The Institute for Fiscal Studies has released research on the government's child poverty reduction policies.

It finds that taking a further 200,000 children out of poverty could be achieved by raising the per-child element of the child tax credit by £3 per week (on top of the increase in line with average earnings that has already been promised) at a cost of £1 billion.

Forum Response: The National Youth Agency

A spokesman for the National Youth Agency, told ePolitix.com: "For every child that faces poverty, that is one more child that faces an extra barrier to education, to housing and to full participation in the role of citizen. Enabling more young people to stay out of poverty means more young people who have a chance to meet their full potential, seek and find happiness in their lives and start to give back more to the rest of society. The eradication of poverty is everyone's interest."

Forum Response: Barnardo's

Neera Sharma, principal policy and practice officer for Barnardo's, told ePolitix.com: "It is clear from the IFS calculations that government needs to make significant investments if it is to reach its own targets or halving child poverty by 2010 and ending it within a generation. So far, only about 500,000 children have been taken out of poverty since Labour came into office. There are still 3.9 million, or 1 in 3, children living in poverty in the UK today."The IFS figures show the high level of investment required - £1 billion will reach just another 200,000 children. If particularly hard to reach groups of children, such as disabled children or children with health needs, are to be taken out of poverty, even higher levels of investment will be needed."