This week sees the launch of Save the Children’s Child Lock campaign – a campaign which calls for the UK government to ‘double lock’ spending on children’s social security entitlements so that money goes to children increases by earning, or by inflation if inflation is higher than earnings. Based on the premise of the State Pension triple lock, the Child Lock would look to protect children in times of high inflation or other economic shocks and ensuring that families can meet the rising cost of living. 

Public First has been supporting the development of this campaign by conducting focus groups with key groups of the general public and modelling the potential economic impact of ‘Child Lock’ on children and families in poverty. 

Eight online focus groups were conducted in September 2023 with members of the general public including young professionals in Worthing and over 50s in Doncaster. These groups produced the following findings: 

• They were keen to see change in society (note the groups were conducted before the General Election) and the Child Lock was seen as a vehicle for change 
• Successful framing of the Child Lock concept including linking it to relatable challenges and differentiating messages based on people’s priorities – for example, linking alleviating poverty with impact on health, education or housing  
• Outcomes were a priority for all. Linking the campaign to tangible impact and evidencing the projected impact was essential in developing support and understanding of the campaign. 

Following these findings, Public First sought to model the potential economic impact of a ‘Child Lock’ model including comparing the approach to other fiscal interventions such as removing the two-child limit. For context, just over 4.3 million children are currently growing up in poverty.  Our modelling found that: 

• If the Child Lock had been in place since 2010 (as with the State Pension triple lock), and we had not had the benefits cap or two-child limit, 650,000 fewer children would be in poverty. 
• Child Lock, combined with ending the two-child limit and benefits cap, would reduce child poverty by over half a million. Removing the two-child limit and benefit cap, in addition to child lock, would lead to over 400,000 fewer children in poverty by 2034/35. The policy cost of this would be about £3bn in 2025/26, rising to £6bn per year by 2034/35.  

You can read more about the campaign itself here. 

Economic modelling method

Our modelling of the impact on poverty rates used the Family Resources Survey – a detailed dataset of household characteristics and sources of income. This allowed us to identify the types of households that are most impacted by the uprating of particular benefits

We used a standard definition of relative poverty which covered all households with equivalized income less than 60% of the median household. 

For the forward-looking exercise, we also drew on Office for Budget Responsibility projections of inflation and earnings, and ONS population projections.