The Health Foundation’s review shows over 15% of children in West Lothian are living in relative poverty compared to 11.3% in Edinburgh
The state of health and health inequalities in Scotland
A comprehensive independent review of health and health inequalities in Scotland led by the Health Foundation shows that the health of Scots living in the most deprived 20% of local areas are being left behind the rest of society.
Data shows that in West Lothian 15.5% of children are living in relative poverty compared to 11.3% in Edinburgh and 12.6% and 13.5% in East Lothian and Midlothian respectively. The national average is 15.1%.
Furthermore, in East and Midlothian the least deprived 20% of men can expect to live between six and seven years longer than the 20% living in the most deprived areas. In Edinburgh the difference in life expectancy between the richest and the poorest is almost 12 years and in West Lothian the poorest 20% will live nine years less than those in the least deprived areas.
The review found that trends in the socioeconomic factors that influence health provide little indication that health inequalities will improve in future, underlined by increasing rates of extreme poverty.*
The review consolidates research undertaken for the independent charity the Health Foundation by the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at University of Glasgow, the Fraser of Allander Institute at University of Strathclyde, Nesta in Scotland, and the Diffley Partnership.
The findings bring together evidence of trends in health inequalities and wider determinants of health over the past two decades since devolution and outline the consequences of worsening health in the most deprived areas.
Overall, stalled improvements in health mean that nationally, since 2013, expectations of how long people are expected to live have reduced by 4.4 years, from 90.4 to 86 years.
The findings show that across a range of measures, there is a wide gap between the health of people living in the most and least deprived areas with people living in the most deprived areas increasingly left behind the rest. The report raises a number of areas of concern which need immediate action, in particular, improving the health of children in their early years and the health of young to middle aged men.
Young to middle aged men are the most likely to suffer from deaths related to drugs**, alcohol or suicide, with the exponential rise in drug deaths concentrated among men in their mid-30s to early-60s. This group engages less with health services and is the most likely not to attend hospital appointments. Being younger, single, white and male is most strongly associated with experiencing severe multiple disadvantages, which are linked to greater risk of poor health.
Commenting on the findings, David Finch, Assistant Director of the Health Foundation, said:“Life expectancy varies greatly across Scotland. In the most deprived areas, men are dying over 13 years earlier than their peers in the least deprived areas– and women almost a decade earlier.
“A healthy community derives from a range of factors: stable jobs, good pay, quality housing and education. Poor health is almost inevitable when some or all of these factors are absent. Scotland’s wide and sustained health inequalities are being driven by the accumulation of severe multiple disadvantages, a lack of improvement in living standards and public service fragility due to the ongoing impact of austerity.
“Understanding the causes are not enough; a radical shift in approach is needed. The Scottish government, local authorities, businesses and the third sector must come together and collaborate closely with communities. Without action, Scotland’s most deprived communities are likely to continue suffering from poor quality of life and die younger.”
Chair of the Health Foundation’s Expert Advisory Group, Chris Creegan added: “This review is the most comprehensive study of health inequalities in Scotland since devolution, and while the findings are complex, what they clearly illustrate is that inequality in health is stubbornly high in Scotland.
“The public is receptive to longer term preventative interventions aimed at tackling the fundamental causes of health inequalities, rather than short term measures. They will support a bold, collective response.
“We need actors across economic, financial, social and health systems in Scotland to take note of these findings and use them to build on the strong policy intent we already have to reverse these trends and improve health outcomes for the future. But there is no need for a new strategy; over the last decade, several policy plans and strategies have focused on tackling health inequalities, most recently, 2018’s Public Health Priorities for Scotland. We have the policies, we now need action.”
On 5th September, the Conservative party elected a new prime minister of the United Kingdom. Scotland has not voted for a conservative government since 1955, and Liz Truss marks the twelfth prime minister in the last hundred years elected without majority support in Scotland (writes Fraser of Allander Institute’s ALLISON CATALANO).
The last time Scotland’s vote mirrored the majority was in 2005 – the last time that a general election resulted in a Labour majority.
The Brexit vote in 2016 is another good example of how far Scotland’s opinion differs from that of the UK majority – less than 40% of Scottish voters approved the referendum to leave the EU, compared to more than 50% from Wales and England.
Scotland’s status as a minority among the UK electorate isn’t so surprising from a population standpoint – Scotland only accounts for about 9% of the total UK electorate. England, by contrast, claims 84% of all voters.
The vast difference between Scotland’s opinion and UK electoral outcomes may result in worsened well-being for the Scottish population. People derive a sense of satisfaction from having the ability to participate in and impact politics and governmental structures. This satisfaction, termed “democratic well-being,” is weakened by perceived or structural inequalities.
