Recommendation 10

The Government legislated for the statutory monitoring of worklessness and educational attainment indicators in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. It reports performance against these indicators as part of a wider set of ‘Helping Workless Families’ indicators. The Government argued that indicators of worklessness and educational attainment directed attention towards the underlying causes of child poverty. Measures of worklessness and educational attainment are certainly useful as part of a wider framework which assesses the causes and consequences of income poverty. But they are not a substitute for measuring poverty. Moreover, we know that most children in income poverty are in working households. We also know that family circumstances and income poverty have a significant impact on educational outcomes.