The government justified its decision – announced earlier this month – to change the way it measures child poverty by claiming that a new system is needed that better monitors the life chances of children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Under its plans, the current "deeply flawed" measures, contained in the Child Poverty Act 2010 and based largely on household income, will be replaced by new ones that are focused on assessing if the right conditions for improving social mobility exist (see box).
Child poverty campaigners have questioned the validity of the new measures, some saying it will mask the true levels of child poverty at a time when they are predicted to grow from 3.5 million today to 4.7 million by 2020, using the current definition.
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