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Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) is a UK charity that works to alleviate poverty and social exclusion.
The Group first met on 5 March 1965, at a meeting organised by Harriett C. Wilson. [1] It followed the publication of Brian Abel-Smith and Peter Townsend's work Poor and the Poorest: both men were founding members of the Group.
At the second meeting one of the points raised was "That although increased family allowance might be the simplest and most equitable way of overcoming the poverty of large families, there was likely to be considerable difficulties in bringing about a change of this kind, partly because of the fear that this would tend to encourage people to have large families."
One of its first actions was to send a letter to the Prime Minister, on 22 December 1965, signed by a number of distinguished public figure, which stated:
"The signatories of this letter would probably not all agree on the precise details of a scheme for reform: we are agreed, however, that action should be taken to achieve a radical improvement in the standard of living of families in poverty and we wish to bring this memorandum to your attention. We ask that the present arrangements for family allowances and the allowances for children be reconsidered and revised, and that bigger direct allowances be paid in respect of children in the poorest families." [2]
Tony Lynes was the first full-time secretary of the Group in 1966. Frank Field served as Director of the Group from 1969–1979 and was followed by Ruth Lister (1979-1987) and Fran Bennett, and later by Kate Green (2004-2009).
CPAG programmes include:
The welfare state of the United Kingdom began to evolve in the 1900s and early 1910s, and comprises expenditures by the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland intended to improve health, education, employment and social security. The British system has been classified as a liberal welfare state system.
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance programs which provide support only to those who have previously contributed, as opposed to social assistance programs which provide support on the basis of need alone. The International Labour Organization defines social security as covering support for those in old age, support for the maintenance of children, medical treatment, parental and sick leave, unemployment and disability benefits, and support for sufferers of occupational injury.
National Insurance (NI) is a fundamental component of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It acts as a form of social security, since payment of NI contributions establishes entitlement to certain state benefits for workers and their families.
Welfare reforms are changes in the operation of a given welfare system, with the goals of reducing the number of individuals dependent on government assistance, keeping the welfare systems affordable, and assisting recipients to become self-sufficient. Classical liberals, libertarians, and conservatives generally argue that welfare and other tax-funded services reduce incentives to work, exacerbate the free-rider problem, and intensify poverty. On the other hand, socialists generally criticize welfare reform because it usually minimizes the public safety net and strengthens the capitalist economic system. Welfare reform is constantly debated because of the varying opinions on the government's determined balance of providing guaranteed welfare benefits and promoting self-sufficiency.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is a United Kingdom government department of His Majesty's Government responsible for welfare, pensions and child maintenance policy. As the UK's biggest public service department it administers the State Pension and a range of working age, disability and ill health benefits to around 20 million claimants and customers. It is the second largest governmental department in terms of employees, and the largest in terms of expenditure (£187bn).
In 2004, the New Zealand Labour government introduced the Working for Families package as part of the 2004 budget. The package, which effectively commenced operating on 1 April 2005, had three primary aims: to make work pay; to ensure income adequacy; and to support people "into work".
Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) is a non-profit political advocacy group with the goal of eliminating Child poverty in New Zealand. It has used evidence-based research to develop public positions on the root causes of poverty and advocates at a governmental level for the prioritisation of children's needs in policy and funding. Between 2002 and 2013, the group was involved in a long-running legal dispute with the New Zealand Government about how tax policies impacted the rights of children.
Poverty in the United Kingdom refers to the portion of the population of the United Kingdom that are considered to be in poverty under some measures of poverty.
Social security, in Australia, refers to a system of social welfare payments provided by Australian Government to eligible Australian citizens, permanent residents, and limited international visitors. These payments are almost always administered by Centrelink, a program of Services Australia. In Australia, most payments are means tested.
Welfare rights means the rights of people to be aware of and receive their maximum entitlement to state welfare benefits, and to be treated reasonably well by the welfare system. It has been established in the United Kingdom since 1969 and has also been developed in other countries including Ireland, Australia and the United States. It became necessary because of the complexity of the UK social security system and had links at the time with a growing Claimants Union movement. As local authorities realized the advantages of having well-informed front-line staff such as housing officers and social workers, who often have to deal with benefit queries as part of their wider tasks, they turned to welfare rights staff to provide that expertise for both training and handling complex cases. In the 1980s, as local authorities took on the wider 'equalities' agenda, anti-poverty work was seen as a valid local activity in itself. Increasing benefit income helps individuals but also boosts the local economy.
Welfare in France includes all systems whose purpose is to protect people against the financial consequences of social risks.
Universal Credit is a United Kingdom social security payment. It is means-tested and is replacing and combining six benefits for working-age households with a low income: income-related Employment and Support Allowance, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, and Income Support; Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit; and Housing Benefit. An award of UC is made up of different elements, which become payable to the claimant if relevant criteria apply: a standard allowance for singles or couples, child elements and disabled child elements for children in the household, housing cost element, childcare costs element, as well as elements for being a carer or having an illness or disability and therefore having limited capability to work.
The Welfare Reform Act 2012 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom which makes changes to the rules concerning a number of benefits offered within the British social security system. It was enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 8 March 2012.
Child benefits in the United Kingdom are a series of welfare payments and tax credits made to parents with children in the UK, a major part of the welfare state.
Tony Lynes was a British writer and campaigner in the field of social security and pensions.
Guardian's allowance is a payment under the United Kingdom system of Social Security.
New Zealand suffers from one of the worst rates of child poverty in the Western world. Child poverty affects 1 in 5, or roughly 210,500 children in New Zealand, as of the year ended June 2020 according to Statistics New Zealand. The number in 2011 was 285,000, as reported by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG). As inequality increased during the mid-2010s, this figure increased to an estimated 295,000 children in 2016, which constituted one in six children in New Zealand. Child poverty has a disproportionately high effect on in Māori and Pasifika households, with a quarter (23.3%) of Māori children and almost a third (28.6%) of Pacific children living in poverty. These two ethnic groups struggle particularly due to the lingering effects of forced land alienation and immigration discrimination respectively. The Ministry of Social Development recognises that:
Poverty in the richer nations is about relative disadvantage—it is about households and individuals who have a day-to-day standard of living or access to resources that fall below a minimum acceptable community standard.
A Claimants Union is a grassroots organisation based on self-help and mutual support to enable those entitled to welfare benefits to make successful claims for that benefit. They were particularly prevalent in the United Kingdom following the establishment of the British welfare state. A claimant, in the context of insurance, is a policyholder who files a claim or formal request for payment from their insurer to cover a specific loss. https://www.insuranceopedia.com/definition/280/claimant
Social Security Scotland is an executive agency of the Scottish Government with responsibility for social security provision.
Harriett Charlotte Wilson was a British sociologist and activist born in Germany. She was a founder of the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), and served as its vice-chair for 15 years.