Equality and Social Justice Committee

So, for the next item on the agenda, we have Professor Rod Hick from Cardiff University, who's going to talk us through the work that he did on behalf of the Welsh Government in order to establish an effective framework for tracking child poverty and our progress on it. So, Professor Hick, I very much welcome you to the meeting. I wondered if I could just start off the conversation by asking you how much you think you were constrained by the briefing that you were given by the Welsh Government when you conducted your work.

Thank you, Chair, indeed, for the invitation to come and speak with you today. I didn't feel constrained by the brief in terms of undertaking this work, though I think that it's fair to say that we accepted the brief, in terms of we worked to the brief. I would say that officials, in terms of their work but also in terms of the contributions that I made towards that, worked constructively and with the brief in mind. So, I think it's certainly fair to say that the brief played an important role here in that I think that formed the starting point of the work that was conducted. That wasn't viewed necessarily as a constraint. It was viewed as a guide in terms of the work that we were invited to conduct and were asked or tasked to complete.

So, the considerable prevalence of child poverty in Wales is a major concern, and one of the things about the framework is whether it's going to be compatible with tracking how well we are doing, or not doing, with England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Yes. I think that perhaps the primary thinking was in terms of tracking performance in Wales over time, though I don't think that there is an obstacle in using indicators of these kinds in terms of making comparative assessments. It's not foregrounded here, I think, in the framework. I don't think that it's necessarily what we were tasked to do, but I think that, if you have high-quality data on important child-related outcomes, to some extent that type of framework can be utilised in such a way, and others can draw on it in such a way, to make those comparative assessments, and, indeed, I think comparative assessments have a value in a more general sense. It's not the primary focus of the framework as it stands.

Okay. So, that concerns me, because we need to be able to establish how well, or badly, we are doing in, ultimately, eliminating child poverty, and, if we haven't got those figures in front of us, it makes it considerably more difficult to work out how badly we are doing.

As I say, I don't think there's an obstacle to using the majority of the data that is going to be collected and presented in the framework—. I don't think there's an obstacle to considering that data, necessarily, in a comparative context.

Okay. Fine. Jane Dodds.

Thank you very much. There is an opportunity for us to ask you questions, because this committee has focused on child poverty over the years. One of the questions that I'm sure will come up is relating to targets. So, I just want to understand what part you've played in developing this framework, because I'm not completely sure, to be honest. Have you been central in developing this framework, is that the case, or have you taken this from the Government, from the Minister, and then looked at how we can work between departments and so on? So, I just want to understand, if could you just tell us, what part you've played in particular. Thank you very much.

Certainly, and I think that’s very helpful, on the grounds that I do think there’s potentially some confusion. It’s been put to me a number of times that potentially this is my framework or I was designing this thing, potentially even in isolation, and that’s very much not the case. I characterised this and it’s noted in my independent expert review that the framework is the product of the work of Welsh Government officials following a brief set by the Minister and with advice provided by me and input provided by the external reference group. I think that is indeed an accurate reflection of the balance of responsibilities and the balance of input. So, if I might elaborate a little bit on the sort of process, if that would be helpful in terms of giving you a clearer sense of that—.

If that's all right, Chair; it would just be really useful.

I'll be brief. This was a piece of work that was being conducted by Welsh Government officials over a number of months. I would have had input at quite regular periods, perhaps on average maybe once a month for half a year. That would be the kind of rough type of input. And I commented I think relatively extensively, in terms of I tried to comment on individual indicators that they might be considering, but I tried also—. And one of the things I will try to outline, hopefully, today is that I saw one of my roles as trying to sort of stand back and see this thing in the wider context. So, I made, I guess, overarching comments about what sort of framework I thought was being developed and what the strengths and weaknesses of that might be, as well as comments about the individual items. I found Welsh Government officials very receptive to the comments that I made; many were taken on board. Sometimes, they would suggest—you know, they saw things in a slightly different way. I wasn’t the origin, necessarily, of the ideas, as it were. It was being developed by them, and I was trying to be an active participant in those conversations as that was being developed.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. That's—. No, that's fine.

