‘Poverty cannot be acceptable, at all’ – Councillor Frank Ross
The City of Edinburgh Council’s Economy Convener, Councillor Frank Ross, makes the case for a Living Wage: Continue reading Cllr Frank Ross: Living Wage key to to tackling poverty
Tag: Poverty
‘Shocking’: Johnstone calls for action on health inequality
Life expectancy gap between rich and poor continues to grow
Lothian MSP and Scottish Greens’ spokesperson on Health and Wellbeing, Alison Johnstone has branded figures that show funding discrepancies between GPs in poorer and wealthier areas of Scotland as “shocking”.
The figures, published yesterday, were obtained by researchers at the University of Glasgow and University of Dundee, and demonstrate there is a £7 per person per year funding gap between GP practices in the top 10% most affluent and the 10% most deprived areas.
Johnstone highlighted that health inequalities in her home region and around Scotland are rife, with a 7.3 year gap between Local Authorities in overall male life expectancy, and a 5.2 year difference between Local Authorities in overall female life expectancy.
Johnstone urged the Scottish Government to ensure that GPs in more deprived communities are able to deliver a high-quality health service, and called for resources to be distributed according to need, not wealth.
Alison Johnstone said: “These shocking figures highlight the challenges our NHS is facing trying to provide a decent service to all those who need it. It’s vitally important that help goes where it’s most needed, and the unequal distribution of funding means that doctors in deprived communities are unlikely to have the resources to meet their patients’ needs.
“In Lothian, a person living in one of the more affluent parts of the region can expect to live nearly two decades longer than those from the poorest. If we don’t ensure that people in the poorest areas get the same quality service as wealthier communities, we have no chance of eradicating health inequalities.
“I urge the Scottish Government to take these figures very seriously and to reconsider how it distributes GP resources. It’s time to get back to basics – every single person from in Scotland deserves high quality healthcare, and we must make sure our NHS can deliver.”
Highest life expectancy for men in Scotland is in East Dumbartonshire at 80.7 years, with lowest in Glasgow City at 73.4 years. For females, highest life expectancy is in East Dunbartonshire at 83.9 years, and lowest at 78.7 years.
Figures available at: http://www.gro-scotland.gov.
Forth 1’s Mission Christmas
Giving children the chance to be kids on Christmas Day
In Edinburgh the Lothians and Fife there are an estimated 45,872 children living in poverty. Continue reading Forth 1’s Mission Christmas
Tax Credit cuts: an impending disaster?
“Tax Credits are a vital piece of support for many families who need to bridge the gap between low-paid work and the costs of raising a family.” – Julia Unwin, Joseph Rowntree Foundation Continue reading Tax Credit cuts: an impending disaster?
It’s not fair: ‘many people are being left behind’
More young people than ever living in poverty
The most comprehensive review ever carried out on progress towards greater equality and human rights protection across Scotland and the rest of Britain has been published. Continue reading It’s not fair: ‘many people are being left behind’
Pioneering advice project helps boost low-income household budgets
“Poverty has a huge impact on health and wellbeing, including damp housing, hunger, lack of access to healthy food, and stress and depression.” – Graham Mackenzie, Consultant in Public Health, NHS Lothian
Two Lothian projects that began with a midwife helping mums improve their nutrition have evolved into a support network ensuring low income families access thousands of pounds of unclaimed entitlements.
The projects in Leith and West Lothian have each had a welfare rights adviser working since March with a team of NHS Lothian, council and voluntary sector workers.
The welfare rights advisers are funded by the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) as part of its Tackling Money Worries programme.
In Leith, Granton Information Centre (GIC) has provided money and welfare rights advice to 89 families referred by midwives, health visitors, Dr Bell’s Family Centre, Citadel Youth Centre, nurseries and early years centres, and working with Edinburgh Community Food.
For these families the total financial gain during 2015-16 is projected to be £404,000, or an average of £4,500 per client. The maximum financial gain for one client so far has been £15,000.
This is in addition to the support GIC (pictured below) has already provided to the most vulnerable families in the North Edinburgh area, who are not included in these figures.
Citizens Advice Bureau West Lothian has been supporting families in West Lothian in a similar project, also funded by SLAB. In that project around 200 clients have gained £300,000, an average of almost £5,000 per client.
Over half of those accessing support for the first time have been in work, and were not aware of their unclaimed entitlements (e.g. tax credits, benefits) and other help available (e.g. advice about debt, access to hardship funds).
The figures have been released during Challenge Poverty Week 2015 which aims to raise awareness of poverty and to highlight the great work that community organisations are doing to help those in crisis.
Graham Mackenzie, Consultant in Public Health, NHS Lothian, said the success of the advice projects illustrated the importance of the NHS and other services working with welfare rights advisers, and could be repeated in many other parts of the UK.
“This work, which started with a single midwife focusing on ensuring families were claiming food vouchers they were entitled to, has expanded into a sophisticated package of support that we are aiming to offer to hundreds of families over the coming year.
“Poverty has a huge impact on health and wellbeing, including damp housing, hunger, lack of access to healthy food, and stress and depression.