Participatory inequality stems from any situation in which a particular group is unlikely to or discouraged from some form of civic participation, which includes behaviours like voting, interacting with political campaigns, activism, or volunteering.
Examining voting in particular, Scottish voters may feel disenfranchised from the political sphere in the UK because of the perceived lack of political power on a national level, and may be less likely to choose to vote or express an interest in politics.
Certain groups in Scotland may also be more or less inclined to participate in national or local elections.
Income levels, health, and educational attainment may all result in different levels of participation both within Scotland and when comparing Scottish participation to the rest of the UK. In this sense, there may be participatory inequalities within the Scottish population and when comparing Scotland to the UK as a whole.
Using Understanding Society: the UK Longitudinal Household Survey, we determined that age, income, health, education, and employment statuses are correlated with an individual’s level of interest in politics, and the likelihood that they voted or volunteered recently. Understanding Society is a yearly panel survey, with yearly data available from 2009 to 2021.
Does participation differ in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK?
Scotland has a high level of average engagement across all survey years relative to Northern Ireland and Wales, but a lower level than England.
Scottish residents are more likelyto have volunteered in the past year than residents of Northern Ireland or Wales, but less likely to have volunteered than English residents.
Scottish voting habits vary. Scotland had the lowest turnout in 2001 and 2005, and the highest turnout in 2015 and 2019. Scotland generally has higher turnout than Northern Ireland but lower turnout than England or Wales (Figure 1).
Scottish residents are more likely to express aninterest in politics than in Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland’s responses are roughly similar to England. Interest in politics across the UK increased in 2016 following the EU referendum vote, particularly in Northern Ireland, and peaked in Scotland in 2018 (Figure 2).
Figure 1: General election voter participation by constituent country
Figure 2: Interest in politics by constituent country
Despite Scottish residents being relatively politically engaged, Scotland experiences substantial gaps in participation based on health, income, education, and employment.
Scotland has the largest gap in participation between individuals that considered themselves in good health and individuals that considered themselves in poor health in the United Kingdom (Figure 3).
The lowest income quintile in Scotland is more engaged than the lowest income quintile in Wales or Northern Ireland. However, Scotland experiences larger gaps between the highest and lowest income quintile than the national average in political interest. Notably, the bottom income quintile in Scotland was more likely to have voted than in any other part of the UK. Political interest was also higher than the national average for the lowest earners.
Individuals with no qualifications in Scotland are less likely to volunteer than anywhere else in the UK, although they are more likely to have voted in a general election than the UK average. Unqualified individuals in Scotland are less likely to express an interest in politics than in England or Wales.
Scotland experiences a greater gap in participation based on work-related benefits compared to the rest of the UK. Individuals receiving in-work income or unemployment benefits are less likely to have voted, volunteer, or express a political interest in Scotland than anywhere else in Great Britain.
Figure 3: The gap in civic participation between self-reported good health and bad health is wider for each behaviour in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK
How do inequalities impact civic engagement in Scotland?
Health and income inequality are consistent predictors of voter turnout in Scotland. Scotland’s wide range of participatory behaviour based on health is particularly interesting.
Scotland has a unique relationship with health inequalities, and a history of unusually poor health outcomes based on region, education, and income. Although health inequality takes many forms, life expectancies provide a good frame of reference.
In general, higher incomes beget longer lives. Scotland is a complete anomaly in this regard – despite having the highest average income in the United Kingdom, Scottish people have the shortest life expectancy.
Life expectancies also vary widely within Scotland, and even within cities and neighbourhoods. For instance, a male born in Glasgow between 2018-2020 has a life expectancy that is 7.5 years shorter than one born in the Shetland Islands.
Within Glasgow neighbourhoods, the difference in life expectancies is striking – males born in the least deprived areas can expect to live 15 years longer than males born in the most deprived areas.
I examined the health impacts on voting, volunteering, and political interest based on individual’s self-perceived general health, mental health, long-term illness or disability, and receipt of any illness or disability benefits.
Individuals that consider themselves in poor health are less likely to engage in civic behaviour compared to those that considered themselves in generally good health (Figure 4). Overall, self-perceived general health was the most significant health predictor of civic behaviour.
Figure 4: Inequalities in civic participation by self-reported health status
Surprisingly, claiming a long-term illness or disability did not impact an individual’s ability to participate. This is largely because of the broadness of the term “disability” – a person can be disabled in a way that limits their ability to vote, but many disabilities are easier to manage and would have no impact on someone’s ability to understand politics or volunteer. Receiving disability benefits, however, indicates that a person’s circumstance is difficult enough that it interferes with regular work and income.
The Understanding Society Survey has 41 different benefit classifications. Using their descriptions as illness or disability benefits, I looked into people who received at least one of the following benefits: severe disablement allowance, industrial industry disablement allowance, disability living allowance, war disablement pension, incapacity benefit, received working tax credit (including disabled person’s tax credit), and any other disability benefit or payment.