That's it. Thank you.

Okay. Julie Morgan.

Diolch. Some of the comments you’ve made—. I wondered if you could elaborate a bit more why you believe that summarising performance against the measures in the framework may be challenging.

Why I believe summarising performance measures—? Sorry.

Performance—. How to measure performance against the measures in the framework.

I understand. So, I think—. I am an advocate of multi-dimensional, outcomes-based frameworks, in that I think it is very difficult to have a single metric that can really capture the experience of poverty and trends in poverty, whether that be for children or indeed for other groups. So, in general, I’m an advocate of multi-dimensional, outcomes-based frameworks, but they do come with a challenge. So, they are more realistic, I think, than simple measures, for example, the relative income poverty measure, which is often taken to be the primary headline metric of poverty in rich nations in particular—and I think that measure is vital and it's important that it’s included here.

The challenge of multi-dimensional metrics is that, as you add more and more indicators, they begin to tell you a more complex story, and trying to synthesize and give an overall reporting against a very highly dimensional framework can become quite a challenge. So, I would expect a framework of this kind to—. Once the latest estimates are populated into it, there will be areas where performance is improving, there will be areas where performance is deteriorating, potentially, and there might be areas where there’s relatively little change over time, and trying to synthesize overall have things improved or not will be relatively challenging, and it may indeed be the case that different actors focus on different aspects of the framework, or different indicators. You might have someone from one political persuasion or someone who has personal interest or conviction about a particular issue focusing in particular on a deterioration in one measure, and you might have somebody else focusing on an improvement in another. And I think that's the challenge that can come from a multidimensional framework—there is not necessarily an agreed overall summary of the direction of travel.

So, as an overall—

As an overall.

That is going to be difficult to measure—an overall situation—in terms of how successful it is.

Yes. So, for example, you could have a relative income poverty rate that is relatively stable, or maybe even increases a percentage point, you might have child well-being scores that actually improve over the time, and you might have a deterioration in some other measure, or an improvement in some other measure, and the question is, 'Is that an improvement overall, or is it not?' And I think that is just part of the inherent complexity that comes with a multidimensional framework, which is, in some ways, baked in once you move from a single indicator approach. And, as I say, I think moving from a single indicator approach is, overall, beneficial, but it comes with that added complexity.

Thank you.

Thank you. Altaf Hussain.

Thank you, Chair. Professor Hick, what are the implications of having a relatively large number of measures in the monitoring framework compared to the international examples set out in work undertaken for the Wales Centre for Public Policy?

I guess the answer is, on that realism—. So, I view this as being—. There is a trade-off between realism and complexity. The more dimensions you add, the more things you consider, it becomes more realistic in that you're monitoring is capturing a greater number of domains of children's lives and the lives of families. At the same time as you are becoming more realistic, you are becoming more complex, and that can make the summary challenge more difficult.

This framework is not unique in terms of the number of indicators it contains. As I note in my report, the United Nations' sustainable development goals go very much further in terms of measuring a very large number of goals and indicators, but, nonetheless, is it a relatively high-dimensional structure, so it will have more complexity than some of the other frameworks that would be contained in some of those other strategies that you mention that were reviewed in work by the Wales Centre for Public Policy.

Thank you, Professor. So, why do you believe some of the indicators relate more to the child poverty strategy rather than child poverty per se, and how has the Welsh Government responded to you conclusions?

Well, I think one of the discussions that we would have had over a good number of months led to this—. I think the term that we settled on was that this was a hybrid monitoring framework focusing mostly on the experiences of children and families directly, but including some other indicators that were typically related to outcomes as they related to adults, where, I think, officials felt that there was the need for the framework to align with the child poverty strategy. I accept that that was viewed as a desirable thing, and I think it is a hybrid strategy in that it sort of covers two things. It's mostly about children and their families directly, but it does include some other items that relate to adults or to outcomes that would be aligned with the strategy.

