The Government is failing to tackle family breakdown, as communities face increasing numbers of lone parent families, according to a report.
In a study from the Centre for Social Justice set for release later this week, the think tank has found that around one million children are growing up without a father, while some of the poorest parts of the country have become ‘man deserts’ thanks to a lack of male teachers.
Absence of a father figure is linked to higher rates of teenage crime, pregnancy and disadvantage by the think tank.
A lone parent – most commonly a woman – heads three quarters of families in an area in the Manor Castle ward of Sheffield and 71% of families in Liverpool’s Riverside, the Fractured families report finds.
Liverpool holds eight of the country’s 20 areas with the highest levels of fatherless households, according to the Centre for Social Justice. The region also has five neighbourhoods in the top 20 nationally for lone parent households.
Government action has failed to stem family breakdown, the Centre for Social Justice said, with the report suggesting that for every £6,000 spent on solving issues which occur after family separation, only £1 is spent on helping families stay together.
Director of the Centre for Social Justice, Christian Guy said: ‘For children growing up in some of the poorest parts of the country, men are rarely encountered in the home or in the classroom. This is an ignored form of deprivation that can have profoundly damaging consequences on social and mental development.
‘There are “men deserts” in many parts of our towns and cities and we urgently need to wake up to what is going wrong.’
Guy said the political response to family breakdown had been ‘feeble’, and warned the human, social and financial costs remained ‘devastating’ for both children and adults.
Responding to the report, a Government spokesperson said: ‘We have already invested £30m in relationship support, to prevent family breakdown rather than waiting to pick up the pieces and our free advice services have been used by over 12m parents in England alone, alongside over 48,000 couple counselling sessions.
‘We also welcome the CSJ’s support for the Troubled Families programme, which is already helping to get thousands of children back into school, reduce youth crime and anti-social behaviour and put parents on a path back to work, as well as reducing costs to the taxpayer.
‘In the first year of the three-year programme councils had already identified 66,000 fully eligible families and were working with over 35,000. This is good progress considering many services have been established from a standing start and puts us on track to work with 120,000 families by 2015.’