ATTEMPTS by the island to halve poverty in just five years may have been over ambitious. Professor David Gordon, the man behind the 2002 Townsend report which saw the States approve the establishment of the Corporate Anti-Poverty Programme (Capp) in November 2003, said the success of the programme cannot be measured until a full review is made.

And that will not take place until 2009.

The introduction of the island’s zero-10 changes has put a halt to the review because the States agreed to delay any data collection until the full impact of the corporate tax regime on the poor could be assessed.

‘Most governments try to do in 10 years what Guernsey is attempting to do,’ said Professor Gordon, from Bristol University’s Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research.

‘We don’t know for certain whether Guernsey will have achieved this because there is not data available. It is entirely premature to say what has happened, but I believe there are plans to do that in the future.

The Townsend report found that something like 16% of households in Guernsey lived in relative poverty.

It was hoped that a five-year review would reveal a 50% improvement in reducing relative poverty through introducing initiatives through Capp such as financial support for post-16 education, benefits and tax measures and improved services for older people.

Professor Gordon said a collection of information to find out what needs to be done next was vital.

‘The amount of evidence in order to make clear decisions about policies is not available at the moment. There needs to be an evaluation of how policies have worked. Once that evidence is available politicians will be able to judge what is needed to be done next,’ he said.

The UK has reportedly reduced its poverty rates by one quarter in five years.

‘I think most people, including us, thought if there was any poverty it would be a very low percentage, probably about two or 3%,’ said Professor Townsend.

The report identified three areas of concern including single parent families, single pensioners and large families.

Professor Gordon said the latter group had received the least attention in the five years since the program was launched as far as he could determine.

‘A whole range of policies have been put in place already for single pensioners and single parents but more needs to be done for large families.

‘Work has been done to improve the standard of social housing in terms of affordability and quality,’ he said.

He approved of the Treasury and Resource’s proposals to introduce incentives to encourage mums back to work and provide a tax break for working pensioners.