Isn't that what's called the spotlight effect? If you look at certain things, then all the attention goes on those things, and they get fixed, but, meanwhile, there's chaos going on outside the spotlight.

I'm not so sure. I think there's a danger—. I think that implies that focusing on less can be more beneficial. Is that the point?

No, if you're only looking at the things in the strategy, you may be in danger of not taking into account some really serious issues occurring outside your strategy—it doesn't enable you to see that the strategy is not adequate for the job.

I think the framework includes some of the primary indicators of child poverty that will be used in international settings. I think, in a prior hearing of this committee, I'd argued specifically for the inclusion of a material deprivation measure within any monitoring that would follow from the strategy. The retention of a relative income poverty target, a relative income measure, the retention of a material deprivation measure, I think, is really critical. Then there are, yes, other indicators that might align with the strategy, but, in a sense, that was the desire of what the framework was intended to do. In a sense, the framework was, if you like, downstream of the strategy, so there was attention to what the strategy contained and a desire to make sure that the framework would speak to it, I guess, in terms of an accountability mechanism, in fact. There was a desire to ensure that the framework would allow the Welsh Government to be held to account in particular areas that they had set out in the strategy, so I think that would have been the thinking.

Okay. Altaf wants to come back.

In that case, Professor, you say that the real living wage and the pay gap are not directly related to child poverty. Is that right?

The way I would put this is that, in a purely outcomes-based framework, it is desirable, I think, insofar as it’s possible, to give primacy to the outcomes that you are most interested in directly. I think one of the things we know from the academic literature on poverty, but also from other monitoring frameworks, is that sometimes it is possible to think that there is a relationship between an intermediate outcome and child poverty, and intuitively it sounds like that relationship might be reasonably certain or direct, but it might not be. Some of my other work is in the area of in-work poverty, and one of the things that is often assumed there is that, by increasing the minimum wage, we reduce in-work poverty, almost linear, or immediately or directly. What the academic literature in that area essentially shows is that the relationship between the minimum wage and in-work poverty is just very much weaker than is often assumed, and I think the risk, as it were, with indicators that are not focused on the final outcome that you are interested in, but on an indirect or an intermediate outcome, is that it assumes the link is always present, and it may not be.

Okay.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Sioned Williams.

Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to ask—. We asked a few questions to the civil servants who've been working on this and it was clear from what they were telling us that they'd had a very robust brief from the Government, from the Minister, that they had to base the framework on the national indicators. When a number of us pointed out a few things that we would expect to be measured as an output from the strategy, the answer was, ‘Well, we don't have a national indicator for that, so we couldn't include it.’ I just wanted to ask you, therefore, in terms of the brief that you received, as you mentioned, do you have any doubts that the national indicators were the best things to use for this monitoring framework?

Not really. Our work was very—. It began at pace when I was appointed. We were working quite quickly, and that was the brief that was set. We didn't have meetings where we spent very much time considering, as it were, whether an alternative brief might have been set, and I wouldn't have viewed that as a pragmatic way for us to work, really. There was, obviously, scope to omit any item from the national indicators where it was not deemed to be relevant, so there was no constraint in that sense. And the national indicators were augmented, especially in terms of the SHRN data—I always have to check the exact acronym: the School Health Research Network data. So, they were augmented at certain parts, at certain times as well. But it's true to say that that was part of the brief—it's part of the record that that was part of the brief, and, therefore, it did influence the work that was conducted, undoubtedly. It's also the case that many of the national indicators are relevant. So, there was no sense in which we were having discussions and thinking, 'These indicators aren't useful for us'.

No, but perhaps there were some other ones that could have been useful—for example those around housing, homelessness, child health, in terms of accessing hospitals for care, their dental health, how many children on free school meals go on to study A-levels, which is only 11 per cent currently, for example. Those sorts of things. So, there was no scope to bring in some other things that were beyond these national indicators.

