‘Giving with One Hand, Taking Away with the Other’ Event

On Friday 24th March Aberlour hosted an event for Debt Awareness Week – ‘Giving with One Hand, Taking Away with the Other’ – to highlight the impact of public debt on low income families and the role it plays in trapping families in poverty.

Aberlour’s work has shown a worrying proportion of the poorest families in Scotland are locked in cycles of debt to public bodies (public debt).

These debts most often include council tax payments, rent arrears, Universal Credit advance payments – and even school meal debt.

As the impact of the cost of living crisis deepens, the event demonstrated a clear ambition to work together cohesively to tackle public debt and deliver solutions for those on the lowest incomes.

Aberlour CEO, SallyAnn Kelly, highlighted her deep concern about the debt crisis people on the lowest incomes in Scotland are facing.

She spoke about the increasing level of debt owed to public bodies by the poorest in Scotland and the need to focus on tackling debt, as well as raising incomes, being vital in tackling and reducing child poverty.

Professor Morag Treanor from the Institute of Social Policy, Housing and Equalities Research (i-sphere) at Heriot Watt shared her research on public debt she has done on behalf of Aberlour.

She outlined the shocking level of school meal debt (totalling more than £1m) owed by nearly 25,000 low income families across Scotland not eligible for free school meals.

Professor Treanor also shared further evidence of the scale of deductions from the monthly incomes of families with children who receive Universal Credit who have debts to public bodies.

Her findings highlighted that around 80,000 families are having their incomes reduced by £80 per month on average by the DWP to pay back these debts.

We then heard from Aberlour’s Tayside Family Financial Wellbeing Project – a joint initiative between The Robertson Trust, The Corra Promise Fund and Aberlour – which is piloting an approach to supporting families which is centred on financial and welfare help and advice to reset families’ finances and help them to break free from long term cycles of debt.

At the event we also heard directly from parents supported by Aberlour who have experience of living with unmanageable debt and how it impacts on their families.

One parent, Caroline, called debt “a shadow which is hanging over you”. She went on to say, “You just can’t get away from it… It needs to be a multi-agency overview of everything, of the current debt situation – how it affects the individual, how it affects children and society and I’m part of that society who are perhaps looked down on – we’re just on benefits, we’re scrounging off the state. I’m more than that. I come from stuff and lost it. I want to get back to not relying on the state… I will not be on benefits forever.”

We finished the day with a discussion featuring our expert panel, which included Dr Jim McCormick (CEO, The Robertson Trust), Emma Jackson (National Director Scotland, Christians Against Poverty (CAP), Pam Duncan-Glancy MSP (Scottish Labour spokesperson for (Social Justice and Social Security), alongside SallyAnn Kelly and Professor Treanor.

The clear message from the day was the need for national and local government to work together, and in collaboration with those who have lived with debt, to develop systems and solutions that respond to the needs of those trapped in debt, and to prevent debt recovery practices that adversely impact on the wellbeing of children and families and which push people into poverty.

Pam Duncan-Glancy said, “Far too many people in Scotland are living in debt… They are getting into debt to pay for essentials like food and housing costs and that is unacceptable in a country like Scotland. We need to make public debt recovery fairer for families who are in debt and keep them out of debt in the first place”.

SallyAnn Kelly said, “The new First Minister must urgently focus on repairing national and local government relationships to allow collaborative work on addressing the issue of public debt for the benefit of our poorest families”.

Presentations from the event can be found below:

Public debt research presentation_March 2023 Treanor

Tayside Financial Family Wellbeing Pilot

You can watch Caroline’s video here: