It was a feature of the criticism of the Blair administration that his UK government was too often pursuing well-meaning but ultimately contradictory policies on children. Lack of coordination between Whitehall departments was the prime suspect.

Just as the Brown government is settling in and his lieutenant , Ed Balls MP, is finding his feet as the new Minister for Children, Schools and Families, evidence from a longitudinal study of low income working family life by Bath University researchers is providing a timely reminder of the old problem.

Tess Ridge and Jane Millar wanted to find out what it meant for children when their low-income parents moved into employment. They interviewed 61 children aged between 8 and 14 and concluded that they were ‘absorbing the negative consequences of welfare-to-work policies directed at lone mothers’.

Thus, in reducing child poverty and improving children’s economic wellbeing – one of aims of the Every Child Matters agenda – the government seems once more to be in danger of undermining efforts to achieve other aims, notably improving children’s health and enjoyment of social activities.

Reported in the Journal of Social Policy as It's a Family Affair: Low-Income Children's Perspectives on Maternal Work, the research focused on the impact on children of a lone mother’s move into low-paid employment following a period of unemployment. The most recent figures show that child poverty in the UK was about 3.5 million in 2003/04. This is down from 1997 owing in part to welfare-to-work measures introduced by Labour, notably Child and Working Tax Credits and the New Deal for Lone Parents.

On the whole, the children said that their lives had improved as a result of their mothers gaining employment. They received more pocket money and had more and better possessions, including bikes, clothes and toys. Some remarked that they ate better food. They spent more time with friends swimming or going to the cinema. They could afford school trips and and their self-esteem had benefited as well.

At the same time, the authors reported variation in these findings. Younger children experienced worse upheaval in their routines and, where parents worked irregular or anti-social hours, children felt they spent less quality time as a family.

More importantly, the study found that children adopted different strategies to help sustain the new arrangements. They feared that otherwise they risked a return to poverty. Some children willingly assumed extra responsibilities for household chores and caring for younger siblings. Others moderated or policed their needs: one child went to school with tonsillitis because he didn’t want his mother to have to take time off work to care for him. Still others opted to tolerate adversity rather than to make a fuss.

Obvious policy responses are to ensure that employment for lone mothers is stable and well-paid and that there is suitable childcare to support such families. Doing this requires the new Ministry for Children to talk with HM Treasury and Department for Work and Pensions.

Ed Balls is widely regarded as being fiendishly clever and politically razor-sharp. The fact that he has also been given a share of responsibility for health, drugs, homelessness, youth sport and poverty seems to acknowledge the need for joined-up thinking. Certainly nothing much will change for the better unless the Brown team can make a habit of thinking about the impact on children of all of its policies.