As I say, the national indicators were supplemented by the School Health Research Network data in the final framework. So, I think there were a number of considerations here. One was, if you like, a non-binding consideration, in that the national indicators formed part of the brief and a central part of the work. We did include, and considered including, some wider data. And, in fact, I think in no small part that SHRN data was included because, at the interim review, I expressed a concern that a number of the indicators were relating to childhood in its oldest years—so, for children aged 16 and over. And I suppose I was concerned about balance there, and for the need to try and include some child indicators that would capture childhood in its earlier stages. And the SHRN data was included in part because those indicators are deemed significant, but also in part to try and overcome an initial perception of imbalance in terms of the indicators.

The other thing to say is that there were other considerations. No. 1 is we need data that are robust, and I'm not suggesting that that excludes everything else, but it does exclude some things. You can consider such and such an indicator—it might sound like a plausible indicator, but if it's not collected through a robust mechanism, then that would be potentially a very significant risk if the Welsh Government were to start monitoring its performance on an indicator that there wasn't robust data on, and there was one of the team of officials who was very attuned to that concern and was able to come back, and say, 'Actually, we don't have data that we can trust on this indicator'.

The other concern was that we also need indicators that reflect outcomes themselves and not policy initiatives. And I think that was actually an issue that we had with respect, I think, to the homeless data. One of the issues there was that I think we looked at a number of potential indicators and couldn't arrive at a formulation that would separate out the outcome of homelessness from the policy effort of the Welsh Government, because I think what you want to avoid is a scenario where the Welsh Government do more, which is a good thing, but that good thing is being interpreted as a deteriorating outcome because more is being done. You mentioned access to hospitals—and I don't question that you can formulate an indicator that might work in relation to that—but if, for example, doctors see more children, that could be interpreted as a sign that children are getting less healthy, but it might also just be a sign that GPs or doctors are getting to see more children, which is a good thing. So, some of the indicators, there wasn't robust data; some of the indicators, it was a struggle to formulate them in a way that was satisfactory.

One of my roles, as I say, has been to try and step back and provide an overview. And early on, I tried to established a principles-based approach for my own consideration of these indicators, because one of my concerns is that the framework as a whole would be relatively consistent, and it wouldn't be a jumble of indicators measuring entirely different things and in entirely different ways, which I think would be an issue. The first principle I outlined in my review was that the indicators should have a clear and accepted normative interpretation, and being able to separate out that policy effect from the social outcome is really central to that. It's very important if something is going up, and you're viewing that as a problem, that it's the incidence of the problem that's increasing and not the incidence of the policy effort or effect of the Welsh Government, because then you're confusing policy from outcome. And that's a principle that Tony Atkinson and colleagues advocated to the European Commission, and forms the basis of the European Commission's monitoring frameworks, and I think it's a really important one.

Can I just ask, then, one final question? Do you think the Welsh Government should develop child poverty reduction targets as well as the monitoring framework? We've just had that report, haven't we, from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which paints a very bleak picture, and in that report, it explicitly says that targets have driven progress, and we know that has happened, hasn't it? So, I just want to know your view on that: do they need targets as well as this monitoring framework, in order to assure progress of the strategy?

I think what's needed here is really delivery and focus. If there's a role for targets, it is, again, as an indirect role in terms of ensuring focus, ensuring ongoing commitment. That's ultimately what fundamentally matters, I think. Welsh Government committing themselves to tackling poverty as an absolute policy priority, ensuring it's doing the most in terms of levers within its powers, but also consideration of other powers, is, ultimately, what's fundamental to that.

I mean, for instance, this committee has had a letter from the expert advisory group on childcare, concerned about a cut, for example, and a lack of investment into the roll-out of the Flying Start provision. If there was a target, action would be prioritised, budget would be prioritised. I suppose that's the argument we've heard, haven't we, from the Bevan Foundation, the children's commissioner et al. So, I suppose, having you now being across this framework, do you agree that prioritisation would be helped by targets?

I mean, I don't know. I don't know, I suppose.

Your experience of monitoring frameworks, I suppose, more broadly, have you seen—?

