New report: Restoring social security safety net crucial to tackling poverty

This article was featured in the SCDC Weekly - 16th October 2024.

A comprehensive new report, published during Challenge Poverty Week, has outlined the scale of challenge around tackling poverty in Scotland. 

The figures are stark. Overall, 1.1 million people (1 in 5) are living in poverty in Scotland.  The figures for children show 240,000 (1 in 4) children living in poverty, rising to 53% for children in minority ethnic families.

Children and working-age adults in a family where someone is disabled were 3 times as likely to experience combined low-income and material deprivation, reporting that they are unable to access key goods and services.

Published by Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the report makes the case for restoring the UK’s social security safety net. Rather than being seen as secondary to preventative spending, it should be a crucial part of the system that can take the pressure off other services such as schools or GPs dealing with the ongoing effects of poverty. 

“Both the UK and Scottish Governments are under intense budget pressure, but the trade-offs that individuals are facing at the moment and the damage this does to the fabric of our society demands political bravery and commitment,” the report states

Like recent work exploring Scotland’s inequalities, JRF also found a significant under-reporting of the impact of the Scottish Child Payment (SCP) – the Scottish Government’s devolved benefit aimed at achieving the government’s aim of “eradicating child poverty”. 

Based on JRF modelling, this could mean that at its current levels the SCP could reduce the child poverty rate by 3 percentage points by the 2030/31 legal target date. However, even with this estimated impact it’s clear the SCP would inadequate at its current level, as “the poverty rate remains around 10 percentage points above the target of 10%.” 

 
 
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