The Government is committed to releasing a child poverty strategy later this year. As part of this, Ministers will want to consider how best parental employment can help boost family incomes. But the mid-2020s present a different landscape for child poverty and parental employment from when the last Labour Government crafted its child poverty strategy. Since the mid-2000s, the employment rate of lone mothers has risen from 52 to 66 per cent, and the fraction of mothers living with a partner who are doing
paid work has risen from 69 to 77 per cent. This is good news. But many of the families in poverty and not in paid work today face significant barriers to work: half have a child aged under five; three-in-ten have three or more children; just under half have an adult with a disability or long-standing limiting health condition; and just under three-in-ten have a child with a disability.

This report provides findings from the evaluation of the Household Support Fund 4 (HSF4), conducted on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions. The HSF4 was the fourth iteration of the HSF, which provided low income and vulnerable households with support towards the cost of essentials, such as food and energy.

This report sets out the nature of poverty in the UK in the run-up to 2024’s General Election. It also sets out the scale of action necessary for the Government to deliver the change it has promised.

The government spent billions on support to help households with their energy bills in 2022–23. Could a better-designed package have saved money?

Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVAs) are a type of fee-charging debt solution, widely marketed to people with unmanageable debts. Whilst in some circumstances an IVA will be the most appropriate debt solution for someone’s situation, they are risky remedies that attach high fees, and where people are unable to keep up with repayments they can fail leaving people in a worse position than they started.