Positive reaction tempered by feeling that more could have been done

By now, governments are probably so cowed they no longer expect a "Yes!" reaction to giveaway Budgets.

By now, governments are probably so cowed they no longer expect a "Yes!" reaction to giveaway Budgets.

But there is no doubt that elements of this Budget qualify for just such a reaction. The rise in Child Benefit (popularly known as the Children's Allowance) is fairly hefty. The increases for old age pensioners are also good by comparison with some previous years.

In the health area, the increased spending on services for persons with intellectual disabilities (the term mental handicap is becoming politically incorrect) and physical disabilities is decent, again compared to previous years.

So why is the response that comes across in the reaction to the Budget so much a "Yes, but . . ." rather than a "Yes!"?

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Part of it arises from the feeling that more could have been done with the enormous amounts of money now at the disposal of the State.

To begin to tackle this, Barnardos wanted to see child benefit brought up to £100 per child per month straight away - especially since the Government's National Children's Strategy has the elimination of child poverty as one of its objectives. This is fair enough. We didn't get to the situation of having one of Europe's highest levels of child poverty by accident. To a large extent it has arisen from the welfare policies of a State which, since its inception, has never been comfortable with putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to supporting families and children.

There is a lot of work to be done to reverse the poverty which blights the future of children and this Budget is only a beginning.

Part of that "Yes, but . . ." attitude may also come from the length of the struggle which it has taken to get this far.

For instance, no one can take from the Government that in this Budget it is allocating big sums of money to services for people with intellectual and physical disabilities (an extra £83 million for intellectual disability and £39 million for physical disability between buildings, equipment and pay).

But this is the outcome of many years of work by parents, and by people with disabilities, who exhausted themselves and their families in the fight for recognition of the need for better services.

Right now, the carers are going through the ordeal which these families went through - the hard slog, year after year, making your case again and again until you get somewhere. This explains their anger at a change in the means test for the Carers' Allowance which will bring in an extra 5,000 carers. But many of these will only get a partial allowance and the Carers' Association estimates that it will bring the number on the allowance up to about 15,000 - whereas the association estimates that the country has about 120,000 carers.