Scottish residents receiving some form of disability benefit were:
10% less likely to have voted in the most recent election than Scottish residents that did not receive disability benefits
19% less likely to report an interest in politics
41% less likely to have volunteered in the past year
Receiving work or income benefits is another way of looking into the degree to which income inequality affects participation. I considered the following benefit classifications to be low income or unemployment benefits: income support, job seeker’s allowance, national insurance credit, housing benefit, rent rebate, universal credit.
Receiving work or income benefits affected participation more substantially than those receiving disability benefits (Table 1).
Table 1: Proportion of each population which participated in the following civic behaviours
Voted in a recent election
Interested in politics
Volunteered in the past year
Receiving unemployment or income benefits
66%
20%
8%
Receiving illness or disability benefits
72%
26%
10%
Total Scottish population
80%
32%
17%
Income inequality is also closely related to civic participation. By dividing household income into five quartiles of the population, we found that the highest-earning 20% of the Scottish population was significantly more likely to participate in civic behaviours (Figure 5). This is a clear example of participatory inequalities based on income.
Figure 5: Civic participation inequalities based on income quintile
Education also has a significant impact on all aspects of civic participation. Volunteering is the most notably impacted behaviour by education; only 4.4% of Scottish residents without educational qualifications reported volunteering in the past year, compared to over 27% of Scots with university degrees.
Table 2: Percentage of each population which participated in the following civic behaviours
Voted in a recent election
Interested in politics
Volunteered in the past year
No educational qualifications
73.5%
21.3%
4.4%
Scottish average
80%
32%
17%
Has a university degree
87.6%
38.4%
27.1%
Scotland suffers from unequal participation across a number of metrics, most notably education, income, health, and benefit receipt status. Poorer, less educated, and less healthy Scottish residents are less likely to have participated in voting and volunteering. The differences in participation are also larger within Scotland than any other constituent country in the United Kingdom.
Civic participation – whether by voting or by selecting causes to volunteer for – ultimately shapes political agendas. Values that are important to low-income, unqualified, or unhealthy members of society may be overlooked on a national scale due to disproportionately low levels of participation among these individuals.
The more equality in participation among all levels of society, the more that any particular group is able to better their circumstances.
Creating wildlife-rich wetlands like ponds, streams, wetland parks and rain gardens in deprived urban communities could help level up inequalities in wellbeing across the UK, according to a new report.
Currently, people in the poorest urban and ethnic communities are twice as likely as those in more affluent groups to live in neighbourhoods without good quality blue or green spaces. Some research suggests this differing access to nature-rich areas could be associated with health inequalities.
The report highlights how wetlands can help low-income urban communities, which are frequently most at risk from the harmful impacts of poor mental health and the climate crisis, through relieving stress, cooling cities, reducing air and water pollution, alleviating flooding and boosting biodiversity.
In addition, the report outlines how blue spaces (environments that feature open water, such as wetlands) directly reduce stress more than green spaces alone. This could be due to the particularly wide range of stimuli .wetland nature provides which engage all the senses The light, soundscapes, changing patterns on water, and meaningful personal associations associated with aquatic settings may all reduce stress.
The powerful calming effect of blue space is further demonstrated by a study of 16,000 people across 18 countries, which found that frequently visiting ‘watery’ nature decreased mental distress. Just 10 minutes spent in urban wetlands can be enough to improve a person’s mood.
People also socialise more in blue spaces, helping to build community cohesion and reduce social isolation. And restored linear wetlands, such as rivers, provide opportunities for physically active travel and leisure in space-limited towns and cities.
WWT is working with the Mental Health Foundation (MHF) and the NHS, prescribing wetlands in London for people experiencing poor mental health with limited resources.
Dr Ben Plimpton, Project Manager from the Foundation, commented: “Initiatives such as WWT and MHF’s Blue Prescribing at London Wetland Centre can be particularly effective at improving people’s mental health – and may sometimes prevent the need for crisis support.
“Initial assessment of social prescribing has shown that the average wellbeing value of wetland social prescribing was £4,848 per person, compared to £1,084 and £1,127 per person for arts engagement and sports participation respectively.
“Increasing structured access to city wetlands for those with limited resources, as our scheme does, could be one of the simplest ways to lift people’s wellbeing in urban areas.”
The route map details how nature-rich wetlands can be created in a range of urban settings at a variety of scales, allowing them to fit in any urban space, including:
installing simple drainpipe wetlands in backyards and gardens
building new rain gardens during street repair work and neighbourhood improvements
restoring streams and rivers flowing through neighbourhoods
creating parks centred on wetlands that provide a wellbeing resource for whole communities
It recommends creating and restoring wetlands where they can best reduce health inequalities, such as in areas without access to nature, where deprived communities and neighbourhoods are at risk of flooding and overheating as the climate crisis escalates.
