Cabinet minister for social exclusion
The Guardian is reporting that there is going to be one. One the one hand I’m sceptical, as it sounds a bit of a gimmick; but on the other hand, if it ends the nonsense of answers to parliamentary questions about child poverty (for example) being thrown back at the questioner with a curt “ending child poverty is the responsibility of the department of work and pensions”, it might be useful in terms of adding clout to the agenda across Whitehall.
There’s been a Social Justice Minister on the Scottish Exec for years (and poss in Wales too), and as far as i remember works quite well. Given that tackling poverty and inequality is what got most of us into the Labour Party, it’s high time we gave it a Cabinet level post to focus on it. Especially as we are going to have to go some to hit the next set of Child Poverty targets.
Adam - as you say, the reason we’re Labour is about ending poverty and social exclusion. Our record is good, but it needs to be far far better, and that requires more redistributive policies, and an awareness that work is a lot of the solution, but not all of it - something like half of children in poverty are in households where at least one person is working. If the new post is about being brave and hitting the target of ending child poverty in a generation, then great; if it’s about window dressing, then I’m not interested.
I thought the Guardian comment that “social exclusion” was a mealy-mouthed way of saying “poverty” was a bit of a nonsense - ending social exclusion is about far more than ending poverty for poor people now, of course - it’s about stopping people getting into poverty in the future, by eliminating the conditions for it.
I agree- I thing part of this proposed move is to give the Social exclusion unit someone to report to. Currently lots of well meaning cross-departmental committees that tackle different aspects of social exclusion issues but there must be stuff that slips through the net without one person whose job solely depends on us reducing social exclusion. If the govt performs poorly then the new minister will be the one with their head on the block, rather than an buck passing exercise between DWP, The Treasury, DFES, Health, ODPM………..ad in fin.
In many respects it will be a thankless task with a lot of laborious detailed and locally focused work, below the media radar, only getting notice when they will have to pop-up and call for difficult measures that piss off the Tory press. I agree there may be elements of need to get Hazel into the Cabinet (and I agree we do!) and sort the vacant Duchy of Lancaster but it could have some real positive effects.
There is a Social Justice and Regeneration minister in Wales, Edwina Hart.
As Antonia points out social exclusion is not just about poverty it covers a variety of things but is largely connected to poverty or causes of poverty. The problem with having a Cabinet position for this is that it is too wide a brief. If someone where to have this job they would need to have some control over every single department because social inclusion requires a join-up policy approach which is achievable only through different departments working together. Thus this cabinet member would need to know about social exclusion issues in health, education, housing, communities, benefits and un/employment to start with. S/he would also need to know about other areas of social exclusion from ICT to public transport to access to financial services etc. Any social exclusion role would, in reality, be powerless because no department would be willing to give power away to another minister and nor would Secretary of States be willing to have to change their own ideas to fit in with what social exclusion minister would want especially if the two saw different methods as being capable of tackling social exclusion. Therefore this post would likely be given matters or relatively small effect.
The main aspect of this role would be to ensure that all departments work together and don’t produce policy which counteract each other or let people slip through the safety net. However I have always saw this as the role of the PM because it’s his/her government and s/he should be ensuring that when the departments need to work together they do so.
I forgot to say that the Social Exclusion Unit is now under the ODPM so they report to Prescott whereas they reported to the PM at first.
Yay! They are copying me.
Dan xxx
p.s. This presumably replaces International Development as the Best Job in the Cabinet.
p.p.s. Please don’t let Hazel Blears do it.
I reckon it does! And I don’t want Hazel to get it, she’d be better getting a respect job.
Or possibly being fed to the lions for entertainment purposes?