Aberlour's response to the Scottish Government's Child Poverty Delivery Plan 26-31 consultation

Aberlour is the largest Scottish only children’s charity. Delivering more than fifty services across Scotland, we work with disadvantaged, marginalised and discriminated against children, young people and families, providing services and support in communities around the country. We help to overcome significant challenges families face, such as the impact of drugs and alcohol, growing up in and leaving care, poor mental health, living with a disability, or the impact of poverty and disadvantage. 

We aim to provide help and support at the earliest opportunity to prevent problems becoming intractable or spiralling out of control. We are committed to Keeping the Promise and to realising the human rights of all children and young people. This means working every day to make rights real for the children, young people and families we support and being unwavering in our ambition to ensure all of Scotland’s children have an equal chance regardless of their start in life.

We welcome the opportunity to respond to this consultation to outline what we believe must be Scottish Government’s key priorities for reducing child poverty and making progress towards child poverty targets in 2030/31. We recognise and welcome many of the actions Scottish Government has undertaken to focus on reducing child poverty over previous child poverty delivery plans, most notably the introduction of the Scottish Child Payment which has undoubtedly contributed to improving the lives of low-income families across Scotland. However, it is also true that we have not yet seen a significant shift in levels of child poverty or real progress towards reducing the numbers of children growing up in poverty 

The Child Poverty Delivery Plan 26-31 will be vital for setting out a clear route map that will enable government and partners across public, third and the private sector to help realise this ambition. Whilst we recognise there are challenges in reaching this goal, we believe it is still achievable if the Scottish Government prioritises clear targeted actions and investment and by working across government to use all available levers to improve the lives of our most disadvantaged children and families. This must also include working collaboratively with UK Government colleagues where devolved and reserved areas of policy interact.

In addition to our own response, Aberlour has contributed to and endorses the response to this consultation of the End Child Poverty coalition.