The report urges governments, businesses and civil society to play their part in creating and restoring urban wetlands that can help to level up wellbeing.
In particular, restoring wetland nature to urban areas should be a major part of the Government’s plans to level up opportunity across the country, with a new legal duty on councils and developers to provide access to nature.
Rain garden at London Wetland Centre
Dr James Robinson, Director of Conservation at WWT, said: “Most human settlements grew around a water source and wetlands long used to be an integral part of our great towns and cities.
“However, increasingly new developments have swallowed many of them up. Worryingly, there are no UK-wide plans to increase the amount of blue or green nature in urban areas, despite the huge value they provide. London’s natural spaces alone save the NHS £950M annually.
“WWT are experts at protecting, restoring and building new wetlands but to do this at scale, including in urban areas, more support and funding from the public and private sectors is needed.
“The opportunities that wetlands offer to enhance and extend our lives are established – but they are not being grasped. WWT’s route map released today provides a clear plan of how this can be achieved.”
David Lindo, ‘the Urban Birder’, who supports WWT’s call for more urban wetlands, said: “I grew up in London and the River Brent was a lifeline for me as a child. I became absorbed in its wildlife and it sparked my lifelong love of birds and boosted my mental wellbeing.
“Everyone should have access to that and it’s imperative that decision-makers consider how to incorporate wetlands into our urban spaces – sooner rather than later. Wetlands could offer national and local government a win-win situation helping them reach their levelling up, climate change, nature and health targets all at the same time. It’s time to start thinking smart.”
WWT’s call for more urban wetlands is part of their wider Wetlands Can! Campaign, which is urging the public to pledge their support for a “blue recovery” by creating and restoring 100,000 hectares of wetlands throughout the UK to help combat the climate, nature and wellbeing crises.
Around a third of children and young people in Scotland’s publicly-funded schools (that’s around 233,000 pupils) need additional support. And that number has been increasing for years (writes STEPHEN MOORE, a Member of the Accounts Commission) .
There are many reasons why a child might need additional support. These can be as varied as having a life-threatening physical condition to being a young carer. Most children and young people who need additional support go to a mainstream school, with a much smaller number going to special schools.
The Scottish Government’s stated ambition is for all children and young people in Scotland to have the opportunity to grow up loved, safe and respected, enabling them to reach their full potential.
Every child has the same rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, including the right to an education that develops their personality, talents and abilities to the full, and the right for their parents to get the support they need. Schools, councils and other public bodies are required to work together to provide the right type of support for all children and their families. But this isn’t always happening as it should.
The needs of children and young people vary considerably. Some children only have a short-term identified need. Others have complex needs that will require ongoing support throughout their lives. Some children and young people need help involving specialist educational support as well as social work services, health services and the voluntary sector.
At their best, these multidisciplinary teams work together, enabling children and young people to get the support they need, empowering them to reach their full potential and live the life they choose.
These ambitions aren’t, however, consistently being delivered in practice. In 2020, an independent review found that not all pupils in Scotland are always getting the additional support they need, when they need it. In many cases, individuals’ needs are not given the focus they should be. Numerous aspects of additional support therefore need to be improved.
It’s distressing and frustrating that we repeatedly hear of the barriers that some families fight against to get the right support to help their child to learn. Too often, families are worn down by a prolonged search for the right support, and by having to manage a crisis that could have and should have been avoided. Families are partners with public services and should be regarded as such.
On top of that, transitions between school stages – and how they are managed – can have a big influence on the success or otherwise of someone’s journey through the education system.
A child’s needs can evolve over time, from pre-school until after they have left school. Not getting the right support both at these different stages and to make moving between the stages as seamless as possible can have a lasting impact on learning, wellbeing and happiness. Public services are required to anticipate these changing needs and plan accordingly.
Councils provide support in different ways, with a wide variation in spending on pupils who need additional support. This partly reflects the different ways services are provided and the varying costs of supporting individuals – but may also reflect local decisions by councils to prioritise between a wide range of services.
Education aims to improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people, supporting wider outcomes such as life skills, apprenticeships and employment. This is set out in the National Improvement Framework and is embedded across the education system. School education and success shouldn’t just focus on exam results. It’s vital to monitor the outcomes that matter most to individuals who need additional support but, as we’ve said previously, information to allow this to happen isn’t always available.
From the information that is available, even the current measures show wide disparity. We know that children and young people who need additional support don’t always get the opportunities they deserve. Overall, a smaller proportion of school leavers with additional support needs progress to a ‘positive destination’ such as college, university, training or employment. This potentially affects their life chances and personal fulfilment.
