Mr Balls told the Daycare Trust conference that 600,000 fewer childrenare living in poverty thanks to Government initiatives aimed at makingchildcare affordable and 'making work pay'. He said 400,000 families arebenefiting from the Working Tax Credit and tax and National Insurancerelief for employer-supported childcare.
Mr Balls said the Government had set aside funding to meet its goal of3,500 children's centres by 2010.
'This is not just another Government initiative, piloted one year andgone the next - our plan is to make the centres a permanent feature ofour universal welfare state.'
Figures released by the Department of Work and Pensions in May showedthat in 2005/06, 3.8 million children were living in relative poverty(in homes of less than 60 per cent of average income, including housingcosts) - a rise of 200,000 from the previous year.
Child poverty advisor Lisa Harker, who also spoke at the conference,disagreed with Mr Balls and said that current Government policies wouldfail poverty targets by 'a long way'. She said that finding affordablechildcare was still a problem for low-income families and that taxcredits 'are not working; only a fraction of low-income families areclaiming them'.
Ms Harker challenged the next Prime Minister to 'have the courage' toend poverty among those in work by raising the issue of fair reward; toinvest in the childcare workforce; and to ensure continuity in childcarepolicies.
She said, 'We do not need a raft of new initiatives, we need sustainedfunding and long-term programmes.'
But he said the Government would not be ring fencing early years fundingto prevent local authorities diverting the money to other areas.
'If we dictate how every pound is spent we disempower local authoritiesand childcare professionals.'