Policy
For the last several years, I have been visiting many of Britain's most difficult and fractured communities. I have seen levels of social breakdown which have appalled and angered me. In the fourth largest economy in the world, too many people live in dysfunctional homes, trapped on benefits.
Too many children leave school with no qualifications or skills to enable them to work and prosper. Too many communities are blighted by alcohol and drug addiction, debt and criminality and have lower levels of life expectancy than in the Gaza strip.
Our approach is based on the belief that people must take responsibility for their own choices but that government has a responsibility to help people make the right choices. Government must therefore value and support positive life choices. At the heart of this approach is support for the role of marriage and initiatives to help people to live free of debt and addiction.
Government has to be committed to providing every child with the best possible education and giving the most vulnerable people the necessary support to enter active employment.
The problems of family breakdown, drug and alcohol addiction, failed education, debt and workless and dependency affect us all.
- Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP
Our Approach
Breakthrough Britain identifies five pathways to poverty: family breakdown, economic dependency and worklessness, educational failure, addiction and serious personal debt. It also provides policies for the role of the voluntary sector in reversing breakdown. Published in July 2007, it contains 190 policy recommendations.
The evidence gathered was threefold:
- Statistical
- Anecdotal
- Polling
Over 3,000 hours of hearings were conducted in the 18 months of the SJPG taking evidence from over 2,000 organisations and individuals from across the UK. Over 300 site visits were conducted in the UK and abroad.
Almost 50,000 were polled in August 2006, November 2006 and April-May 2007 to gauge how people perceived the problems of social breakdown and its solutions.
An interim report, Breakdown Britain, published in December 2006 published a State of the Nation report on each area, and acts as the baseline from which the Breakthrough Britain policy proposals are made.
*
Breakthrough Britain was the final published work of the Social Justice Policy Group (SJPG) commissioned by Rt Hon David Cameron MP. The SJPG secretariat was hosted by the Centre for Social Justice.
Breakthrough Britain. Ending the costs of social breakdown. | Published 10 July 2007
Over 190 policies to reverse social breakdown.
|
Executive Summary [2.07MB] |
| Family [812KB] |
| Economic Dependency and Worklessness [669KB] |
|
Educational Failure [669kb] |
| Addiction [1.95mb] |
|
(Gambling, Special Report) [1.46mb] |
| Serious Personal Debt [341kb] |
| Voluntary Sector [504kb] |
The Social Justice Policy Group (SJPG) was commissioned by the Rt Hon David Cameron MP, Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, in January 2006 to make policy recommendations to the Conservative Party on issues of social justice. The SJPG was chaired by the Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP, former leader of the Conservative Party and Chairman of the Centre for Social Justice, with Deputy Chairman Debbie Scott, Chief Executive of Tomorrow's People. The Policy Group's Secretariat was hosted by the Centre for Social Justice.
The SJPG studied:
Phase 1 - the nature and extent of social breakdown and poverty in Britain today
Phase 2 - the causes of poverty
Phase 3 - policy solutions to social breakdown and exclusion
Our interim report, Breakdown Britain, was published in December 2006 and covers Phases 1 and 2.
Breakthrough Britain is the final report and policy solutions of the Social Justice Policy Group, submitted to the Conservative Party in July 2007.