And the proportion of children who achieve expected Curriculum for Excellence Levels for their stage at school is significantly lower for pupils who need additional support compared to those who don’t.
Across so many areas, Covid-19 has exacerbated and deepened risks and inequalities. School closures and reductions in vital support services have intensified inequalities for children and young people who need additional support. We know that individuals who have disabilities and complex needs, along with their families, were particularly affected.
The impact on the mental health of children and young people who need additional support has also been significant. Some families have asked if their child can repeat a year at school due to the difficulties they’ve experienced, or because there was insufficient planning to move from one stage of learning to another.
However, it must be recognised that for some children who need additional support, learning at home rather than in a school environment was a more positive experience.
The Scottish Government and councils are already working to implement changes following the independent review in 2020. These changes need to consider the wide range of services that should work together to put the child/young person and their family at the centre. Public services need to improve how they’re joining up, across professions, to plan and provide the right support to meet individuals’ needs.
We’ve seen that many public services responded quickly to the challenges presented by the pandemic, showing that change can happen quickly and effectively to support individuals and communities. And councils have the power to improve services as they ‘build back better’. Children and young people must be given the support and access to the right services that enable them to flourish and thrive. It will be crucial to make improvements to services and staffing that ensure continuity as someone moves through the education system.
Central to the Accounts Commission’s priorities is emphasising and reporting on the debilitating and life-impacting inequalities faced by too many across Scotland’s communities. The lack of the right support, at the right time, for children and young people who need additional support – and their families – can exacerbate and intensify these inequalities. So we will continue to focus on this important area as part of our ongoing work.
A spokesperson for the Scottish Children’s Services Coalition commented: “The blog raises issues that we have been highlighting for several years, reiterating our concerns that children and young people with additional support needs (ASN) and their families, are on many occasions not receiving the care and support that they need when they it.
“There are still too far many barriers faced by families seeking support, often leaving them in a crisis situation that could easily have been avoided with prompt access to the appropriate services.
“While we have witnessed a more than doubling in the number of those with ASN, such as autism, dyslexia and mental health problems over the last decade, putting an immense strain on services, there has been a cut in spending on additional support for learning and a slashing in specialist educational support.
“Covid-19 has had a further major impact on those with ASN, for whom exclusion from school and lack of vital support proved devastating. This however exacerbated a situation that existed long before that and we are potentially facing a ‘lost generation’ of vulnerable children and young people, not able to access the support that they need, with a resultant impact on the economy and society.
“We would urge the Scottish Government and newly elected local authorities to work together to ensure that those children and young people with ASN are a priority and that they can access the necessary support to allow them to reach their full potential.”
The Covid-19 pandemic has “intensified” the poverty experienced by low income families across Scotland, according to a report published by the Poverty Alliance. It calls for increased action in order for Scotland to meet its 2030 child poverty targets.
The report, published by the Poverty Alliance as part of its Get Heard Scotland project, is based on interviews with 32 low-income families from Renfrewshire and Inverclyde, which explored their experiences during the pandemic.
It found that Covid-19 had intensified their challenges, with lone parents, Black and minority ethnic families, and families with a disabled parent or child the most impacted.
Particular issues that the report highlights include:
The mental health impact of living on a low income through the pandemic, with the loss of support networks and the loss of childcare and schooling having a significant impact
The precariousness of incomes through the pandemic, with an increased reliance on crisis support
The prevalence of insecure employment, with structural discrimination against Black and minority ethnic communities and disabled people being highlighted
The importance of access to good community spaces and infrastructure, including green spaces
Digital exclusion was also a key issue, with participants needing digital access for leisure, shopping and reducing isolation. But despite the research exploring the negative impacts of the lack of digital access, it also highlights the importance of robust non digital alternatives. It calls on service providers to continue investing in face-to-face support for their clients to ensure everyone can access the help they need.
Recommendations made by the report in order to better support people living on low incomes include:
Increasing investment in mental health services, including addressing stigma through targeted local activity
Undertaking more action to increase the number of workers receiving the real Living Wage, as well as ensuring employability services work for everyone regardless of age, gender, race or other characteristics
Ensuring that income adequacy is central to the development of Scottish social security, and doing more to promote people’s awareness of their social security entitlements
Increasing support for community groups and local anchor organisations
Peter Kelly, Director, Poverty Alliance says: “Through our Get Heard Scotland programme we heard about some amazing efforts made by community organisations and local public services to make sure people were supported during the pandemic.
“Groups and local authorities worked together to get help to those who needed it. But the reality that we found is that despite these efforts many people felt their experience of poverty deepen during the pandemic.
