Scotland needs a new approach to tackling child poverty

Replacement benefits and new benefits that do not have a comparator in England such as Scottish Child Payment have been ring-fenced within the budget and it is estimated that the additional cost above the Block Grant will rise to £1.5 billion in 2028-29 from the current £900 million, swallowing up all the additional revenue raised from higher income tax rates in Scotland compared with the rest of the UK.

Bleak future projections from the Scottish Fiscal Commission, highlighting resource pressures from growing demand for health and social care and the worsening ratio of working adults to older people, as well as projected social security costs, suggest things will get worse. The Permanent Secretary reportedly flagged up "affordability risks associated" with his programme for government last August to the then First Minister.

It seems unlikely that the Scottish Government can find extra money to further increase Scottish Child Payment, which has been the major plank of policy over the last few years. We cannot however afford to lose traction on tackling child poverty.

South of the Border, the focus has been on removal of the two-child limit and the benefit cap, iniquitous policies whose effects have been significantly mitigated by the actions of the Scottish Government. The focus here should therefore be on what can be done to address need, which is increasing amongst the poorest families in Glasgow and other places where poverty is concentrated.

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• Robison hits out at UK Government anti-poverty plan
• Major public sector cuts amid 'profound financial pressures'

Efforts to support vulnerable families during the pandemic showed what could be done by adapting services to more directly meet need. Glasgow’s Child Poverty Pathfinder, bringing together the council and multi-agency partners to help people navigate the complicated landscape of entitlements and provision, has built on the lessons of earlier initiatives such as providing support to parents by putting financial advisors into schools, focusing attention on supporting families to address the circumstances that affect them and enabling them to flourish.

Lessons of the Glasgow pathfinder, and other similar initiatives in Dundee and Clackmannanshire are still being gathered and analysed. But it is already clear that unless Scotland takes seriously the recommendations of the Christie Commission and instigates an urgent programme of public service reform: streamlining provision, eliminating duplication and shifting resources toward prevention, we run the risk of moving backwards on child poverty and other linked objectives on which there is cross-party consensus.

Implementing Christie principles is not cost-free. But the cost of not managing demand, of staying on the treadmill of crisis response, is worse outcomes for everyone. Scotland will deal with child poverty more effectively when the importance of good quality public services that are well-targeted (and flexible enough to build resilience) is recognised. The place dimension is particularly important – although UK and Scottish government policies are vital, they cannot engage with families that need help in the ways that councils, voluntary sector agencies and other service providers can. Glasgow is discovering ways of collaborating across agencies and tiers of government to use resources more effectively.

If we make the wrong decisions in Scotland, public services are going to fall over. As with the cost of living crisis, the poorest who are most reliant on these services will be worst affected. For understandable reasons, the Scottish Government’s child poverty targets have proved difficult to reach. Tackling child poverty requires that we focus not just on income but also on need. What policies and realignments are needed to channel resources tied up in current patterns of service provision at local and national level so that children from poorer families, together with their parents, have a better chance of escaping poverty?

Finance Secretary Shona Robison (Image: Getty)

We know that current systems of regulation and monitoring get in the way rather than enable council and voluntary sector staff deliver agile response. It is increasingly clear that how we do things, the "as is" systems of accountability and service design and delivery, are not fit for purpose. Listening to parents led to the success of the Financial Inclusion in Schools initiative in Glasgow. Listening to front- line staff who deal with crisis hit families has greatly informed thinking within the Glasgow pathfinder. Using data more systematically has informed resource allocation. Can these and other innovative examples of learning help us develop a new mindset that empowers both those delivering help and those receiving it?

Tackling poverty, and in particular child poverty, is not a short-term commitment.

Progress is slow and there are difficult choice: evidence of what works is unfortunately not always easily available. If the limit of what is affordable in increasing income supplements has been reached, it is even more urgent that evidence-driven changes in service provision, focused on identifying and pragmatically addressing need are taken forward. Unless we can mobilise all the available resource, building collaboration at local level and across tiers of government we will not succeed. Rather than wait for Westminster to decide what its priorities are, this is a time to rethink what we can do here in Scotland.

Des McNulty is a former Labour MSP for the Clydebank and Milngavie constituency and served as Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning. He is writing on behalf of Reform Scotland.