There have been instances where targets have been adopted and not a huge amount of progress has been made. So, it's certainly not the case that, when targets are rolled out, progress follows. I mean, it sometimes does and it sometimes doesn't. Peter Kenway and his team, in his review for the Wales Centre for Public Policy, reviewed a series of child poverty strategies around the world, and their conclusion seemed to be that not all poverty strategies have outcome targets—so, it wasn't universal—and, again, emphasised what's really needed here is progress.

In fact, my general observation might be that, 10 or 20 years ago, we had, I think, a great degree of optimism in Wales, but also in many other jurisdictions, in terms of the elimination of poverty. There were targets rolled out, and some good was done in some jurisdictions, but perhaps that age of optimism, in terms of the setting of targets and achievement of progress in relation to them, has waned somewhat, and now, in a sense, we need an age or an era of progress rather than an era of target setting.

Okay. I'm going to interrupt you, because we are short of time. We'll come to Mick Antoniw in a minute, but Jane Dodds just wanted to pick up on—

Yes, just to carry that on, really. This is incredibly complicated, I'll be honest. I came into politics in order to reduce child poverty. I have no idea how this is going to help me to think that we, this Senedd, has done something about it. Targets are in place right now in Scotland, Finland, New Zealand and Sweden. Can you tell us what's wrong with those countries in having those targets? I have the greatest respect for you and your work, but, I'll be honest, this is not really what's going to help me think that this Government has achieved something. I know we've got such little time. Maybe you can write to the committee, and we can just hear very quickly, on why you think those Governments are wrong.

I've never claimed that they are, and I'd have to think quite deeply and seriously about why they would be wrong.

Because they've all got targets for reducing child poverty.

Sure. The child poverty strategy monitoring framework includes some of the central measures of poverty that are used in any jurisdiction internationally, in the terms that it retains a relative income poverty target, which is really critical in terms of thinking about poverty as being exclusion from contemporary living standards. If that had been omitted here, I would have been very seriously concerned.

And they've got that in Scotland and in the others, so just—

Sure. But you had said that you didn't think this could be useful to you, and I think a framework that includes that measure, I would hope, can be useful, in that this will lead to reports that tracks performance in Wales on this hugely important measure that is used in many other jurisdictions, including in the European Union in all member states. And I think that's quite important. It's right, there's no specific target connected to it, but you will be able to trace outcomes in Wales on this important measure. And similarly with the material deprivation measure, which is not included in quite such a large number of jurisdictions, but I think is critically important.

Through the Chair, is it possible just to ask—sorry, we have so little time—for your views on—? Because you have said to Sioned, in your response to her, that you don't think targets on child poverty are particularly useful in this framework. So, could you just maybe expand, in a letter to us, a little bit more, if that's acceptable? Thank you.

Okay. I think that would be very helpful if you wouldn't mind doing that, unless you—

And if we could have an exchange, maybe, about exactly the wording of what you're looking for, that would probably be helpful to me.

Sure. Yes, that would be great. Mick Antoniw.

Well, firstly, thank you for what information you've provided. I have to say, I'm quite confused now, really, over the benefit, as we're talking about it, of targets and comparators. I've always felt the comparator between Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland is almost a fool's errand. How do you compare a country of 3 million with a country of 55 million, where half of the wealth of the entire UK is focused in one area, you know, et cetera? You're not comparing like with like. What I'm more interested in is what, maybe, is happening in terms of looking at what is happening in other countries, particularly within the UK and Wales, in terms of—. The one thing that is of interest to me, I think, is this issue of tracking performance, because, again, the levers that are there are so variable and different, et cetera. So, looking at those areas that are within your control, that are not necessarily themselves solutions to the issue of poverty, but can actually improve performance. What is your view on the issue of tracking performance, which you were talking about just now, as being really the key objective in terms of what Welsh Government can do with its own leverages?

So, one of the—. So, if I can link that, actually, to a point on targets. Obviously, my understanding is that the Minister's decision not to include targets was in part because Welsh Government didn't have powers, in the main, over tax and social security, and I accept that that's—

We agree on that. We can set that aside.

