What do the public think are the key determinants of child poverty? New DWP polling released last week aimed to answer this question, but in fact proved anything but conclusive.

Asked to choose four out of a possible eleven factors that should be regarded as important when deciding if a child is growing up in poverty, respondents’ answers were spread remarkably evenly across the board. All the factors – from low income to parental disability, poor housing conditions to debt – were regarded as at least ‘quite important’ by 94 to 96 per cent of the sample. The sole exception was low parental skill level, which even so, was still regarded as important by a significant 87 per cent of respondents.

Given the homogeneity of the results, one would think this exercise would simply be filed as a bit on the dull side. But in fact, there is little chance that the polling will be relegated to some dusty shelf. Instead, these results, along with those from a very similar poll undertaken in January this year, are being treated by government as a key – and possibly decisive – input into its recent public consultation on measuring child poverty.

It is vital to hear from people living in poverty about their experience: this lies within their own knowledge and allows us to understand their lives better. But in its consultation document, the government made clear that what it wants to do is develop a new measure of child poverty that resonates with public perceptions of poverty. This ambition raises at least two very interesting questions.

First, given that measurement of a complex phenomenon such as poverty is technically demanding, to what extent should non-expert voices be given weight over and above those of specialists? As the Royal Statistical Society asserted in its own submission to the consultation, ‘current definition(s) of poverty … are the product of valid social science procedure. Any replacement would need to be subject to the same degree of rigour’.

Second, as the most recent British Social Attitudes survey makes clear, public opinion is, at least to some degree, fomented by government statements. As a result, we risk finding ourselves in a situation where (dis)information about the causes of child poverty begins to be used to legitimate government policy, once it has been laundered through the device of a public opinion poll.

Nowhere is this more apparent than the vexed issue of child poverty and parental addiction. References to an intimate relationship between the two conditions are commonplace in government speeches, yet the evidence for this link is sorely lacking. In fact, the government had to admit recently in response to a parliamentary question that it had no information on the number of children living in poverty with an addicted parent. Worryingly, it then proceeded to cite its own January public polling as confirmation that addiction is a significant cause of child poverty.

While public opinion has a huge bearing on many critical questions, it is evidence and sound methodology that the government should find most persuasive as they proceed to analyse the results of this consultation. And as for this polling? Let’s see it for what it is: a reflection of popular perceptions that tell us little about the reality of poverty, and even less about how to measure it.

* Alison Garnham is Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group.