Single mothers with three-year-olds may have to seek work

By Andrew Grice, Political Editor

(Privilieged Champion)

Published: 06 March 2007

Single mothers could be forced to seek work when their youngest child reaches the age of three, or face benefit cuts under wide-ranging government plans to reform the welfare state.







At present, lone parents do not have to make efforts to find jobs until their youngest child is 16. That is expected to be reduced to 12 from next year under proposals by David Freud, an investment banker who reviewed the Government's welfare-to-work strategy.







Mr Freud said that Britain could eventually shift to a Scandinavian-style system where single mothers have to seek work when their youngest child is three. Ministers admitted that was only a long-term idea, but suggested the age could be lowered from 12 in stages as Labour honours its pledge to provide all-day child care from 8am-6pm from 2010.







If they did not try to find at least a part-time job, lone parents would face the same sanctions as the unemployed, who can lose benefits for refusing to attend job interviews or training.







Other elements in the Freud review include an expansion of the role of private and voluntary groups to help "hard to reach" jobless people back into work through one-to-one counselling. They will be paid a bonus if someone remains in work for three years, but trade unions criticised the "part-privatisation" of the benefits system and warned that jobs would be lost.







Another controversial proposal is for stricter tests for new claimants for incapacity benefit. The partners of the unemployed would face similar pressure to find work.







Gordon Brown, who is expected to become prime minister this summer, promised to "champion" the reforms set out in the Freud report and said they would be taken forward in his Budget in two weeks' time and a government-wide spending review this summer. The Chancellor launched the report yesterday along with Tony Blair and John Hutton, the Work and Pensions Secretary, in a clear signal that he would continue the reforms.







Mr Brown signalled a drive to prevent teenagers slipping through the net when they leave school. The 16-25 year-old age group could be offered special allowances, but they would lose them if they did not go into training, work or full-time education.







Mr Hutton said looking for work when a child reached the age of 12 was a "perfectly reasonable starting point", adding that there was a case for progressively reducing the age even further in the future.







But the plans have run into immediate controversy. Chris Pond, chief executive of One Parent Families, said: "Taking a strong-arm approach to these parents would be wholly counter-productive, intensifying the pressures on them while deterring those lone parents who are work-ready from coming forward for the excellent voluntary, New Deal scheme."





The Freud review recommendations







* JOBS







To achieve the Government's "extremely challenging" target of an 80 per cent employment rate, it should help get 1.3 million of the 3.1 million people who have been on benefits for more than a year into work - including 300,000 of the 780,000 lone parents on income support and one million of the 2.68 million people on incapacity benefit.







* PROVIDERS







Jobcentre Plus, the Government's network, should focus on the easier-to-place jobless while private firms and voluntary groups should tackle the hard-to-reach groups such as the long-term unemployed, who often suffer multiple deprivation and need one-to-one support.







* LONE PARENTS







The report's author, David Freud, said that "work is an escalator out of poverty" for single mothers. He proposed that they should have to seek work when their youngest child is 12, rather than 16 as at present, and said the age could be gradually reduced to as low as three. He cited the system in Denmark and Sweden, where the rate in effect is three but there is greater child care provision.







* SICK AND DISABLED







Stricter tests for new claimants of incapacity benefit should gradually be extended to all 2.68million people on the benefit. The system requires people capable of some work to take up job or training opportunities.

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