A clear message on social justice
Yesterday saw the launch of the government’s social justice strategy, Social Justice: transforming lives; described by Iain Duncan Smith as “setting out our vision for those who do not have a foot on the first rung – our vision for the most disadvantaged individuals and families.”
Crucially for Revolving Doors, this strategy focuses on individuals as well as families. We had watched the development of the work on families with multiple problems with interest and had focused our lobbying, for example in my speech to members of parliament in September and in later discussion with officials, on ensuring that individuals with multiple needs would be included within the scope of the government’s social justice work.
Of course in large parts, the strategy rightly focuses on early intervention and support for families and children. But it recognises that this “cannot be a panacea” and talks about the importance of “second chances” when lives go off course.
Chapter 4 on supporting the most disadvantaged adults describes “people experiencing entrenched problems like homelessness or sustained substance dependency” whose “problems combine and compound one another … individuals can struggle to access the right support … become socially excluded, living chaotic lives”. This is the core of the case we have been making and its inclusion in this paper is a major step forward.
If you had told me a year ago that I would be holding a copy of a cross-departmental strategy which has such a strong focus on people facing multiple needs I would have said you were even more wildly optimistic about the prospects for change than I usually am! With the winding down of the Social Exclusion Task Force and work on Resolving Multiple Disadvantage, it was very unclear whether the Coalition would take forward the understanding of deep exclusion that had started to emerge under the last government.
We saw a growing number of departments make statements recognising the interrelated nature of offending, mental health, substance misuse and homelessness and the prime minister making a commitment to turn around the lives of 120,000 “problem families” with multiple needs. But the idea of having a government strategy that drew all these together felt a long way off.
In September last year, we published Turning the Tide: A vision paper for multiple needs and exclusions with the Making Every Adult Matter coalition. This set out our vision that in every local area people experiencing multiple needs and exclusions are supported by effective, coordinated services, with small teams helping people access the support they need and all agencies being flexible in their responses to this group. It argued that a new approach is needed from national government to make this the norm and sets out five building blocks for this new approach. At the launch we were encouraged when Oliver Letwin MP, the minister for government policy, agreed that the government would consider extending its focus to individuals as well as families.
The first of the building blocks set out in Turning the Tide was: “Communicating a clear message that tackling multiple needs and exclusions is a government priority.” We said the prime minister should make a clear statement that tackling multiple needs and exclusions is a priority for government, and the government should develop a top-level strategy for multiple needs and exclusions to support this commitment.
We recognise it’s early days, but yesterday was undoubtedly a crucial day for us in many ways. The prime minister had an appointment with a special friend across the pond, but the secretary of state for work and pensions has made this clear statement.
And as he chairs the cross departmental social justice cabinet committee which signed off the strategy, we can be confident that this is cross-government strategy.
At the launch the strategy was described as the start of a conversation. It sets out the “government’s commitment to coordinated approaches to support for people facing multiple disadvantages”, recognising that “more can be done to support those who are least well served by current approaches.”
We will be working with the government and other partners to explore how the positive words in the strategy can be turned into real change on the ground.
There is still a long way to go, but the strategy is an important step forward, and I can’t help but be excited that we now have a government statement which so explicitly recognises the need to improve responses to people facing multiple needs and exclusions.
