample evidence from Scotland's Working for Families of how effective a programme of flexible individual support given to families engaging voluntarily can be. Staff working on this have described it as one of their most rewarding jobs as they watched families overcome disadvantage and move on in their lives. In this the aim was to achieve progress into education or employment, recognising that many families urgently needed to improve their qualifications before they could obtain sustainable jobs. Under the UK Government plans the focus will only be on work and parents will not be able to pursue significant qualifications.

The other major difficulty with employment is the shortage of accessible affordable childcare. In England the Childcare Act introduced a legal obligation on local authorities to ensure availability of childcare for all parents in employment or education, including those whose children have special needs. In Scotland there is no comparable requirement on local authorities. We have developed very flexible successful childcare@home services which meet the needs of parents working unsocial hours, but our Scottish Government support for their development has just been lost.

Another Scottish initiative which has not received UK recognition was one piloted in Glasgow allowing lone parents to do degree level qualifications but remain on benefits. Normally lone parents are required to move from Income Support to student loan finance and lose Housing benefit except in the summer. As a result they come out of university with the highest levels of student debt, may struggle for good salaries and have a shorter period to pay back debt before their own children may need their support in education. We would like to see the Glasgow initiative rolled out elsewhere, particularly given the forthcoming pressure toward employment.

Failures of child maintenance enforcement is another contributory factor in lone parent poverty. The UK Government is now on its third redesign of the system - one of the worst performances in the world. The new system will put the onus on parents to reach their own agreements and is very likely to result in lone parents opting for better family relationships at the expense of lower maintenance.

With all the changes in Government policies and services at a UK and Scottish level lone parents need help to keep up. The Lone Parent free helpline (0808-801-0323) offers confidential advice on all the issues lone parents face including individual benefit calculations.

Sue Robertson, One Parent Families Scotland

Edinburgh Evening News version of this article