http://www.ippr.org.uk/press/index.php?release=332

[full report can be downloaded]

A decade of tackling poverty, but Britain's far from a fair society

2nd August Ten years after its groundbreaking Commission on Social Justice,
set up at the request of the late John Smith, the Institute for Public
Policy Research (ippr) is today (Mon 2) publishing an audit of social
injustice. It forms the first part of ippr's work on Rethinking Social
Justice, a project which assesses how Britain has changed since the 1994
Commission and sets out new policy directions for the decade ahead.

ippr's 'state of the nation' assessment says the Government has been:

good on poverty but not so good on inequality; better on income inequality
than on wealth inequality; helped working parents but done less for poor
people without children; and cut crime but the poorest are still more
likely to suffer crime and the fear of crime. The report says that Britain
has become fairer in the last ten years, with increased employment rates
and the commitment to reducing child poverty having so far been successful.
The nation is healthier, living longer and experiencing far less crime than
a decade ago. But the report says Britain is still far from being a fair
and just society. Parental social class and ethnicity still heavily
influence life-chances, whilst democratic participation is falling and
political influence is polarising according to class and wealth. Women
continue to be more likely to live in poverty while the percentage of
wealth held by the wealthiest 10 per cent of the population has increased
from 47 per cent to 54 per cent over the last ten years.

The final report will be published in November. As well as looking at John
Smith's original challenges of 'poverty', 'prosperity and inequality' and
'social mobility and life chances', it will cover democratic and civic
participation, crime, migration and the challenges posed by advances in
genetic science.

ippr Director, Nick Pearce, said:

"Despite the boldness of its pledge to eradicate child poverty and the
expansion of investment in public services, the Government does not
consistently articulate and publicly advocate a fairer, more equal Britain.
It has often achieved social justice objectives by stealth. It should now
try and do the same for fairness and equality as it has done for public
services and shift the terms of political debate.

"The next five years are likely to be politically critical. To achieve firm
foundations for a 'progressive century', the Government needs to lead
public debate more firmly in a progressive direction; to explain, justify
and secure support for social justice. It has an historic opportunity, not
just to consolidate its achievements, but also to set a course towards
lasting social and economic change."

Notes to Editors

ippr's Social Justice 10 point factfile:

Since 1997, the richest have continued to get richer. The richest 1 percent
of the population has increased its share of national income from around 6
per cent in 1980 to 13 per cent in 1999. In terms of income, we live in a
10 - 89 - 1 society. Inequality in disposable income (after taxes and
benefits are accounted for), appears to have slightly increased since 1997
after significant increases in the 1980s. The Gini coefficient has
increased from 33 in 1996/97 to 36 in 2001/02 (the Gini coefficient is a
number between 0 and 100, where 0 means perfect equality and 100 means
perfect inequality, i.e. one household has all of a society's income).
Wealth distribution is more unequal than income distribution, and has
continued to get more unequal in the last decade. Between 1990 and 2000 the
percentage of wealth held by the wealthiest 10 per cent of the population
increased from 47 per cent to 54 per cent. In 1998 the UK had the highest
child poverty rate in the European Union, but by 2001 the UK ranked 11th
out of the 15 European Union nations on child poverty rates. Yet compared
to the best performing European countries the UK still has a poor record.
In 2001 - the last year for which international figures are available - 23
per cent of children in Britain were living in households earning below 60
per cent of median income, compared to just 5 per cent in Denmark, 10 per
cent in Sweden, 14 per cent in Germany. Working-age adults without children
constitute an 'unfavoured group', who have not benefited from government
policy. In 1994 they constituted 25 per cent of people in poverty. By
2002/03 this had increased to 31 per cent. Although the gender pay gap has
narrowed only very slow progress has been made since 1994. In 1994 women in
full time work earned on average 79.5 per cent of what men earned, by 2003
this had only increased to 82 per cent. For part-time work the pay gap is
even wider: in 1998 women earned only 59.1 per cent of what men earned, by
2003 this had only slightly increased to 60.4 percent. Intergenerational
social mobility appears to have declined. One survey on social mobility
found only a gradual increase between 1972 and 1992, before a decline in
the period up to 1997. Sons born to fathers from the richest fifth of the
population in 1958 earned, on average, 13 per cent more than those from the
bottom fifth of the population. In comparison, sons born to wealthy fathers
in 1970 earned 37 per cent more then their poorer contemporaries. People
from a professional background remain over two times as likely to end up
professionals, as someone from a manual background. Interest in politics
has fallen slightly across all social classes, but there is a growing class
divide. Between 1991 and 1999 for social classes D and E interest in
politics halved. The poorest continue to be more likely to suffer from
crime and the fear of crime. Around 4.8 per cent of individuals earning
under £5,000 a year were burgled in 2003/4 compared with approximately 2.7
per cent of those earning over £30,000. Deprived communities suffer the
worse effects of environmental degradation. Industrial sites are
disproportionately located in deprived areas: in 2003, there were five
times as many sites in the wards containing the most deprived 10 per cent
of the population, and seven times as many emission sources, than in wards
with the least deprived 10 per cent.

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