Introduction

This book has reviewed the shifting and contested nature of parental rights and responsibilities for children in several spheres of English and UK social policy since 1997 and contrasted official policy perspectives with social research on parental views and experiences of parenthood, parenting and family support needs. This concluding chapter aims to provide an overview of policy change under New Labour and critically assess these policy changes in relation to revisions to the roles, rights and responsibilities of parents and families versus those of the state in respect of child and family well-being. In addition, the chapter reviews the contemporary era and the major revisions in welfare state support for families with children under way following the indecisive 2010 General Election and the forming of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government. Since coming to office in May 2010, the new Coalition government has introduced unprecedented public spending cuts and begun a radical programme for welfare state reform. The programme for reform, in the context of economic recession and the increase in the national public deficit since 2007, consists of withdrawing some aspects of welfare state support for citizens and families, ‘reducing the size of the welfare state’, promoting private sector growth and promoting ‘a greater role for citizens, communities, the private sector and the third sector in commissioning and delivering public services’ (HM Government, 2010). The Coalition government has stated that it will ‘protect disadvantaged families and vulnerable children’ and is committed to meeting the government's child poverty reduction targets set out in the Child Poverty Act 2010. However, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has forecasted significant increases in child, family and working-age poverty in 2011 due to the combined effects of job losses, price increases and tax and benefit changes (Brewer and Joyce, 2010), and many councils have announced cuts to children's services in 2011–12. In contrast to withdrawing support for families and children, however, I argue for a more supportive relationship between parents, families, young people and the state to promote better care for children and young people as well as broader family and social well-being. A number of approaches to social policy for social well-being provide useful frameworks from which to review child and family policies, including public health approaches to promoting child, adult and family well-being, and arguments for social policies to more comprehensively promote an ethic of care (Williams, 2004a; Utting, 2009).