21st Century Challenges

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Kate Wareing
Director of Poverty programme, Oxfam UK

Oxfam's vision is that diverse communities of women and men living in poverty will exercise their rights to a decent and secure standard of living in a rich industrialised society.

Kate Wareing is the Director of Oxfam’s UK Poverty Programme. Programme, which works with partners to tackle poverty and inequality in Scotland, England and Wales.

Oxfam works to overcome poverty in the UK in three ways. It develops projects with people living in poverty to improve their lives and show how things can change, raises public awareness of poverty to create pressure for change, and works with policymakers to tackle the causes of poverty. The focus of Oxfam’s work in the UK is on ensuring that everyone in the UK has a secure income which gives them enough money to live on. Oxfam also tackles the discrimination which makes women, ethnic minority groups and others more vulnerable to poverty. In 2009/10 Oxfam’s worked directly with around 8,000 people living in poverty in the UK: its policy and advocacy work has affected the lives of hundreds of thousands more.

Oxfam UK Poverty programme »

What are the root causes of poverty in Britain?

"It's about distribution, wealth and assets are very unequally distributed in the UK."

"The top 10% of the population earn 30% of our money, the bottom 10% of the population earn 1% of our money and in a country with high living costs it means we have over 13m people living below the poverty line."

On the increase of poverty among working households in Britain

"For a lot of people work is not the route out of poverty."

On the successes and failures of government policy to address poverty in Britain

"Poverty is not a permanent state of affairs, so there is a need for policy that focuses in terms that are broader than income, on why it is that some people remain very poor for a very long time."

Is the benefit system suitable for the modern job market?

"The benefit system needs reforming. It was designed for a prior age when the idea of work was that it was permanent and full time."