Third Report - Children in poverty: Measurement and targets

The government stated that tackling child poverty is a cross-government priority and mentioned the ONS is leading the development of an interactive tool for income and earnings statistics, but did not commit DWP to revisit its own analysis as requested.

The government response did not address the committee's conclusion regarding worklessness and educational attainment indicators not being a substitute for measuring poverty, instead providing boilerplate text about existing publications and monitoring.

The government's response focuses on ongoing research into data matching and analysis programmes for child income poverty and engagement with local authorities regarding Universal Credit data sharing, which does not address broadening the scope of 'Helping workless families indicators'.

The government's response discusses general cross-government efforts and ONS development of an interactive tool, but does not set out DWP's plans for supplementary experimental statistics or explain how the Secretary of State's focus will inform poverty measurement.

The government response provided a general statement about its commitment to tackling poverty, existing reporting mechanisms, and focus on work, but did not address the committee's specific observations regarding international measurement approaches or the dangers of a single poverty index.

The government provides a general statement about cross-government poverty efforts and mentions the ONS is developing an interactive tool, but does not commit DWP to using its administrative data to produce 'closer to real-time' child poverty information.

The government noted that tackling child poverty is a cross-government priority and mentioned the ONS is developing an interactive tool for income and earnings statistics, but did not commit DWP to develop or publish a specific dashboard of child income-related poverty indicators.

The government did not commit to commissioning new research examining the pandemic's impacts on low-income children or publishing its results. It noted DHSC is leading the longer-term project and will coordinate publication decisions, effectively redirecting part of the recommendation.

The government response outlined existing data collected by the Family Resources Survey and plans to introduce new questions on debt repayments, but did not directly address the committee's conclusion about the impact of data gaps on poverty measurement accuracy or the need for significant DWP commitment.