Call for Child Payment bridging payments to double to £260

The next instalment of £130  - the third of four - is due in October. 

The bridging payments were introduced this year ahead of the extension of the eligibility of the Scottish Child Payment to under 16s at the end of the year.

The call has been backed by the Child Poverty Action Group, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Barnardo’s Scotland, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner, STUC general secretary Roz Foyer and Reverend Karen Hendry, the acting convener of the Church of Scotland’s faith impact forum.

“Your government has been doing the right thing by investing in financial support for families, not least through the Scottish Child Payment,” the letter said.

“This is already making a big difference, as the recent initial evaluation on its impact lays out, and which the families we talk to make clear.

“The doubling of the payment since April has been especially timely in providing additional support to families with children under six at a time of soaring food and energy prices.”

Bridging payments were introduced to support families until they could receive the child payment when eligibility is expanded, but has not been doubled in line with the benefit.

It added: “However, as you know, families with older children are yet to benefit. The roll-out of the payment to eligible over fives and the further increase to £25 a week are not due until the end of the year.

“Bridging payments, originally introduced to provide ‘equivalent’ support to the child payment for at least some of those older children, have not been doubled.

“At a time when further massive increases to household bills are looming, this is leaving a significant gap in the cash support available to families across Scotland.

“We are therefore writing to urge your government to help bridge that gap and, at the very least, double the October and Christmas bridging payments from £130 to £260.”

Increasing the bridging payments, the signatories said, would be a “straightforward and effective” way to support struggling households during the cost of living crisis, and would “help keep families afloat until the child payment itself is increased and fully rolled out”.

The letter said people had told the charities they were going without food so their children could eat, as well as dreading expected rises in household bills over the winter and reported feeling ashamed they were not able to provide for their children.

The Scottish Government last week announced it would carry out an emergency review of its budget to see if cash can be freed up to provide more support.

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: “The First Minister has committed to an emergency budget review to assess all opportunities to target additional resources to those most in need during this cost-of-living crisis.

“At the same time, we will continue to do everything within our resources and powers to help those most affected.

“This includes increasing the Scottish Child Payment to £25 per eligible child per week when we extend it to under 16s by the end of the year – with its increase to £20 in April, this represents a 150% increase within 9 months.

“We are the only nation in the UK offering this vital anti-poverty benefit, as well as bridging payments worth £520 annually to support over 148,000 school age children backed by investment £150 million last year and this.

“We will also continue to press the UK Government to use all the levers at its disposal to tackle this emergency on the scale required – these include access to borrowing, providing benefits and support to households, VAT on fuel, taxation of windfall profits and regulation of the energy market.”