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The Government's target of ending child poverty in Britain by 2025 has been put back another 25 years because of bureaucratic hold-ups, the Department of Miraculous Compassion (Domestic) said today.
"If it were within our power, of course we would end child poverty by next week at the latest, but unfortunately there are other factors which have to be considered," said spokesperson Gatley Frimble.
Mr Frimble said the Government wished to remind the public that, taking appropriate underlying demographic trends into account, child poverty in Britain was at a lower level than at any time in the past ten years in real terms where similar factors obtained according to official figures.
However, Mr Frimble said that this "enviable progress" had been slowed in recent years by a reluctance on the part of the National Office of Truths, Holy Truths and Statistics to accept new and innovative approaches to its work.
"The Government is engaged in a continuing quest to for efficiency, accuracy and undiluted truth in all things," said Mr Frimble. "This necessitates a flexible and dynamic approach the demands of which have been, perhaps, a little too much for some of our more traditionalist departments."
Mr Frimble was referring to the changes in the official methods of assessing the extent of child poverty, which have been changed 129 times in the past twenty years.
At the moment, children are not considered to be suffering from poverty unless they are accommodationally unprovisioned, lack gainful employment through no fault of their own and are under five years old. "This seems clear enough to the lay person," said statistician Bamber Muttock, "but the problem is that the Government keeps shifting the definitions of 'no fault of their own' and 'under five years old'."
Each change takes several weeks to become established practice, said Mr Muttock, so if another alteration occurs soon afterwards it can cause considerable confusion. "The Government should not allow its zeal for truth to get in the way of the provision of statistics which, while perhaps not accurate to the last infinitesimal degree, are perfectly acceptable for purposes to the extent that they actually serve them," Mr Muttock said.
The Government's target of ending child poverty in Britain by 2025 has been put back another 25 years because of bureaucratic hold-ups, the Department of Miraculous Compassion (Domestic) said today.
"If it were within our power, of course we would end child poverty by next week at the latest, but unfortunately there are other factors which have to be considered," said spokesperson Gatley Frimble.
Mr Frimble said the Government wished to remind the public that, taking appropriate underlying demographic trends into account, child poverty in Britain was at a lower level than at any time in the past ten years in real terms where similar factors obtained according to official figures.
However, Mr Frimble said that this "enviable progress" had been slowed in recent years by a reluctance on the part of the National Office of Truths, Holy Truths and Statistics to accept new and innovative approaches to its work.
"The Government is engaged in a continuing quest to for efficiency, accuracy and undiluted truth in all things," said Mr Frimble. "This necessitates a flexible and dynamic approach the demands of which have been, perhaps, a little too much for some of our more traditionalist departments."
Mr Frimble was referring to the changes in the official methods of assessing the extent of child poverty, which have been changed 129 times in the past twenty years.
At the moment, children are not considered to be suffering from poverty unless they are accommodationally unprovisioned, lack gainful employment through no fault of their own and are under five years old. "This seems clear enough to the lay person," said statistician Bamber Muttock, "but the problem is that the Government keeps shifting the definitions of 'no fault of their own' and 'under five years old'."
Each change takes several weeks to become established practice, said Mr Muttock, so if another alteration occurs soon afterwards it can cause considerable confusion. "The Government should not allow its zeal for truth to get in the way of the provision of statistics which, while perhaps not accurate to the last infinitesimal degree, are perfectly acceptable for purposes to the extent that they actually serve them," Mr Muttock said.
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