We know who they are, but do we really hear what they have to say?

The events around publication of the Social Exclusion Action Plan followed a familiar pattern: the media were briefed in advance, the prime minister delivered a speech, and the report was published a week later. The media referred to ‘problem families’ or ‘high-harm, high-cost families’, and hinted at possible compulsion and punitive measures, including ‘baby ASBOs’ (early intervention in troubled children’s lives).

The prime minister’s subsequent speech on social exclusion was summarised by The Sun as ‘Freebie condoms to stamp out hoodies’. But Tony Blair was in fact careful to make his language more nuanced in comparison to the previous media briefing.

It is clear that the analysis put forward, and the concern expressed, by Hilary Armstrong in her article in this issue stem in part from her experience as a community worker. Overall, the action plan is measured in tone, and its proposals for pilots, evaluation and reflection are tentative.

But in the run-up to publication, hackles had been raised — and many of those working with socially excluded groups had yet again despaired about the rhetoric sometimes employed by government and the images often purveyed by the media. These messages affect those living in poverty and social exclusion, who describe being labelled and looked down on as being amongst their worst experiences.

The minister draws attention to the government’s success in tackling child poverty and other evils, but suggests that about 2.5% of the population have more intractable problems which remain to be resolved. Some commentators have said that this may give the impression that all is right with the world except for this tiny minority.

To talk of ‘the most severely excluded’ people can also suggest a narrowing of focus. The minister argues that on the contrary this success means that the problems of this small group are thrown into sharp relief as others progress around them.

Many groups have broadly welcomed the government’s plans. The prime minister described people who ‘either may not want to engage with services or do not know how to’. We do need to ensure that services are appropriate and sensitive to the needs of these groups, however. At a recent government workshop on inclusive consultation one participant argued that the phrase ‘hard to reach’ should be replaced by ‘hard to hear’; the prisoners she worked with were very easy to reach, but this did not necessarily mean that they were listened to.

For example, parents who may have been in care themselves, struggling to bring up their children on a low income in inadequate housing, may have different priorities from the options put forward in their local Sure Start programme, and they may fear being accused of failure as a parent, or even neglect of their children, if they ask for help. It is perhaps not surprising if they are somewhat chary of using services, especially social services.

The prime minister also suggested that professionals need to be liberated from rules and hierarchies. But perhaps more important is that they learn more about the realities of the lives of the people they work with. Most of us have no idea of the tenacity and determination needed just to keep going in the situations in which such parents find themselves.

And it is also crucial that professionals stick with these families. Trust can only be built up over time, especially when vulnerable people have been let down so often in the past. This is difficult — especially when new initiatives succeed one another with alarming rapidity, or staff are moved on from one post to another.

The action plan recognises the importance of greater continuity and stability in such relationships, but its call for professional ‘persistence’ in the face of closed doors and unanswered letters may sound threatening.

What is needed is a clear understanding of such responses and how to engage with them. For example, creating a network of families in similar circumstances — as the non-governmental organisation ATD Fourth World does — may be key to being able to contact the most isolated and mistrustful.

The minister mentions the action plan’s proposal for pilots of more intensive midwife and health visitor input in the first two years of life for children most at risk. This has been widely welcomed, and as a universal service is likely to be more acceptable than special interventions. But at the same time, there are reports that health visitor posts are being cut, or are already insufficient to meet existing demand. The minister is critical of the unsuitability of ‘one size fits all’ universal services for some groups. In reality, many of these groups are most reliant on highly selective services, such as means-tested benefits, social housing and social workers — and it is these that they often find most problematic.

This is not to deny that gearing universal services more towards the needs of those at the bottom is crucial, and must go beyond ‘floor targets’. In education, for example, tuning targets and funding to narrowing inequalities is now critical — and is starting. And ensuring an inclusive experience of education for all is fundamentally important, not only to the life chances of children living in poverty now but also to the creation of a fairer and more tolerant society in the future.

The action plan’s praise for prevention being better than cure is welcome — even if this is not exactly rocket science, or a new discovery (and even if it means that, if pursued, we might be talking about more than the 2.5% mentioned as the target group).

But there is an admission that currently many social workers are unable to provide enough in the way of preventative family support, and have to focus on child protection because resources are tight.

This is one reason for the mistrust of professionals and services amongst many struggling families: inadequate budgets mean that their calls for help may not be answered until their children are at risk of being taken into care. The minister says that ‘we do need people to take responsibility themselves’.

But these parents’ greatest dread is that their most important responsibility — bringing up their children — will be taken away from them. The personalised provision and budget-holding for lead professionals suggested in the action plan will need to be augmented by significant additional resources if preventative services for these families and others are to become a reality.

The action plan makes occasional mention of the National Action Plan on Social Inclusion (NAP), which the UK government has to submit regularly to the European Union as its strategy to combat poverty and social exclusion.

The current NAP was published the day after the Social Exclusion Action Plan. There is an obligation on member states to engage with stakeholders about the content of the NAP, and in particular to involve people living in poverty and their organisations. The UK government has made substantial efforts to promote this participation in recent years, including providing funding. Though the Social Exclusion Taskforce is committed to ‘giving a voice to disadvantaged groups within government’, it is not yet clear how it plans to do this.

Yet its work is likely to be much more important for determining future policy than the NAP. It should consider how to bring people affected by government policies together, to share not only their experiences but also their ideas for change.

The action plan rightly argues that the wider community also has responsibilities to help combat social exclusion amongst the target group. But there are broader responsibilities than the examples given in the action plan.

There is a clear need for the general public to have greater respect for and understanding of the difficulties faced by those struggling to cope whilst living in long-term poverty and social exclusion.

And there is also a responsibility to be willing to pay the level of taxes needed to bring about, in the short term, the more preventative approach recommended by the action plan and, in the longer term, a genuinely inclusive and fairer society which really does refuse to write anyone off.

Fran Bennett is a senior research fellow at the Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Oxford. Here she draws on her experience of working with ATD Fourth World and other organisations working on poverty issues and with people living in poverty and social exclusion.