“The Scottish Government have set themselves ambitious targets on tackling child poverty. This report demonstrates, through the experiences of people living on low incomes, how much work is still required if they are to meet them. Communities across Scotland are held back by the grip of poverty , with the report highlighting the particular challenges communities in Renfrewshire and Inverclyde face.
“It is vital that policy-makers at every level – particularly local authorities and the Scottish Government – listen to and act on the voices of people experiencing poverty. To help do that, they must also place those voices at the heart of their decision-making processes.”
Laura Robertson, Research Officer, Poverty Alliance: “Covid-19 has not only tightened the grip of poverty on the lives of many children and young people, but has also exacerbated these inequalities.
“We hope that this report can be a call to action, with its recommendations acting as a blueprint on how we can redesign our society to tackle hardship and create a more just Scotland.”
Fourteen international leaders and leading campaigners are among those who have signed a statement launched by the Scottish Government calling for the role of women and girls to be advanced in addressing climate change.
The Glasgow Women’s Leadership Statement on gender equality and climate change acknowledges the disproportionate impacts of climate change on women and girls. It also celebrates the role of women leaders at all levels in addressing the climate crisis, and commits signatories to increased support for women and girls’ climate action.
Women leaders including New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, US national climate adviser Gina McCarthy and German federal environment minister Svenja Schulze have signed the statement. Heads of state and government from Bangladesh, Tanzania, Estonia and Iceland, ministers from Belgium and Pakistan, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, and civil society leaders have also signed.
On Gender Day at COP26, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced further action on tackling the gendered impacts of climate change.
Chairing a panel discussion on women and climate, the First Minister said the Scottish Government will become a Commitment Maker as part of the Feminist Action for Climate Justice global coalition.
The commitment includes:
enabling women and girls to lead a just transition to a green economy
increasing direct access to financing for climate solutions that promote gender equality
building the resilience of women and girls to climate impacts, disaster risks, loss and damage
The First Minister said: “The fantastic response from women leaders since I launched the Glasgow Women’s Leadership Statement last week tells me that there is a huge appetite to centre women and girls in our climate action.I would urge other leaders to sign up so we can enable more women and girls to lead on the solutions we need to address climate impacts and promote gender equality.
“The engagements I have had with women young and old from the global south have made clear how important it is that when we think about climate justice, we also think about equality and how our actions can support women and girls.
“I am pleased to confirm that the Scottish Government will become a Commitment Maker under the Feminist Action for Climate Justice coalition. This is a commitment to bold and transformative action to improve the lives of girls and women, recognising that their empowerment and leadership is essential to ensuring that global efforts to tackle climate change succeed.
“Tackling the climate crisis and delivering a just transition to net zero must go hand in hand – and women and girls must be central to that. The Scottish Government’s just transition plans will amplify the voices of under-represented groups, including women and girls, and actively work to create a better, greener future for everyone.”
More than 120 organisations from across Scotland are urging First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to double the Scottish Child Payment in this year’s Programme for Government.
The campaigners say the 1 in 4 children living in poverty in Scotland cannot wait.
In an open letter the End Child Poverty coalition is calling on The First Minister to “do the right thing” to help thousands of poverty-stricken children and families.
The letter in full:
Dear First Minister,
As a broad coalition of national organisations, community groups, academics, trade unions and faith groups, we are writing to you to urge you to use the upcoming Programme for Government to commit to doubling the Scottish Child Payment in this year’s budget.
We welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to tackling child poverty, evidenced in the setting of statutory child poverty targets, introducing the Scottish Child Payment and the upcoming incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. These steps have laid the foundation for tackling child poverty in Scotland and we have been delighted that they have been supported across Scotland’s political spectrum.
This cross-party agreement was also evident in May’s Holyrood elections, when all Scotland’s five main political parties committed to doubling the Scottish Child Payment. Such political consensus is welcome, and provides the opportunity for your government to act quickly and decisively in doubling the payment now.
To do so would provide a lifeline to families who are struggling to stay afloat. Even before Covid-19, people across Scotland were being swept up in a rising tide of poverty, with child poverty rising in every Scottish local authority. And the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities in Scotland and pulled many more people – particularly women, disabled people, and Black and minority ethnic people – into hardship.
With women’s poverty being inextricably linked to child poverty, the pandemic’s impact has pulled children across Scotland ever deeper into poverty. It has hit lone parents – the overwhelming majority of whom are women – particularly hard, a group already disproportionately affected by years of social security cuts.
Unlocking people from this poverty requires long-term work to tackle the structural inequalities around the labour market – particularly for women, disabled people and Black and minority ethnic people – and it will also require action like further expanding childcare provision. But we also need action now to boost incomes in the short term.
Every level of government has a duty to boost incomes where it can, and we are clear that the UK Government must scrap its planned and unjust £20 Universal Credit cut. But just as the UK Government has a moral responsibility to do the right thing, so too does the Scottish Government have a moral responsibility to use all of the powers at its disposal to loosen the grip of poverty on people’s lives.
