The 2004/05 child poverty target: What happened?

The Government set itself a target to reduce child poverty by a quarter between 1998/99 and 2004/05. This was an initial step towards halving it by 2010/11 and an ultimate goal of ‘eradicating’ it by 2020.
This archived note outlines how the 2004/05 target was missed, alongside commentary around the target at the time these data were released in March 2006. A new three-part measure of child poverty is being used to judge the 2010/11 target and progress towards it (see SN/EP/3314 for details).

Full background and methodology behind the statistics presented here is given in the Poverty: Measures and Targets Library Research Paper (RP04/23).