Policy Exchange report says government methods of assessing child poverty fail to register the true number who are suffering.
Patrick Wintour
Nearly 2.3 million children are living materially deprived lives, yet are not included in the government's headline measurement of child poverty, the influential think tank Policy Exchange says today in a report that is expected to affect government thinking on how to measure child poverty.
The current target does not take into account social poverty indicators such as whether a child has been in the care system, whether one or both of the child's parents has a criminal conviction or the quality of housing the child lives in.
Policy Exchange argues that once these factors are taken into account a much greater number of children are actually 'in poverty'.
Almost all previous discussion of child poverty has focussed on material poverty especially the poverty relative to average incomes.
The work and pensions secretary, Ian Duncan Smith, who has delivered many speeches on broadening the scope of the approach to child poverty is likely to view the suggestions sympathetically, but it is unlikely that he will abolish the existing targets as opposed to adding to them.
The report claims the Labour target - based entirely on income - led to an increase of non-work contingent benefits over work contingent benefits. As a result Child Tax Credit rose by 63% compared to Working Tax Credit which rose by 28% between 2003/4 and 2012/13. The report calculates the government has spent £170billion between 2003 and 2010 trying to alleviate poverty. Since 1998/9 the increase in net financial support for the poorest households with children amounts to £4,000 a year above inflation.
It points out the 2010 Emergency Budget and Spending Review committed to £8billion through Child Tax Credit in order to avoid changes in the headline measure of child poverty over a two year period.
It claims these hand outs simply mask the problem and do not tackle the root causes of why households are in poverty. The policy exchange report suggests the current measure should be replaced with a new piece of legislation that covers both household income and social poverty factors such as whether a child has been in the care system or lives in poor quality housing.
Matthew Oakley, head of economics and social policy at Policy Exchange, said: "The current measure of child poverty needs changing. Simply assessing whether a child is in poverty on the basis of household income fails to take into consideration a number of serious issues. It leads us to think we are improving outcomes for children when in fact they can still be living severely deprived lives."
He said that a new measure, focused on income as well as factors such as the quality of housing and level of education, would likely increase the number of children in poverty. But he added: "It would allow the government to focus policy solutions on improving outcomes both now and in the future for deprived children rather than simply masking the problem with state hand outs that do nothing to get to the root of the poverty problem."
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