By Dominic Casciani BBC News Online community affairs reporter

Target: One million fewer children in poverty by 2004

Projections for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation say a quarter of children will be out of poverty by the spring of 2004.

But experts say it will be more difficult to eradicate child poverty by the government's 2020 target.

The report is the most positive prediction on poverty in five years.

Policies questioned

The government made the commitment in 1999 when Gordon Brown set an initial target to halve child poverty by 2010.

Staying on track to halve child poverty by 2010 will be increasingly hard to achieve and require substantially more redistribution of national income towards the poorest families Holly Sutherland, report author

Since then, research has questioned whether the government was doing enough to hit its targets.

But according to the latest report by Cambridge University and the London School of Economics poverty, as defined by the official measure, fell by approximately one million between 1996/97 and 2000/01.

While this was mainly down to rising employment, new policies introduced by Labour have increased the number of children and pensioners taken out of poverty, concluded the authors.

But the team also found that although 1.3 million children should be out of poverty by the spring of 2004, the eventual figure may be 300,000 less because benefits have not kept pace with rising incomes.

Furthermore, some one million pensioners may have been lifted out of poverty by 2004 if housing costs are taken into account - but only a quarter of that figure if they are not.

'Significant achievement'

Holly Sutherland, of Cambridge University and co-author of the report, said: "Reducing child poverty by a quarter would be a significant achievement, but our study also shows the challenge that the Government has set itself in tackling poverty.

DEFINITION OF POVERTY The official poverty line is 60% of median income, the mid-point on the scale of national earnings The figure moves as national earnings change and experts say this measure helps provide a wider sense of social exclusion

"Rising employment - 'work for those who can' - has made a real contribution to reducing poverty in the past six years.

"But there are limits to how much further employment measures can be expected to reduce poverty."

The government says its poverty targets are underpinned by policies including the minimum wage, tax credits and on-the-ground programmes such as the Sure Start scheme for lone parents.

But, predict the authors, these will not be enough unless the government also introduces more redistribution.

"Without the recent improvements made to the tax and benefit system for those with low incomes, poverty would be much worse," said Holly Sutherland.

"But it is also clear that more help will need to be directed towards poorer households if the Government is to reach its longer-term targets.

"Staying on track to halve child poverty by 2010 will be increasingly hard to achieve and require substantially more redistribution of national income towards the poorest families."

Campaigner pressure

However, the Child Poverty Action Group cast doubt on whether the government would even hit the 2004 target.

Martin Barnes, director of the charity, called for the new child tax credit to be raised by �5.

"While there is no doubt that the Government is making significant progress, it is far from certain that the target to reduce child poverty by a quarter by 2004/05 will be met," said Mr Barnes.

"There has been a tendency for forecasts to overestimate the rate at which child poverty is reduced.

"The Institute for Fiscal Studies has suggested that the target could be missed by around 200,000 children unless the child tax credit is increased by at least �3 a week per child from next April.

"Given the Chancellor's commitment to make faster progress, the Government should aim to overshoot not undershoot the target."

In his last budget Gordon Brown said tackling child poverty would be a key aim of the 2004 Comprehensive Spending Review, the method used by the Treasury to link long-term government funding to policy targets.

Proportion poor (%) after housing costs
(Poverty threshold 60% of median income)
Year	1996/97	2000/01
Pensioner couple	22.3%	21.8%
Single pensioner	32.5%	28.2%
Couple with children	23%	20.9%
Couple without	11.9%	12.2%
Lone parent	62%	53.8%
Single	24.3%	21.7%
All households	24.6%	22.6%
Source: Joseph Rowntree Foundation report