The Observer view on ‘family-friendly’ policies

Left or right, politicians have always endeavoured to earn their pro-family stripes. The government last week announced its latest initiative: civil servants must now apply a “family-friendly” test to all policies before they are signed off by ministers.

Impact assessments are familiar jargon in Whitehall: the previous government introduced a series of tests for all policies, including impacts on equality and sustainability. But David Cameron signalled a move away from this early on, calling compulsory impact assessments on gender, disability and race “bureaucratic nonsense”.

He had a point: getting civil servants to fill out a few lines on a form is not a fruitful way to embed cross-cutting agendas across government. Impact assessments quickly developed a reputation as retrospective tick-box exercises, written to fit the policies ministers want rather than a leash to hold them back from contradicting government commitments. They cannot be a substitute for a prime minister holding his whole cabinet to account in being pro-family, pro-women or pro-sustainability.

Even by the prime minister’s standards then, this policy has the feel of a gimmick. But perhaps the reason why the family-friendly test is permissible where others are not is that it so vague it is almost meaningless. It is broadly defined enough to allow work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, to claim it is about promoting marriage, and his junior minister, Steve Webb, to argue it is about supporting all family forms. The test is as nebulous as “hard-working families’, the cliche adored by politicians: there will be as many flavours of “family friendly” as there are ministers in government.

The government must instead be judged on its record – the real impact it has had on families of all shapes and sizes. By far the biggest immediate pressure facing all families is economic: living standards are now at their lowest for a decade, as real wages have fallen and the price of essentials such as housing, childcare and energy have risen.

The government has claimed that easing pressure on families is one of its priorities but it has failed them on multiple counts. The quickest way a government can have an impact on family finances is through tax and benefits. The last Labour government introduced a programme of tax credits that, while maligned for subsidising low wages, boosted the incomes of low-income working families, many of whom would otherwise have been in poverty. In contrast, the coalition has pursued raising the personal threshold – an expensive policy that benefits all but the very top earners – cutting family tax credits to pay for this. As a result, it has protected childless and higher-income households from the worst effects of austerity while ensuring families with children take the hardest hit: Institute for Fiscal Studies figures show families with children have been proportionately hit three times as hard as working-age households without children.

Moreover, the government has done little to address the issue of falling real wages in the bottom half of income distribution, where families’ struggles to make ends meet is most pronounced. The campaign for a living wage that pays people enough to support their families has been spearheaded by civil society, businesses and a handful of councils. It is a remarkable achievement that, as reported in the Observer today, a movement that a decade ago only had 10 companies signed up now accredits 432 living wage employers, including 18 FTSE 100 companies.

But it has left politicians trailing behind. While the three main party leaders should be commended for backing the campaign, warm words are insufficient. This government has let inflation erode the minimum wage, even as it makes vague promises to increase it after the next election. And it has not used its position as one of the country’s biggest consumers to insist the companies it buys from pay the living wage, or its power to regulate sectors such as care to end the travesty of care workers employed on scandalous zero-hours contracts that mean they are not paid for their time travelling between appointments, leaving them geting less than the minimum wage. It doesn’t even ensure Whitehall cleaners are paid a living wage.

Gimmicks aside, the only family-friendly test this government must face is on substance. It has overwhelmingly failed. On its watch, low-to-average income families with children have taken the hardest hit, from its zealously pursued austerity drive and its shameful lack of commitment to tackling the toxic malady of falling real wages.