{"id":8250,"date":"2019-03-27T16:30:51","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T16:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=8250"},"modified":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","slug":"scottish-child-poverty-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2019\/03\/scottish-child-poverty-targets\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottish child poverty targets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Too often the debate over poverty collapses down to a simple discussion about the level of re-distribution in the tax and benefit system.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in reality, if Scotland is to meet its poverty targets then\nit\u2019ll require a much more fundamental look at the Scottish economy and how it\nfunctions. For instance, we have record people in employment in Scotland, but\nrising poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, tackling poverty isn\u2019t just a moral or societal\nproblem, but also an economic problem that requires a system-wide look at how\njobs are created, levels of investment in the economy, productivity growth and\nwage growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poverty and Inequality in Scotland<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Poverty rates in Scotland had been falling, but recent data\nsuggests that it has been rising once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relative poverty is a measure of whether the income of the\npoorest households are keeping pace with middle income households across the\nUK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is estimated that 16% of Scotland\u2019s population, or 860,000 people, were in relative poverty before housing costs over 2014-17 (figures are always displayed as three year averages), with those figures rising to 19% and around 1 million people, once housing costs are included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After housing costs, the number of people in relative poverty is at its highest since 2002-05.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In terms of absolute poverty \u2013 i.e. whether the incomes of the poorest households are keeping pace with inflation relative to the poverty threshold in 2010\/11 \u2013 rates have stagnated in recent years, with around 17% of Scotland\u2019s population, or 910,000 people in absolute poverty<\/a> (after housing costs). That being said, the fall since the mid-1990s has been significant, where rates of absolute poverty were as high as nearly 40%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Employed but poor<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of the features of rates of poverty in Scotland (and the UK) is the increasing levels of in-work poverty. For all the claims about record numbers of people in work, it is clear that for many people this doesn\u2019t mean improved living standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nearly 60% of working-age adults in relative poverty are in a\nhousehold where at least one person is working \u2013 an all-time high since\nreporting began. In total, around 550,000 people in Scotland who are in\nrelative poverty are in households with someone working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most modelling \u2013 including our own \u2013 predicts that over the next\nfew years, rates of relative poverty will continue to rise slightly. [For an\nexcellent discussion of trends at a UK level see the Resolution\nFoundation\u2019s 2019 Living Standards Outlook<\/a>]. A combination of recent\nhigh rates of inflation, the ongoing freeze of many in-work benefits plus wider\nreforms to many family-related benefits, and weak earnings\ngrowth<\/a>, all point to a challenging time for households living in\npoverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Income inequality<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Similar to poverty indicators, there seems to be little long-term movement in levels of income inequality in Scotland. The so-called \u201cPalma ratio\u201d or \u201c90\/40 ratio\u201d aims to measure the extent of inequality between those in the richest 10% of the income distribution with those in the lowest 40% of the income distribution.  It divides the total income of the top 10% of earners by the total income of the bottom 40%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As\nthe chart highlights, despite fluctuating year-on-year, rates of income\ninequality have been fairly static.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top ten percent of the\npopulation have 24% more income than the bottom forty percent combined \u2013\nmarginally above the long-term average since devolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the Gini\nCo-efficient, another recognised measure of inequality, remains stuck at its\npost-devolution average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Child poverty<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Two years ago, the Scottish\nParliament signed up to challenging targets to reduce child poverty in\nScotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.These targets included an objective of reducing child poverty to 10% by 2030-31, with an interim target to reduce it to 18% by 2023-24<\/p>\n\n\n\n

19% of Scottish children, or\n180,000, live in relative poverty (before housing costs) \u2013 after housing costs\nthis rises to 24% of children (i.e. nearly 1 in 4 children in Scotland), or\n230,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Child poverty rates had been falling for many years, but have started to rise again in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The rise in in-work poverty is undoubtedly a contributing factor\nto the rise in child poverty, as around two-thirds of children in poverty live\nin households where at least one adult is working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how might the Scottish Parliament turn this around?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s important to note that rising poverty and income inequality are not just limited to Scotland. Indeed, rates of poverty, including child poverty, in Scotland are lower than in the UK as a whole (particularly when housing costs are included). Ultimately, many of the policy levers to tackle poverty are UK-wide. The rise in poverty can be traced back, in part, to some of the changes to the welfare system introduced over the past decade, including Universal Credit and the freeze in many working age benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, perhaps laudably, it is the Scottish Government that has\nset explicit targets to reduce poverty. And has a number of policy levers which\nit can pull.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, where might the policy debate focus?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, the Scottish Government \u2013 and Scottish Parliament \u2013\nshould be commended for setting ambitious targets. But given the stubbornly\nhigh rates of poverty, meeting these targets is likely to require a scale of\ninvestment and policy ambition way beyond anything we have seen so far<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the face of it, policymakers face an uphill battle with\npressures on public spending and a weak outlook for revenues. The proposed new\n\u2018income supplement\u2019 offers one such opportunity, but it\u2019s questionable whether\nor not it can set at a level that will make a significant difference but remain\naffordable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, the parliament will need to adopt a rigorous and\ntransparent approach to tracking performance. In this regard, the Scottish\nGovernment has a mixed track record on delivering against targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the one hand, in areas like climate change and renewable\nenergy the government has consistently over achieved.  But on the other\nhand, particularly in relation to Scotland\u2019s economy, many of its targets have\nbeen missed by a significant margin with little analysis or explanation from\ngovernment on why this has happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If parliament is to meet its targets, it\u2019ll require a rigorous\ntracking of progress, underpinned by a robust analysis of what is \u2013 and\ncrucially isn\u2019t \u2013 working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, and most importantly, if Scotland is to tackle poverty\nrates it cannot hope to rely on the tax and benefit system on its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poverty is now increasingly a story of in-work poverty with a\nlack of growth in productivity, earnings and tax revenues feeding through to a\ncycle of weak household incomes, austerity and lack of economic opportunity.\nUltimately, investing in people will be key reducing poverty but also building\na stronger economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Government will clearly have an important role across its labour\nmarket, economic housing, health, education and welfare agenda. But so will\nbusiness, through recruitment practices, investment activity and wider efforts\nto boost productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge with setting ambitious targets is that parliament\ncan be judged, not just on whether or not it is meeting these targets, but on\nthe effectiveness of the reforms they are implementing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new data<\/a> is likely to show that \u2018more of the same\u2019 is simply not going to cut it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First published in slightly longer version by Fraser of Allander Institute<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image via <\/em>Trussell Trust<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further reading: Food poverty in Scotland double previous estimates, <\/em>The Guardian<\/em><\/a>; “ravaged by poverty and inequality”, <\/em><\/a>Third Force News<\/em>; <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SG urged to end fuel poverty by 2032, says <\/em>Scottish Labour ; <\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest SPICE briefing<\/a> on the issue<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘The challenge with setting ambitious targets is that parliament can be judged, not just on whether or not it is meeting these targets, but on the effectiveness of the reforms they are implementing.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":8260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319],"tags":[94,36,254],"class_list":["post-8250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","tag-poverty","tag-scottish-government","tag-scottish-parliament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18769,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8250\/revisions\/18769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}