Brown offers families cash incentives to help children
Gordon Brown calls for accelerated social mobility change
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Monday, 23, Jun 2008 09:27
Gordon Brown said low-income families will receive about £200 in grants to improve the health and social development of their children.
In a speech to an educational audience, the prime minister said: "Together we can create a Britain where instead of talent wasted, effort unrewarded, enterprise stifled and potential unfulfilled, we see effort praised, ambition fulfilled, potential realised. A new era of prosperity for Britain - shared by us all and inherited by all our children.
"Raising social mobility is a national crusade," Mr Brown added.
Measures also announced in the speech include an expansion of nursery places to two-year-olds in disadvantaged areas; new Children's Centres with free childcare for low income families; and the Teach First programme that aims to attract the best graduates into teaching.
The speech also included an attack on Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher's record on social mobility. Mr Brown said a "lost generation" has been created among "Thatcher's children".
It comes amid a raft of government announcements on related issues. The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will be making an announcement on child poverty, while the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) will make an announcement on adult skills.
Clare Tickell, chief executive of NCH, the children's charity said: "Offering low-income families financial incentives in return for supporting their families' development, will be equally important in nurturing emotional wellbeing.
"To succeed, these plans must transcend a purely financial 'solution'. We need provisions to support the hardest to reach groups of society – such as families with disabled children and those from ethnic minorities.
"Local services must identify and engage with all families, and work with them according to their individual needs. Only then can we have a truly fair and equal society."