UPDATED 12.52PM: Government agencies are in the firing line in the Salvation Army's annual State of the Nation report.

The survey of New Zealand society and economy is titled 'Moving Targets' - it found only minor improvements in many of our social and economic conditions.

The report claims agencies are deliberately coming up with favourable results to meet the government's "better public service" targets.

Report author Alan Johnson said some of the ways in which the Government is approaching those targets is questionable. He said CYF, for instance, is working towards a target of reducing physical abuse among children.

"And what appears to be the case in pursuit of the target to reduce a particular sort of abuse, they've paid less emphasis on other sorts of abuse. Whether or not that means our kids are better off or worse off, we don't know."

"They're misusing those targets so they're becoming moving in the sense that you can't rely on them being what you think they are."

The report said CYF figures for physical abuse are inconsistent with crime victimisation results.

Rachel Smalley: Poverty a key to the prison door for Māori

The Salvation Army's Major Campbell Roberts said there's a bit of playing with numbers going on as opposed to actual progress.

"So what we really need is a target which says we want to reduce child poverty by 5 per cent, 10 per cent or whatever over a particualar period of time, and actually make that the target."

However Prime Minister John Key said the targets don't change, so there's no way they can be manipulated.

"Some of the targets we're meeting, some of them we're not meeting," Key said.

"Actually if you looked at the report it was overwhelmingly positive."

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei said the report raises serious doubts about the government's achievements for children given it's found there is no way of knowing if child abuse is actually falling.

She said New Zealanders will be horrified to learn CYF is disregarding child abuse notifications, possibly in order to make its numbers look better for ministers.

The State of the Nation report also highlighted rates of re-offending by released, and the country's prison population reaching an all-time high.

Not making a difference for Māori 

The Sallies noted the Māori rate of imprisonment remains seven times that of non-Māori .

Major Roberts said that while New Zealanders were experiencing less violent crime, more people are being put into prison.

"We're meeting some of those targets, but actually it's not really making a difference in a key indicator, which is recidivism," Roberts noted.

Alan Johnson said there seems to be a 'build it and they'll come' mentality around New Zealand prisons, which he sees as a training ground for criminals.

Auckland exodus

The report further notes that Auckland's housing crisis has helped drive 38,000 people out of the city to other parts of the country within the last six years - equivalent to the population of urban Whanganui.

The Sallies argue Auckland's housing bubble is worsening inequality with the city's house prices up 20 percent in the past year and rents up 5.7 percent - while wages have risen just 1.7 percent.