The Government will achieve its 2010 targets of halving child poverty, economic secretary Ed Balls said last week, despite figures showing an increase in the number of families living below the poverty line.
Mr Balls told the Daycare Trust conference that 600,000 fewer children are living in poverty thanks to Government initiatives aimed at making childcare affordable and 'making work pay'. He said 400,000 families are benefiting from the Working Tax Credit and tax and National Insurance relief for employer-supported childcare.
Mr Balls said the Government had set aside funding to meet its goal of 3,500 children's centres by 2010.
'This is not just another Government initiative, piloted one year and gone the next - our plan is to make the centres a permanent feature of our universal welfare state.'
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