Social policy, children and families: continuity and change

Abstract

We demonstrate this continuity with change through an initial review of Labour’s 2024 manifesto with its priorities for child and family policies, and its digital transformation agenda. Subsequent sections of the chapter review the developments in Labour’s early period in office, considering aspects of change and continuity in areas of state support and intervention concerning children, parents and families. We begin by considering the government’s digital transformation ambitions and its intensification of ‘the data revolution and data surveillance’, a centralised control agenda which stretches across all policies and services addressing children and families (Gillies and Edwards, 2024). We go on to examine change and continuity in Labour’s child poverty reduction strategy in the face of political consternation over Labour’s adoption of fiscal rectitude, followed by a review of key features of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Focusing on particular services in the children and families field, we look at the proposals for childcare and early education, early intervention and family support, as well as youth services. Overall, we argue that the first year of Starmer’s Labour government, in spite of the ambitious title of their election manifesto, seems characterised by an absence of a determined vision for achieving effective change through social policies for children and families.

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ORCID for Rosalind Edwards: orcid.org/0000-0002-3512-9029

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