Nursery World - Editor's View - Financial gains made by UK families now appear to be in peril

It is always illuminating to set things in context, and the OECD's first-ever report into family well-being is incredibly useful in providing both a geographical context and comparison (examining more than 30 countries) and a historical one (see News, page 4).

We are so used to the UK coming near the bottom of any international league table on social policy and outcomes that it is a surprise to see that before the financial crisis, child poverty in the UK - by the OECD's definition of living in a household with less than half the media income - fell by more than in any other OECD country, from 17.4 per cent to 10.5 per cent.

The decade of 1995-2005 saw the Labour government's investment result in the third-highest rise in average family incomes, with spending on early years rising substantially from 2003 to 2007.

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