Sure, but it’s significant in terms of the—. And, I think, even an outcomes-based framework has a risk in that it can be used in accountability terms—and I talk about this risk in my review—in terms of challenging Welsh Government in areas that perhaps don’t relate to the utilisation of their own powers.

So, one of the issues with an outcomes-based framework, in the main, or entirely, is that, for example, relative income poverty might deteriorate. That might be because either UK Government utilises its levers in adverse ways—it does not eliminate the two-child limit, for example, to universal credit—or if there’s an inflationary environment because of another global conflagration. And I think that is a risk with a purely outcomes-based framework, and that’s one reason why—. One of the things that we talked about was that there will also be a policy progress report, which will focus more directly on the policy outputs of Welsh Government and what activities and actions they have undertaken within a monitoring period. And I think it’s important that that is upfront, and that will play a part in this, in order to try and, I guess, tie all of this together. So, the monitoring framework will report on outcomes. There will be a policy progress report, which will report on Welsh Government actions, and I think those two things are probably necessary in order to have a rounded judgment about the performance of Welsh Government in terms of what they can do, but also about social outcomes.

In terms of the measurements then, in terms of what’s going on with, say, England and Scotland, and with Wales, for example, what degree of common measurement is there, actually, between the countries, because it seems to me that the approaches are very, very different, because the levers are all very, very different? Is there any sort of mutual standard that is beginning to operate or develop between the nations of the UK?

In terms of measuring outcomes?

Yes.

Yes, I think you could have a comparative measure on most, if not all, of the standard of living measures, and at least on some of the other measures as well. So, I think, a good number of the indicators could potentially be considered in a comparative space.

And the allocation of those indicators, in terms of where there are levers for change, because surely the most important thing that we’d be interested in with regard to Welsh Government is those things that you can actually influence, as opposed to those that you would like to influence, but you can’t.

I guess—. I think the thought was that by moving beyond a purely relative income measure, which is really highly sensitive to tax and social security, and therefore not to the activities of Welsh Government, by moving beyond that, and including a range of other measures, including well-being measures, these would be sensitive to the policies of Welsh Government.

There is obviously a gap between these indicators and the policy indicators, and, as I say, that’s why I think the triangulation via the inclusion of a policy progress report is really vital. I think we have to acknowledge that there is a gap there. And that would be the case in many jurisdictions.

So, there’s a powers argument that I think is particularly critical as regards the relative income poverty measure, but some of these indicators are at a distance from any policy outcome. If we’re thinking about child well-being, there’s no jurisdiction where child well-being is being entirely determined by the actions of Government.

Indeed not.

Okay.

This is a really complex area, and that is part of the problem, because a lot of the latest worry from childcare and education practitioners is that not enough time is being spent with the child in their very early years to teach them the basics. And this is not the work of Government traditionally, but there are clearly interventions needed to produce different outcomes.

So, we have run out of time. I think we probably are going to need to do quite a lot more thinking on this. There are lots of issues raised by your work, and by our questions, which we haven’t really had time to get to the granular detail on. But we very much thank you for your contribution today, and we will be in correspondence to see how we can try and move forward on this, because getting it right is essential. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chair.

Members, we've got seven papers to note. Are there any points you'd like to raise on them, before we move into private session? I don't see any—. Oh, Sioned, you wanted to raise something.

Yes. I was just wondering if it would be appropriate for us to write to the Minister for social justice about the letter we received from the expert advisory group on childcare, because obviously the Minister is responsible for the cross-cutting measures, whereas it's the Minister for children that's responsible for the roll-out of the Flying Start expansion, and I note that this letter is addressed to her. But I was wondering, given the remit of this committee, and what we've just been discussing, with the child poverty strategy and the central place of childcare within that strategy, whether it would be pertinent for us to write to the Minister for social justice, highlighting some of the concerns raised in the letter.

Yes. Thank you, Sioned, for raising it.

If there are no further comments in public session, can Members agree that we'll now move into private session under Standing Order 17.42? I see no disagreement.