As our politicians know only too well, poverty is one of the hardest nettles to grasp; there are rarely easy answers or cheap solutions to this most damaging of societal ills.
And, as this newspaper reports week in week out, poverty levels remain stubbornly high in Scotland, with almost a fifth of citizens classified as poor - including an estimated 210,000 children.
Back in June First Minister Nicola Sturgeon signalled she was open to new approaches to tackling the issue when she appointed Naomi Eisenstadt as her poverty tsar. Ms Eisenstadt, a senior research fellow at Oxford and trustee of Save the Children, would be an independent figure, said the Scottish Government, tasked with scrutinising policy, making recommendations and providing a “hard challenge” to ministers.
And according to documents just released - under duress - by the Scottish Government, Ms Eisenstadt is taking the last of these particularly seriously. A memo to the First Minister made clear her staunch opposition to universal benefits, stating that she sees a number of “contentious issues” related to this.
According to the American academic, who is due to formally report to the Scottish Government next month, such benefits divert public resources to the well off at the expense of the poor, and are far too costly to the public purse. She is also in favour of higher taxes for wealthier citizens.
Universal benefits sit at the centre of the SNP’s offer to the electorate, of course, an offer that has become increasingly popular over the last eight years. Policies such as free higher education tuition for all, free childcare and free travel for pensioners are, much to the chagrin of Scottish Labour and the Scottish Conservatives, real vote winners. Finance Secretary John Swinney indicated recently, meanwhile, that he had no intention of changing this approach when he confirmed that he plans to continue to give all pensioners the winter fuel allowance when responsibility for the benefit is passed to Holyrood as part of the Scotland Bill.
The new legislation will also give the ever cautious Mr Swinney the power to raise the rate of income tax - though it is unclear whether he will choose to do so. It is a brave government that raises taxes, after all.
What is clear, however, is that the European countries with the lowest levels of poverty pay the most tax. And therein lies the conundrum for politicians, especially those who lean to the left.
Ms Eisenstadt is an academic rather than a politician, of course, and she does not have an electorate to please.
Opposition parties predictably leapt on her comments – though the Tories in particular are not on solid ground with Scottish voters when it comes to welfare.
The Scottish Government, meanwhile, said it wants Ms Eisenstadt to be frank and honest. Whether Ms Sturgeon will be frank and honest in reply remains to be seen. It is highly unlikely that she will abandon the universal benefits that have served her party so well at the ballot box – even if they do little to help the poor. No easy answers, then.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here