Professor Alissa Goodman

Before the 2001 election the Treasury said that `tax and benefit reforms announced in this Parliament will lift over 1.2 million children out of relative poverty. But official figures released on 11 April show a smaller fall in child poverty, of only 0.5 million since 1996-97. This commentary attempts to explain the discrepancy.

Since the November 2001 Pre-Budget Report, there has been much speculation surrounding how much the UK spends on health and how much more it would need to spend in order to reach the average level of spending seen across European Union countries. An aspiration to increase UK health spending to the average European level was first made by the Prime Minister in January 2000. In addition, the Labour Party manifesto states that 'over time we will bring UK health spending up to the EU average'. More recently, the Prime Minister has confirmed that he would like to see UK health spending reach the European average by 2005. This short note compares the level of health spending in the UK with that overseas and discusses how much more the UK is likely to need to spend on health if it is to meet the Prime Minister's stated target.

The private health care sector forms a relatively small part of the system of health care in this country, but its importance has grown in recent decades.

This commentary examines the role of both the public and private sectors in delivering healthcare in the UK. How does the UK compare with other countries? What is the role of private finance in the delivery of healthcare? What variations in NHS quality are seen across the UK? How much additional pressure is there likely to be on the NHS budget in future as a result of an ageing population?

We use British birth cohort panel data to examine the impact that degree level qualifications and other higher education qualifications have on the earnings of individuals in the medium to longer term.

Significant change was made to both tax and benefits systems during the period 19972001.

This Commentary looks at public pay in detail, tracing its trend relative to the private sector over the 1980s and 1990s and showing how the gap in pay between the public and private sectors differs dramatically across occupations, gender and education groups. These findings illustrate how misleading comparisons of public and private sector pay based on aggregate data can be.

It is widely accepted that an accurate assessment of the extent to which graduates benefit from higher education is crucial for the effective development of policy in this area. For the first time in the UK, this report examines two dimensions of labour market success (employment and wages) in the early 1990s for a group of 33-year-olds who undertook higher education and compares their performance with a similarly-aged group who obtained at least one (and alternatively at least two) A level qualifications but did not proceed into higher education.

The rapid growth in income inequality in the UK over the 1980s has excited a good deal of interest and concern.