Child poverty focus welcome but more cash needed, says charity

First Minister John Swinney pledged ‘significant reform’ to public services in order to better support families.

The Programme for Government was released on Wednesday (Jane Barlow/PA) (PA Archive)

The Scottish Government’s focus on child poverty is welcome, a leading charity has said, but more funding will be needed to improve the situation.

John Swinney laid out his Programme for Government on Wednesday, pledging “significant reform” of public services so they can offer better support to families.

But despite making the issue his top priority, the First Minister did not announce any further funding, just 24 hours after his Finance Secretary announced about £500 million in cuts.

Reacting to the programme for Government, John Dickie, the director of the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) in Scotland, said: “The First Minister is right to make child poverty his ‘first priority’.

“His recognition that the Government “must do more” is welcome. But whilst reforming public services so that hard-up families can easily access support is vital, those services need to be available and adequately funded in the first place.

“The harsh reality is that ministers are falling behind in resourcing the childcare, housing and employment actions that Government has already committed to and that families so desperately need.

The Scottish Government’s approach to child poverty is the right approach, with the Scottish child payment alone lifting between 40,000 and 60,000 children out of poverty, but we need to see a step change in the pace and scale of action.

“The challenge facing Government and opposition alike is that there is no credible route to eradicating child poverty that doesn’t involve further serious investment in social security, childcare, affordable family housing and action to support parents access decent jobs.”

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) – another key anti-poverty charity – said the Scottish Government is “diagnosing the right issues” to tackle poverty, but that the “prescription falls well short of what’s needed”.

“Both the Scottish and UK Governments now say they want to ease poverty for people in Scotland but it is concerning that there is little in the current political debate that grasps the scale of the issues that households face,” added JRF associate director for Scotland, Chris Birt.

Mary Glasgow, the chief executive of Children 1st, welcomed the focus on child poverty, but said the charity was “deeply concerned that the drastic cuts to public spending will throw many children and families already in crisis over the edge”.

“The First Minister’s recognition of whole family support is positive but lacks clarity and specific plans to make this a reality, with resource to match need.”

Jamie Livingstone, the head of Oxfam Scotland, urged the Scottish Government to consider increasing taxes in the budget due to be published in December, or risk the programme for government being “full of half empty and underwhelming promises”.

“Commitments on clean home heating systems and enhancing support for low-income families are encouraging, but with emergency spending cuts this year, we’ll continue facing the same predictable gap between commitments and cash,” he said.

“Scottish ministers must use devolved powers to introduce far-reaching tax reforms that target wealth to help ramp up their ambition and turn their promises into progress.”

The Scottish Government later released a statement on free school meals, saying they remained “committed to the universal expansion of free school meals in primary schools”.

The spokesperson added: “We are already delivering this provision in Primaries 1-5, with the next stage of the rollout being for Primary 6 and 7 pupils in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment.

“However, the current financial situation means that universality will now not be delivered by 2026.”