Blog: Challenge Poverty Week 2024

This week is Challenge Poverty Week.

Every year at this time we shine a light on the incredible efforts of all those organisations and individuals doing all they can to challenge poverty across Scotland.

Despite these efforts we’ve witnessed another year where child poverty has failed to reduce.

In fact, by some measures child poverty in Scotland is rising.

At Aberlour, we stand at the forefront of supporting Scotland's most disadvantaged children and families, and we do all we can do to tackle child poverty.

Too often it feels like we are applying a sticking plaster to a gaping wound.

That’s because ending child poverty is a political choice.

Children do not choose to grow up in poverty, but governments make choices that either improve people’s lives or don’t.

So far, neither the Scottish Government nor UK Government have chosen to end child poverty.

We’ve now had three first ministers pledging to make child poverty their absolute priority.

The time is long overdue for us to move beyond incremental shifts at best, and sound bites at worst.

Resources haven’t followed key promises, and to our eternal shame, promises have been made and broken to some children who have only known uncertainty and broken promises.

Lifting our people out of poverty and destitution benefits us all.

The evidence could not be clearer.

At Aberlour, what we see every day are parents absolutely trying to do the best they possibly can.

But they find themselves in intolerable situations – situations which anyone would find equally intolerable.

When you cannot feed your children or have to choose between them eating or you, or sending them to school in uniforms that are too small, or ill-fitting shoes, the level of stress that creates in families is really significant.

The richness of childhood is under threat because of the way society is being fractured and changed by the relentless devastation of poverty.

The most recent child poverty figures tell us that despite Scottish Government’s efforts to reduce child poverty, including through delivering the Scottish Child Payment, progress has stalled.

But ending child poverty does not start and end in with decisions made in Scotland.

We have two governments now – one in Holyrood and one in Westminster – who claim to be committed to ending child poverty.

The First Minister has been clear that his number one priority is to end child poverty.

The Prime Minister has commissioned a Child Poverty Taskforce.

Both are welcome.

But those commitments must be matched by clear actions and investment – such as ending the heinous, poverty creating two child limit policy.

Otherwise, they are simply warm words and good intentions.

We need a different politics now across the UK, one of collaboration.

Each government must commit to working together to achieve the shared ambition to end child poverty.

Then we would begin to see some progress that would make a real and meaningful difference in the lives of our poorest children and families.

One area where I believe both governments must take action to help and support struggling families is by tackling public debt.

Low-income families across the UK are in the midst of a debt crisis.

Overwhelmingly our evidence shows that public debt, such as council tax arrears, rent, and even school meal debt, is trapping families in an unbreakable cycle of poverty.

Our research has made clear that public debt is a key contributor to levels of child poverty, with one study showing that 75% of debt owed by low-income families is public debt.

Families already disadvantaged because they’re on the breadline are doubly disadvantaged because they’re getting automatic removals from their income before it hits the bank.

Families whose income already fails to meet their needs or allows them to provide the essentials for their children.

These debts then trap families in poverty.

If we’re serious about tackling child poverty, then we must be equally committed to tackling public debt.

We need a plan to tackle the debt crisis that means not reducing household budgets, but instead keeps money in families’ pockets for the things that they need for their children to thrive.

This Challenge Poverty Week that is what I urge John Swinney and Keir Starmer to do.

SallyAnn Kelly OBE,

Aberlour Chief Executive

This article was written for The Scottish Sun and published on Tuesday 8th October 2024.