I've indicated many a time on this blog that for the One Wales government to be able to seriously reach the same UK government based targets of halving child poverty by 2010 and its eradication by 2020, it will rely heavily on joint up commitment and policy drive on both an Assembly and a Westminster level. New figures out next week by the DWP are being primed in the press to suggest that the targets will be missed, and that without a £3 billion investment in the 2009 budget, the target will be nothing more than a failed aspiration.
This is of course very worrying, especially as here in Wales we are trying on every level of Government to ensure that the child poverty agenda is at the forefront of the work by Ministers and policy initiatives alike.How this work can prove successful, however, without the UK Labour party investing in the benefits system, and overhauling the taxation system is a challenge even for the best of us.
We need only look at how the UK government is intent upon centralising public services, prioritising the strategy of securing seats in middle Engand where child poverty is a trendy buzz word for middle class volunteers, and the general lack of drive behind addressing child poverty to understand that we are going nowhere fast on this issue.
Child Poverty campaigners will be the first to criticise the Government for not reaching its targets when the stats are released on Tuesday. Whether Brown can, and will, be bold enough after months of dithering on a wide variety of matters to deliver on child poverty will be anyone's guess.
But until he does act, I reserve my right to be judgemental of a Government in London who prefer the sound of fluffly soundbites on key social policy as opposed to actually getting on with the job at hand.
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