Politics aside, the facts are stark. All of these parties committed Holyrood to targets on child poverty. This included an interim target, now only three years away, of a reduction to 18 percent. But statistics now show that poverty was increasing, even before the pandemic, to roughly one in four.
Child Poverty
With 4 in 10 children in single parent families living in poverty, the Scottish government has a way to go to meet its child poverty targets.
Child Poverty Targets “Destined for Failure” Without More Employability Support for Carers.
“If we want young children to develop the physical, social, emotional and cognitive capacities required for long-term health and well-being… we have to put love and play at the heart of state-sponsored early childhood education and care.”
Sue Palmer: Best place in the world to grow up?
The Scottish Government will be opening applications to those with children under 6 as of Monday 9 November.
Scottish Child Payment to open applications early, in light of worsening child poverty.
Tory attempts to justify opposition to free school meals over the holidays are becoming increasingly desperate, and have a shrinking audience among the public. “Not destroying the currency with excessive QE is also one of our duties,” backbench Tory MP Steve Baker barked on Twitter at Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford, who successfully led a […]
Analysis: QE, Rashford and the new Tory milk snatchers
Around one million Scots were in poverty before the covid-19 crisis, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s new Poverty in Scotland 2020 report finds. That breaks down as 230,000 children, 640,000 working age adults, and 150,000 pensioners. These numbers have been rising over the past five years, especially child poverty, which is up to 24 per cent, almost one […]
Scotland is going backwards on poverty
“Targets to reduce child poverty must not be allowed to be a casualty of COVID-19. Any plan for recovery must prioritise these recommendations, or this will almost certainly be the outcome.”
Scotland Faces Increasing Child Poverty Without Urgent Action
Common Weal communications officer Becki Menzies looks at the SQA grading debacle through her own experience of going to a school in a deprived area. She argues that this should be a wake-up call. If my fifth year exams results had been marked by the same SQA methodology as this year, I’d probably not the […]
Becki Menzies: I would have been one of those kids let down by the SQA system – it’s time for change
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s ‘A stronger Scottish lifeline in the economic storm’, a briefing paper published yesterday, is a good starting point for debate about what needs to be in the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government in September to stave off the most devastating economic impacts of the crisis in the immediate term. Jobs: 628,000 workers have […]