“With hundreds of thousands of pounds secured for families, and more to come, we are taking practical steps to help families tackle the consequences of poverty.”
The Lothian projects were formed following work started with Healthy Start food and vitamin vouchers, a UK-wide scheme designed to improve nutrition for low income families. Across the UK around a quarter of eligible families miss out on these valuable vouchers, with the number of pregnant women and children under four years old in receipt of vouchers falling over recent years. In Lothian, however, after concentrated work with NHS Lothian staff and families, the number of pregnant women in receipt of vouchers increased from 294 in March 2014 to 368 in July 2015.
The work started with simple insights from a single midwife about how to make the application process more reliable, and secure vouchers for women earlier in pregnancy.
From 10 weeks of pregnancy to the child’s fourth birthday Healthy Start vouchers are worth up to £899 in total.
With 76 more women benefitting across Lothian as a result, this work has boosted family budgets by tens of thousands of pounds; this in addition to the hundreds of thousands secured through the Tackling Money Worries work. Vouchers can be spent on fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables, milk and formula feed. Vitamin vouchers are provided separately.
This work, part of the Scottish Government Early Years Collaborative, provided insights that have now been applied to much greater effect through the Lothian Tackling Money Worries projects by providing families with money and welfare rights advice.
Work-shy scroungers or ordinary people who need our support? Tell Your Story
Cyrenians launch TELL YOUR STORY campaign
More than a quarter of Scots believe poverty is a result of laziness according to a new poll published by a Scottish charity seeking to challenge public perceptions of those in need.
The poll, commissioned by Cyrenians as part of their newly-launched “Tell Your Story” campaign aimed at changing public perceptions of those living in poverty, found that 28% believed poverty was a result of laziness on the part of those living in poverty. 24% believed a lack of willpower was another contributory factor to people living in poverty
The study found that the majority of Scots think that unemployment (76%), addiction (59%) and family circumstances (56%) are main causes of poverty.
Scottish people believe early intervention and working with those most at risk, along with providing more jobs, are the best ways to reduce poverty, with only a tiny minority backing reductions in benefits.
The poll found that Scots believed providing jobs (59%), working with families at risk of poverty (58%), early intervention (53%) and providing education (51%) were the best ways the Government should help those living in poverty in Scotland; with only a tiny minority (6%) believing cutting benefits would do so.
In order to tackle poverty, Cyrenians aim over the next five years to increase the number of people they support annually from 4400 to 6000 people in a major expansion of their work in Scotland as they respond to a rise in demand from those who feel excluded from family, home, work or community. These interventions include:
- Conflict Resolution, Mediation and Support for Families – Cyrenians worked with over 1400 families and young people to resolve issues, repair relationships and increase confidence in dealing with conflict.
- Addictions – Cyrenians peer-led recovery service supported 650 people on their journey away from addiction
- Homeless Prevention – advice and support, helping people to keep their homes. 87% of 630 customers last year said Cyrenians helped them avoid homelessness
- Work and Skills – changing lives by bring people and employers together. Last year Cyrenians supported over 1200 clients into employment, training or work experience.
- Good Food – sharing food that would otherwise go to waste. At present Cyrenians provide food to 2,000 vulnerable people each week, along with 180 cooking and budgeting classes per year.
The leaders of Scotland’s five main political parties, along with major celebrities such as Irvine Welsh, Mark Greenaway, Brian Cox, Grant Stott, Bill Paterson and Mark Cousins have backed Cyrenians call for people to tell their own personal story to remind us that everyone has a past, a present and a future. Cyrenians aim is to shine a light on the different ways anyone can find themselves in poverty in order to change public perceptions of those in need.
To encourage others to tell their story, Cyrenians has published a series of case studies of people they have worked with and who, for a variety of reasons, have been excluded and fallen in to different types of poverty, only to turn their lives around with help from the innovative work of the charity.
Announcing the expansion at an event with award-winning TV chef, Mark Greenaway, at Cyrenians Good Food depot in Edinburgh, Cyrenians Chief Executive Ewan Aitken, said: “The Scottish public clearly believe that the type of support provided by Cyrenians, such as working with people in danger of becoming excluded from their family or home at an early stage and working with those most at risk, are the best ways to reduce poverty rather than blunt financial instruments or stigmatising language. We want to build on that and challenge any perception amongst the public that those in poverty are only there through laziness or lack of willpower.
“Politicians, along with the rest of society, must stand-up and tackle the causes of poverty and change public perceptions. To do that we must work to prevent people from feeling excluded from family, home, work or the wider community. Through our own stories and those of people we support, as well as they services we provide, we can achieve that change.
“We should remember that we all have a past, a present and a future, so we are urging people to come forward and, please: TELL YOUR STORY.”
Finding new ways to tackle food poverty
New group will explore ways to reduce reliance on foodbanks
The scourge of food poverty and possible solutions to Scotland’s increasing reliance on foodbanks will be investigated by a new group when representatives from poverty organisations and charities convene for their first meeting today.
The short term working group will identify the issues which push people into food poverty and discuss how they can be addressed.
