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The Fabian Life Chances and Child Poverty Commission ran from 2004 to 2006. Its final report, 'Narrowing the Gap', has had a substantial impact on policy and political debate about inequality, and the interim report, 'What does the public really think about poverty?' was praised for its innovative deliberative research into public attitudes. The Fabian Society has held a number of major events to debate the Commission's report and is now developing the work of the Commission through further research, publications and events.
The Commission was launched in March 2004. Its terms of reference were as follows:
The Commission's aim was to make a major contribution to the future development of the Government's strategy to end child poverty and to reframe the public debate on this issue. Using a 'life chances' framework, the research will consider both practical policy solutions to child poverty, as well as the more theoretical underpinnings of the strategy. The focus was on some or all of the following: aspirations, health and wellbeing, occupation, education, environmental quality, security and safety, and the ability to make decisions about one's own life. An important part of the project will be to explore the experience and views of poor families themselves.
The Commission was to address specifically:
- Ways of conceptualising and measuring child poverty, within a life chances framework: what do poverty, equality and mobility mean in contemporary Britain?
- The character and performance of existing anti-poverty interventions: is the Government's strategy appropriate for the challenge?
- The experience of other European countries in addressing child poverty: are there lessons to be learned from abroad?
- Ways in which the stated aim of ending child poverty can best be achieved: what more needs to be done to meet the Prime Minister's ambitious target?
Members of the Commission:
- Lord Adebowale, Independent peer and Chief Executive of Turning Point.
- Fran Bennett,senior research fellow at the Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Oxford.
- Ruth Cadbury, Chair-Elect of the Barrow Cadbury Trust and an Executive Councillor in the London Borough of Hounslow.
- Richard Exell, OBE, Senior Policy Officer at the TUC and a member of the Disability Rights Commission and of the Social Security Advisory Committee.
- Ruth Lister, CBE, Professor of Social Policy at Loughborough University, a member of the Commission on Social Justice and a former director of the Child Poverty Action Group.
- David Piachaud, Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics.
- Aftab Rahman, Community Cohesion Co-ordinator at the Government Office for the West Midlands and a former development manager for the Bangladeshi Youth Forum.
- Andrew Robinson, Head of Community Development Banking at NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland.
- Peter Townsend, Professor of International Social Policy, LSE, President of the Child Poverty Action Group and Vice-President of the Fabian Society.
- Polly Toynbee, columnist with the Guardian newspaper and author of Hard Work – Life in Low-Pay Britain.
The Secretariat to the Commission were Louise Bamfield, Richard Brooks and Sadia Haider of the Fabian Society staff.
Publications
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