We have the powers, we have the urgent need, and we have the cross-party consensus to double the Scottish Child Payment. If your government is to truly make ending child poverty a ‘national mission’, and if we are to ensure that a more just Scotland emerges from the pandemic, then we must not delay. Children growing up in the grip of poverty right now – as well as their parents and care-givers – simply cannot endure until the end of this Parliament to be unlocked from poverty. Their lives and life chances are too important for this action to wait.
The evidence is clear that if it is doubled now, it will represent the single most impactful action that could be taken to help meet the interim child poverty targets in 2023, and would signal that ending child poverty will be a defining priority for this Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament. If it is not, more and more children will be pulled into poverty and the opportunity to meet the interim child poverty targets will be missed. Under the current roll out plan and value, the Scottish Child Payment will reduce poverty in Scotland by between 2 and 3 percentage points. This could leave child poverty rates as high as 26% in 2023/24, when the interim target in legislation for that year is 18%. We cannot allow that to happen.
We therefore urge your government to do the right thing, to capitalise on the cross-party consensus that already exists, and to commit to doubling the Scottish Child Payment in this year’s budget. We look forward to your response.
Kind regards,
Peter Kelly, Director, Poverty Alliance
Claire Telfer, Head of Scotland, Save the Children
Paul Carberry, Director for Scotland, Action for Children
SallyAnn Kelly, Chief Executive Officer, Aberlour
John Dickie, Director, CPAG Scotland
Martin Crewe, Director, Barnardo’s Scotland
Jamie Livingstone, Head of Oxfam Scotland
Satwat Rehman, Director, One Parent Families Scotland (OPFS)
Amy Woodhouse, Joint Interim CEO, Children in Scotland
Christine Carlin, Scotland Director, Home-Start UK
Clare Simpson, Manager, Parenting Across Scotland
Anna Ritchie Allan, Executive Director, Close the Gap
Polly Jones, Head of Scotland, The Trussell Trust
Mary Glasgow, Chief Executive, Children 1st
Eilidh Dickson, Policy and Parliamentary Manager, Engender
Hugh Foy, Director, Xaverians UK Region
Russell Gunson, Director, IPPR Scotland
Dr Patrycja Kupiec, CEO, YWCA Scotland – The Young Women’s Movement
The Rt Hon Lord Wallace of Tankerness QC (Jim Wallace), Moderator of the General Assembly, The Church of Scotland
Emma Cormack, Chief Executive Officer, The Health Agency
Gillian Kirkwood, Chief Executive, Y sort it Youth Centre
Agnes Tolmie, Chair, Scottish Women’s Convention
Linda Tuthill, CEO, The Action Group
Steven McCluskey, CEO, Bikes for Refugees
Trishna Singh OBE, Director, Sikh Sanjog
Professor Adrian Sinfield, Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, University of Edinburgh
Jimmy Wilson, CEO, FARE Scotland
Ian Bruce, Chief Executive, Glasgow CVS
Revd Gary Noonan, Minister, Houston and Killellan Kirk
Jacqui Reid, Project Lead, EBI Unites
Innes McMinn, Manager, Independent Living Support
Suzanne Slavin, CEO, Ayr Housing Aid Centre
Fiona Rae, Interim Chief Executive, Community Food Initiatives North East
Mhairi Snowden, Director, Human Rights Consortium Scotland
Juliet Harris, Director, Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights
Tressa Burke, CEO, Glasgow Disability Alliance
Martin Wilkie-McFarlane, Director, Wellhouse Housing Association
Morna Simpkins, Scotland Director, MS Society
Kara Batchelor, Operations Manager, Alexander’s Community Development
Murray Dawson, Chief Executive, Station House Media Unit
Ashli Mullen, Creative Director, Friends of Romano Lav
Professor John McKendrick, Co-Director of the Scottish Poverty and Inequality Research Unit, Glasgow Caledonian University
Justina Murray, Chief Executive Officer, Scottish Families Affected by Drugs and Alcohol
Public Health Scotland supports retaining the £20 a week uplift to universal credit and working tax credits, brought in by the UK Government in April 2020, to help create a Scotland where everybody thrives.
The social security top-up payment was introduced in April 2020 to help low-income households deal with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and is due to expire in October.
The evidence is becoming stronger that increasing the incomes of the poorest, including by increasing means-tested benefits, can help narrow the gap in life expectancy and improve mental health and wellbeing.
All of those families affected claiming working tax credits are already in employment, as are 35% of people claiming universal credit. Another 31% of people claiming universal credit have health problems or caring responsibilities which compromise their ability to secure and retain jobs. Therefore, focusing on getting people into work, in itself, will not be sufficient.
