Jargon buster: Qualifying households

What does it mean? This is a term being bandied around in discussions over how the government's Child Poverty Bill should tackle its targets to eradicate child poverty by 2020. At first glance, it may seem an easy piece of jargon to bust. In the context of the bill, a qualifying household would be a family living in poverty according to government statistics. But this is where it becomes contentious, because government statistics do not reach every family.

The government has acknowledged that the bill's targets will be based on families covered by the surveys it conducts to measure the indicators of poverty. But these surveys are based on postcodes and, as a result, will exclude communal establishments or institutions. Many children living in poverty will therefore not be considered in the targets, such as Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children, asylum-seekers and those in bed-and-breakfast accommodation or care homes.