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(b) bad budgeting on low incomes (expensive unnutritious diet, tinned food,
bought pies, buns, crisps, excessive pocket money to children for sweets,
ices, soft drinks; and 'fashion' clothes and shoes with no wear in them)
(c) drink and gambling, often coupled, and often accompanied by very
irregular employment, marital disharmony, and delinquency. A number of
fathers in this group consider it simply not worth while to work "for
fifteen bob a week", the difference between their earning capacity and
what they can draw for Social Security for doing nothing.
(d) drug dependence, steadily increasing in a number of forms; even when
legally prescribed, drugs are becoming a factor which shows signs of competing
with alcoholism in producing the really bedrock homes, stripped
of all comfort, disorganised, dirty, the parents prone to violence, apathy
or despair.
To preserve a sense of proportion it is necessary to stress that though
these "arrears" families present over 80% of the Standing Committee, Arrears
Sub-Committee, and individual case conference work, they form only roughly
2% of the Lambeth population.

(Sgd) Miss M. le Kitchen