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Although the number of children living in poverty has fallen since 1997, anti-poverty campaigners warn that more must be done to meet targets. Anabel Unity Sale reports.

The government has failed meet its pledge to remove one million children from poverty during its first term.

Figures published last week by the department for work and pensions reveal that 500,000 fewer children are now officially poor than in 1997. While this is undeniably progress, anti-poverty campaigners were expecting more.

The Households Below Average Income report shows that in 2000-1 there were 3.9 million children living in households in England, Scotland and Wales with incomes below 60 per cent of the median average, after housing costs. This compares with 4.4 million children in 1996-7, when Labour took office.

These statistics make startling reading given the government's public commitment to halve child poverty by 2010 and eradicate it by 2020.

Despite the significant shortfall in the figures, the department for work and pensions remains adamant that the government's attempts to reduce child poverty are proving successful.

A spokesperson for the DWP points out that, as well as removing 500,000 children from relative poverty, the government has prevented a further 700,000 children from entering it. He says the government is a third of the way towards reducing by a quarter the number of children living in relative poverty by 2004-5, based on a 1998-9 baseline.

Despite of the government's good intentions and the headway being made, the numbers of children living in relative poverty remain high.

Mike Lewis, policy director of Children in Wales, an umbrella organisation for children's work, believes this is because the government has failed to realise how significant the problem of child poverty is and how it should be tackled.

"It is about changing cultures in communities where unemployment is high," he says. "There is more to changing people's attitudes than giving them a job seeker's interview."

Stephen Burke, director of the Daycare Trust, says the scale of the task facing the government is substantial and warns that it will be some time before the impact of its measures to tackle child poverty is felt. He disagrees with the areas targeted through initiatives like Sure Start and Neighbourhood Nurseries. "Most poor children do not live in areas where these initiatives are operating," he claims.

Providing local affordable child care for working parents is vital if the government was to meet its pledge, he says. "Parents working is the best way to reduce child poverty."

Burke also warns that the failure to reduce child poverty figures as quickly as expected could derail the wider social inclusion agenda.

"Poverty is a major cause of social exclusion and until the government has tackled that it is unlikely to be able to tackle the many other symptoms of social exclusion," he says.

Lewis agrees that addressing child poverty is the cornerstone of the social inclusion agenda. According to him, amending the way the social fund operates would be one way to improve the situation for poor children. The limited number of social fund grants available fails to help poor families, he argues. "Need should not be based on ring-fenced income. The government must look at other ways of prioritising need."

Rosie Edwards, Children's Society anti-poverty programme manager, urges the government to "revisit its policies and investigate what else it has to do" before people start to believe that reducing child poverty is too difficult to achieve because the figures remain so high.

Neera Sharma, policy adviser for Barnardo's, says the government must also widen its net. She says current policies focus on lifting the least poor children out of poverty. "It leaves behind disabled children, travellers' children and those from ethnic minorities. There need to be targeted sums for those families that suffer chronic and persistent poverty."

For Sharma, a more fundamental shift is required in the government's thinking. "The government is not trying to win the hearts and minds of middle England on child poverty. And that is what we want to see."

'Households Below Average Income - 1994/5 to 2000/01' from www.dwp.gov.uk/asd

go to 'online documents' and the report is listed under 'other statistics'