Martin Taulbut, Public Health Intelligence Adviser at Public Health Scotland said:“People with higher incomes are healthier and live longer. Experiencing material hardship can have a profound direct impact on health by affecting our ability to buy the goods and services that support good health and underpin healthy life expectancy.
“The increase in value of universal credit and tax credits has reduced poverty, protecting the physical and mental health of low-income families and supporting working-age adults’ ability to find and keep good work. Decreasing the value of means-tested benefits is likely to result in a decline in the (already poor) health of the unemployed and low-income families, particularly after the experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As well as enabling families to live healthier lives now, action taken to improve and protect the health of children from early in life pays dividends for decades. By embedding health and wellbeing into policy decisions across areas of economy, employment and mental health, Scotland has an opportunity to make real progress on national outcomes.”
Accounts Commission:Councils and communities worked well together but impacts of Covid are unequal
Scotland’s councils reacted quickly, working alongside communities and partners to address the unprecedented challenges created by Covid-19, says a new report from the Accounts Commission. Many challenges remain significant, however, made more urgent by the multiple impacts of Covid-19 on communities and services.
Councils have a critical role in providing vital services which communities depend on. In its Local Government Overview 2021 report, the Accounts Commission, who report to the public on the performance of local government, make clear that councils, alongside their partners, quickly provided innovative and sustained support to vulnerable people.
This included supporting those who were shielding or self-isolating, switching to delivering services digitally and managing significant funding to support local businesses.
With many council services disrupted, stopped or reduced, in particular education, social care and culture and leisure, the impact on some service users was severe and unequal. This included carers who lacked access to respite care, people with learning disabilities who were unable to access critical services and support, those receiving care at home and school children whose education was disrupted.
Covid-19 has also exacerbated and laid bare fundamental issues that need to be addressed to ensure services are maintained and that councils can tackle the multiple challenges ahead.
To help achieve this, longer-term financial certainty for councils will be vital. Whilst the Scottish Government has provided significant financial support to councils to assist in managing the net cost of Covid-19 in 2020/21, considerable amounts of funding took the form of one-off payments.
Furthermore, funding for councils beyond 2021/22 remains uncertain. Addressing this issue is vital.
Elma Murray, Interim Chair of the Accounts Commission, says: “Councils, communities and their partners have worked incredibly hard to continue to deliver vital services to local people. The stark reality is that some council services won’t restart, and some services will have to be delivered differently.
“Underpinning this is the increasingly urgent need to address inequalities throughout Scotland’s communities. And for councils this is made more challenging because they continue to operate in a climate of significant financial uncertainty, which must now be addressed.”
Tackling Scotland’s social deprivation and inequalities by investing in maternity services and staff must be at the heart of the next government’s policy. That’s the message from the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) in a Blueprint for maternity services published this week.
In five areas for action, it also calls for an end to Scotland’s midwife shortage, saying some areas of the country struggle to attract enough midwives.
The pandemic has also exposed starkly existing inequalities hitting vulnerable women and those from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. Maternity and other areas of healthcare have a key role to play in efforts to address these inequalities, says the RCM
The RCM’s five areas for action for the next Scottish Government are:
tackling social deprivation;
delivering the best maternity care for all the people of Scotland;
supporting NHS staff to recover from the pandemic;
ensuring Scotland has birthplaces that are fit for the future; and
ending Scotland’s midwife shortage for good.
Pulling no punches, the Blueprint says the pandemic ‘has been brutal’ on maternity and other NHS staff, who have worked throughout to ensure safe and high-quality care for women. This has hit their mental and physical health and they must be given the time and support to recover from it.
Jon Skewes, Executive Director for External Relations at the RCM, said: “There has been a monumental effort from midwives, maternity support workers, and maternity care assistants through the pandemic. It is time to step-up and really invest in them, in their pay and in their working conditions.
“Right now, we have a demoralised and exhausted workforce and women falling through the cracks and not getting the care they deserve. Staff are also often working in old, poorly designed buildings that are simply not fit for purpose. The pandemic has exposed the extent and the impact on care of this crumbling infrastructure.”
Additional training places for student midwives are also needed in more of Scotland’s universities. When they qualify new midwives generally stay within the regions they trained in leaving the chances of recruiting staff stacked against other areas without midwifery courses.
Jon Skewes added: “Tackling deprivation goes way beyond maternity and the wider NHS. Fixing it must be done through multiple channels including social care, education, and others.
“Maternity is a very good place to start improving the health of the nation, reduce inequalities and indeed, save lives that should not be lost. This has been a really tough year for the NHS and the people using it as it creaked under the weight of pandemic demands.
“It has also been a remarkable year because of how its staff and the service responded. Now is the time to invest to make it fit for the future.”
