Greeny News

Single parents are to be compelled to seek work once their youngest child turns five, or face losing benefits. We ask families how they will cope.

The summer holidays cause childcare headaches for working families across the UK, but employed lone parents are probably finding these six long weeks more stressful than most as they struggle to balance childcare and employment. And the number of single parents desperately looking for extra childcare during holiday periods is set to increase. The coalition government has declared that from October 2011, lone parents on income support must, when their youngest child reaches the age of five, actively seek work or take up a job, or lose up to 40% of their benefits.

Compelling single parents to seek work is not a new policy â€" the previous government was preparing to introduce a similar measure for parents when their children reached the age of seven â€" but the new policy, announced in June's emergency budget, is more draconian. The government estimates that it will affect 100,000 single parents in 2011, and save £380m between then and 2015.

Gingerbread, charity support to single parents, said she hears from mothers and fathers, who say that they would work, but do not see how to combine work commitments with the inevitable uncertainty involved in being the sole guardian of their children.

For those single parents who do work, one of the biggest problems is sustaining their employment during the long summer holiday, says Rhodri Thomas, spokesman at Reed in Partnership, a private company that operates voluntary employment support programmes for single parents. "Most parents are reluctant to leave their children in childcare for long periods of time," says Thomas. "Then there's the 20% [of childcare costs] they have to find." (Tax credits pay for up to 80%.)

Lisa Walter, a mother of four who lives in Essex, says that being forced back to work is deeply unfair on both her and her children. "I don't like being stereotyped. I've paid tax and national insurance since I was 15. I've gone back to work after having my first two children and I've loved my jobs. It's not like [I'm] workshy." Single parents, she points out, do not generally ask to be in their situation. "And my children didn't ask to be put in after-school clubs and looked after by other people."

Wendi New, who is living in Yorkshire after experiencing a traumatic relationship breakdown, says she would like to work but the problem is fitting it in with the needs of two-year-old Hollie.

"How would I feel if I have to go back to work when she hits five and starts school? I think it could be quite tough on her. Becoming a latchkey kid at five would be hard; it would be bad enough when she's older. And then in school holidays there'd be that frantic search for childcare that I had once before when her childminder went on holiday. [Hollie's] had a lot of changes and I don't want endless childcare for her. She needs stability now."

Anne Longfield, chief executive of the charity 4Children, says there is sufficient childcare out there for probably one in five children. "That means there isn't any for one in four," she says. "And that's in term time. When it gets to school holidays, there's a lot less, particularly as your child gets older."

Barely managing

Daisy Rawlins, from Surrey, and mother of three children under six, started work in May last year but had to stop in September because her employer said there was not enough work for her. "They haven't reinstated my income support or housing benefit yet, so I'm living on child benefit, and 'luckily' because my daughter is classified disabled she gets disability living allowance and I get carer's allowance. We're a family of four â€" I'm barely managing," she says.

The effect on benefits when lone parents do take up work is problematic. "There's quite a narrow band in which single parents are better off in work. If a single parent chooses to work extra hours, their benefits can be hit quite steeply," Thomas says.

It is this kind of financial black hole, which often makes single parents are afraid of dipping his feet in the workplace. Offers of work and pensions secretary, Ian Duncan Smith, to put in place a transitional phase-out of benefits when a person gets a job, rather than a sudden stop, but a necessity, says Longfield.

Changes to Housing Benefit may also be hit hard for single parents. A year has passed is transferred from Unemployment Benefits ', if someone was unable to find work, 10% deducted from their housing allowances.

Where all the short-hours, school-holiday friendly jobs are to come from is another concern. "Although we've seen an increase in flexible work, a lot of that was in the public sector and that's where the cuts are going to bite hardest," says Kate Green, a Labour MP and former chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group.

A recent study covering cakes 2-week period showed that 83% of jobs advertised in London newspapers had no flexibility, 11% were part-time and none of them offered as "teaching hours" jobs.

Out of pocket

What would mitigate single parents' fears and make holding down a job possible?

"I don't actually think it's practical to work and care on my own for three children," says Rawlins. "I'd be out of pocket, would lose valuable quality time with my children, and I couldn't do a full-time job using my qualifications because they don't come with flexibility."

Connolly adds: "You need to be able to limit your job search to within a realistic response time to your child's main place of care because there's only you to go to them if there's a crisis."

Fully funded child care would reduce the burden, says Walter, but it wouldn 't remove it. "And then the government to cover the loss of pay, if you have to care for a sick child, because my situation is no one to do it," she adds.

"With four children, being a mum on your own is a full-time job without going out to work."

Forcing the issue

Currently, single parents on jobseeker's allowance may refuse a job for the first six months if it does not fit their qualifications or does not leave them better off. After that, if a job is offered they have to take it, and, says Gingerbread, nothing in the existing legislation says a single parent must be better off being in work than on benefits.

Under the new policy, with their child 's fifth birthday, lone parents will be transferred to the income support for JSA.

They will be required to work a minimum of 16 hours a week. If their youngest child is aged 12 or under, they can restrict their work hours to school hours and would not be forced to take up a job outside those hours.