[1] Topics covered in the FACS so far have been, for example, health and well-being, behaviour and childcare provision, use of local services, education and training, employment, family income, receipt of benefits and material deprivation.
The FACS pursues amongst others the long term objective to eradicate child poverty within a generation within the Government’s Public Service Agreement.
Other objectives include the evaluation of the Government’s work incentive measures, to compare living standards of families across Great Britain and across the income distribution, and to observe changes in the above.
[2] The study is carried out by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Additionally, new families have been included each year to increase the sample size and to allow representative cross-section as well as longitudinal comparison.