We're still failing millions of children

Children are the principal victims – the social impact of bed and breakfast and other temporary accommodation on them has been well documented. They are more likely to suffer accidents, more likely to truant, more prone to ill health and less likely to thrive at school … the litany goes on.

It is nearly six years since this government came to power, promising to tackle social exclusion and improve the lot of children in this country. The record is mixed. Admittedly, a large number of children have been "taken out of poverty", largely through low unemployment, the introduction of the minimum wage and the working families tax credit and higher benefits for families with children. But even progress is this area seems to have been overstated.

The latest trends published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reveal that nearly 4 million children were living in households below the low-income threshold in 2000/01 – 500,000 fewer than than the peak in 1997, but it only brings us back to the level at the start of the 1990s, and it is only half as much as the government claimed to have achieved at the last election.

Meanwhile, the government has abandoned its key targets for reducing drug abuse, presumably because it knew it could not keep them. Ministers are learning the hard way that when it comes to social policy, simply devising a strategy and demanding that something should happen does not mean that it will.

At least some of the educational data is heartening – the oft-criticised focus on standards has coincided with more pupils achieving basic education qualifications.

The Damilola Taylor case showed how impotent the authorities are at tackling the gang culture that thrives amid family breakdown, drugs and deprivation

The JRF reports that one in four 16-year-olds failed to achieve any GCSE grades above a D in 2001, quite a drop from the mid-1990s' figure of one in three.

But, to the consternation of children's charities, we are locking up more young people than ever, and the government is struggling to find ways of getting children to go to school and get their parents to accept responsibility. The message from schools is not encouraging; most head teachers will tell you standards of behaviour are falling and levels of concentration among a significant minority of pupils is very poor. More than ever, teachers are having to act as social workers supporting children and families.

To be fair to the government, it has not been idle on these matters. In the New Year we can expect the deputy prime minister's Communities Plan, the aim of which presumably will be to deliver more affordable homes, and a children's green paper that could tie together the vast number of cross-government initiatives. There will also be a national service framework for children in the health service and the long-awaited inquiry report into the death of Victoria Climbie, killed after the authorities missed numerous opportunities to protect her.

Yet it is possible to act without being effective. The recent report into the death of Damilola Taylor criticised aspects of the criminal justice system, but the case revealed a bigger truth – it showed just how impotent the authorities were when it came to tackling an insidious gang culture that thrives amid family breakdown, drugs and deprivation. The south London estate where Damilola died was being renewed and many positive things were going on, but it harboured young people who were out of control. They mocked the criminal justice system, regarded anyone in authority with disdain and defied any attempt to curb their activities.