Unicef report may be flawed, but there is still much to worry about

The Unicef report on child well-being in rich countries caused an instinctively sceptical reaction in me, partly because of the known left-wing bias within the UN agencies and partly because of its reliance on relative income measures. As I commented to Cicero earlier today (I have since rectified the typos!):

I fail to understand how a poor child in Britain is worse off than an even-poorer child in Slovakia, simply because the British child is able to see a Porsche from her window rather than a clapped out Lada.

Having said that, I’ve decided it’s best to read the report before spilling too much virtual ink. Sadly (sic.), I’m about to disappear off to Cape Town (where the temperature is in the 20s and the sun sets late over the sea) and so won’t have time to read it and write about it until it is quite stale, so I’m going to make a few observations based on the very informative annex, which has the 40 separate indicators which led the report writers to their conclusions.

Having reviewed these, I remain very sceptical of the relative poverty issue. Furthermore, many measures are based on subjective reporting (“aspiring to low skilled work”; “finding their peers kind”; “agreeing with the statement that…”) and others are probably based on surveys that may not be entirely accurate (reports on how many books are in a house or how many educational tools – did the children consider the family computer an educational tool? Or a toy?).

Nonetheless, perhaps a third of the measures were clear, objective measures based on official statistics in which we ought to have at least some faith. The following stand out as cause for real concern:

· Above average infant mortality
· Above average number of births with low birth weight (they say “birth rate below 2500g” but I am inferring what they meant!)
· Below average immunisation against DPT3 and Polio, and significantly below average immunisation against Measles
· Above average number of overweight 13 and 15 year olds (according to BMI).
· Significantly below average participation in education among 15-19 year olds
· Below average number of 15-19 year olds in either education or employment
· Significantly above average number of children living in single-parent and step families
· Significantly above average adolescent (15-19 year old) fertility rate

(For statisticians among you, ‘Significantly’ refers to more than one standard deviation difference, which puts the UK into the bottom quintile).

No matter how you cut it, that means that the UK’s children are less healthy and dying more often than peers in less wealthy societies including the Mediterranean countries, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Malta. They are not undertaking as much further study and are more likely to expect to work in unskilled employment – not a good place to be with a billion Chinese yet to join the global labour market. Traditional family structures are more fragile (though I hesitate to draw any conclusions from this).

I do not believe it follows that the solutions must be more Government intervention in family lives or massive statist structures institutionalising childhood. But there is clearly room for improvement in our public health and education, currently subject to two of the largest Government departments. A more thorough immunisation programme, better sex education and improved technical educational opportunities for non-academic school leavers would be a good start.

One thing is for certain: despite the instinctive scepticism and lingering doubt of myself and many liberal-minded colleagues, this report leaves no room for complacency.

Labour isn't working

It’s an old story, but it appears that they’re remaking it again. No, it’s not the BBC dramatisation of Dracula. It’s rising unemployment.

Youth unemployment is particularly troubling. In November this year 11,200 young people had been claiming benefits for more than a year. Youth unemployment is now worse than it was when Labour came to power. Figures from the Office of National Statistics are instructive:

1997 2006 Change
16 – 24 year olds unemployed 665,000 702,000 + 37,000
16 – 24 unemployment rate 14.4% 14.5% + 0.1%
16 – 24 unemployment rate – London 22.5% 42.9% + 20.4%


Labour MPs are rushing to blame the usual suspects – immigrants. With simple but flawed logic they suggest that hundreds of thousands of East Europeans have flooded in and taken jobs that might otherwise be filled by British workers. However, if this were the case, why was it that two thirds of a million 16 – 24 year olds were unemployed before the East Europeans arrived? How has Britain managed to absorb hundreds of thousands of East European workers when unemployment has only risen by tens of thousands?

This scapegoating of hard working, tax paying immigrants is a sordid attempt to shift attention from the real culprits: the Labour government. Youth unemployment is on the rise because Labour has strangled business with masses of extra regulation and rising taxation. It is rising because our schools are still failing to teach basic skills to far too many of our children; a quarter are functionally illiterate, innumerate and leave school at 16 with no qualifications worth speaking of. And it is rising because the government’s New Deal is a disaster, costing more and proving less effective than similar schemes in comparable countries, while massaging the jobless statistics by placing young people in jobs that last less than 13 weeks, so that returning jobless do not appear to be long-term unemployed.

In 1997 Gordon Brown described the levels of youth unemployment that Labour inherited from the Conservatives as “sickening”, a “human tragedy”, “an economic disaster”. After nine years of his chancellorship, it is now worse. It is an old Labour story, and each time we read it we feel the same despair. Labour isn’t working.

Crime is not “Anti-social behaviour”

The BBC reported today (6 minutes and 10 seconds into the One O’clock News) that 55% of offenders are ignoring their Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs), 35% repeatedly. Yet as the footage (6 minutes and 47 seconds) in the report demonstrates, the behaviour being exhibited may be anti-social, but it should not be being dealt with by using behaviour orders.

Breaking into cars; smashing window; throwing rocks at vehicles and passers by; theft: this is not “Anti-social behaviour”, it is crime. Children committing these kind of offences should be arrested and prosecuted. It is not necessary to send them to prison or a young offenders institute – adult prisons are already bulging with men who were given custodial sentences in their youth. But it is not enough to slap ASBOs on children who have been committing serious criminal offences.

Instead, they should be arrested, prosecuted, and then given community sentences. Hard, disciplined and valuable work to improve their local community – cleaning up litter, clearing graffiti – would be more effective than a paper ban on visiting the local park, and less likely to lead to further criminality than a custodial sentence. They should also be made to make recompense to the victims of their action, making them apologise to their victims and listen to how much distress they caused. Young offenders also need more effective social work and constructive activities. Most of all, they need to be given a sense of responsibility.

Shaun Bailey, a youth worker with the charity My Generation, whom the One O’clock News interviewed, was scathing of politicians attempts to understand the causes of crime: “‘Understanding the causes of crime’ is years long. We’ll never do it, because we live in a PC world where we can’t address our real issues… family breakdown, poor unemployment prospects, the fact that we live in a prevailing situation, now, that says that everybody’s a victim. Everybody’s a victim. Until we break that, we say to people ‘Actually, you need to raise your own personal standards’, then we’ll never deal with these problems.”

This is unexpected stuff from somebody who works closely with troubled children. Usually one associates youth workers with a mentality that blames structures and circumstances for criminality, rather than individuals and the choices they make. But Mr. Bailey is correct. While poverty, family breakdown and poor school performance present children with challenges, these do not in themselves cause anti-social or criminal behaviour. Many children do not turn to crime; some become leading lights in their community or go on to be very successful.

If we are to break the ‘cycles of deprivation’ that confront us, we certainly do need to tackle the problems of inner-city schools, urban blight, unemployment and youth poverty. But we also need to stop making excuses for the selfish and harmful choices that some people make. Individuals must take responsibility for their actions. It is essential that this is taught at an early age.