Anti-Poverty Organisations call for Scottish Budget to Tackle Public Sector Debt to Reduce Child Poverty

A powerful group of third sector organisations has called on the Scottish Government to accelerate efforts to reduce child poverty in their forthcoming budget by tackling public sector debt.

At a roundtable of anti-poverty organisations organised by Aberlour Children’s Charity in Glasgow, it was unanimously agreed to call on the Scottish Government to take concrete steps to address public sector debt and the role it plays in increasing child poverty, affecting the lives of far too many Scottish children.

The anti-poverty coalition is calling on the government to introduce three measures that will help immediately alleviate child poverty by tackling public debt and provide much needed help to families struggling in a spiral of poverty. 

Firstly, they have called on the government to end school meal debt for good by making their school meal debt fund permanent and providing it with greater resources. They are also calling on the government to extend eligibility for free school meals to all low-income families, to prevent families getting into debt in the first place.

Secondly, they are calling on the government to introduce a comprehensive debt amnesty programme, targeting low-income families stuck in a cycle of unsustainable debt, prioritising debts owed to public bodies such as council tax and housing arrears.

This would replicate at a national level the success of the Tayside Family Financial Wellbeing pilot introduced by Aberlour in partnership with local authorities across Tayside. To help administer this a central fund that councils could access to help write off debt for families who are trapped in poverty should be created and adequately resourced. This could be the lever to ensure meaningful help for struggling households and help re-set the lives of many families held back by unmanageable debt.

Finally, all organisations at today’s roundtable called on the government to raise the Scottish Child Payment to £40 a week. This would have a significant impact on tackling child poverty for some of the poorest households in Scotland by putting more money in struggling families’ pockets.

SallyAnn Kelly OBE, Chief Executive of Aberlour said:

Every one of these organisations understands the scale of child poverty in Scotland today and the impact it's having on the lives of so many children and their future life chances. It is shameful that 1 in 4 children are living in poverty and that should never be seen as normal. The Scottish Government now has some additional funds from the UK Government, and we believe that some of that extra resource should be allocated to accelerating efforts to reduce child poverty. They have an opportunity in this budget to transform the lives of so many struggling families. We have offered them some practical policies that can help them do that. We hope they take that opportunity. We will continue to do all we can on behalf of Scotland’s children and families to persuade them to do the right thing.