The group, chaired by the Secretary of the Church of Scotland’s Church and Society Council Rev Dr Martin Johnstone, has been asked to make recommendations to the Scottish Government by February 2016 on the actions required to eradicate food poverty in Scotland.
The first meeting coincides with the Poverty Alliance’s annual Challenge Poverty Week which runs from October 17 to 23 and aims to challenge the stereotypes around poverty and increase public support to combat it.
The latest statistics from the Trussell Trust show that a total of 117,689 people picked up a three-day supply of groceries from their Scottish foodbanks in 2014-15. Of those, 36,114 were children. This is more than EIGHT TIMES the number helped just two years ago.
Social Justice Secretary Alex Neil said: “It is heart breaking that anyone should be left hungry and unable to afford to feed their families in a country as prosperous as Scotland.
“UK Government welfare cuts and benefit sanctions have continually pushed more and more people into food poverty and increased the demand and number of food banks in Scotland. This shocking trend has to stop.
“By bringing together a range of experts who support people in food poverty we hope the group will come up with a food strategy that will reduce the need for foodbanks over time.
“Food poverty cannot be solved overnight which is why the group will look at how we can address some of its long-term causes and whether we can take a more joined up approach to welfare benefits advice, health and employment support services.
“I look forward to hearing the group’s recommendations on how we can ease the pressure on food banks, tackle food poverty and create a fairer Scotland.”
The Scottish Government currently invests £1 million into the Emergency Food Action Plan which helps support 26 local emergency food aid projects and the charity Fareshare to redistribute surplus food from retailers to communities across Scotland.
The group’s recommendations will feed into the Scottish Government’s Social Justice Action Plan. This will be published in the new year with milestones to the next Parliament and beyond to help tackle poverty and create fairer opportunities for all.
The chair of the group, Rev Dr Martin Johnstone, said: “I am delighted to be chairing this independent Working Group on Food Poverty, whilst appalled that in a country as wealthy as Scotland the number of people going hungry is increasing by thousands each year.
“Our starting point will be that we need to reverse that trend. The group will bring together people with a wide variety of experiences of tackling food poverty including, critically, those with direct experience of what it means not to have enough for you and your family.
“I hope that together we can highlight what is working, what needs to change and what the Scottish Government and others can do to bring about a hunger free Scotland.”
Peter Kelly, director of the Poverty Alliance said: “The growth of foodbanks in recent years is the surest sign that we need to do more to tackle poverty in Scotland.
“Challenge Poverty Week is aimed at highlighting that solutions to poverty do exist, and the work that volunteers across Scotland do week in and out providing emergency food aid shows that people are committed to tackling the scandal of food poverty.
“But it is necessary that we find longer term solutions to food poverty. So we welcome the Scottish Government convening this new group to find lasting solutions to the problem. Through it we will be able to draw on the experience and expertise of those volunteering in foodbanks, people using emergency food aid and those involved in community food projects to make a real difference in the future.”
Challenge Poverty Week
Challenge Poverty Week
17 – 23 October
More than 900,000 people in Scotland live in low income households – in a rich country like ours this is unnecessary and unacceptable.
Challenge Poverty Week is an opportunity for you to raise you voice against poverty and show what is being done to tackle poverty across. Organisations large and small supported Challenge Poverty Week last year, and we hope even more get behind it this year.
- to bring to public attention the reality of poverty in Scotland;
- to the show the impact of poverty on individuals and communities and to address the sterotypes that exist about poverty;
- to highlight what is being done to address poverty (particularly by communities themselves);
- and to highlight the continuing challenges that we face in addressing poverty
To achieve this organisations across Scotland will be organising events, running community activities, meeting with politicians to discuss their concerns.
Through all these focused activities we want to show that there is nothing inevitable about poverty. Not only are many people and organisations addressing poverty right now, but there is far more that we can do in the future to make a bigger impact.
John Dickie, Head of Child Poverty Action Group Scotland, said: “If we are serious about ending poverty in Scotland its vital that we build the public support needed to make real change happen. Challenge Poverty Week is a great opportunity to work together to highlight the damage that poverty wreaks and create the pressure needed for real action to end it.”
The City of Edinburgh Council is supporting the week. In his Leader’s Report published yesterday, Council Leader Cllr Andrew Burns said: “Tomorrow, 17 October, marks the start of the national Challenge Poverty Week. A number of events and activities are being held locally to coincide with it.
“In September, the Council agreed to adopt a set of pledges to challenge the stigma that can so often be associated with living in poverty. Part of the ‘Stick Your Labels‘ campaign, these pledges reinforce that poverty is not inevitable and commit organisations to setting out what they will do to help.
“In shaping the deal, we want to build on our strengths across the region, whilst tackling persistent inequality and other constraints that threaten to hold us back. If successful, we could potentially unlock an additional £3.2bn worth of private sector investment.”
The city council, having just signed up to the Stick Your Labels anti-stigma pledges, will be highlighting its work on tackling poverty, and that of its partners, during Challenge Poverty Week 2015.
There is a varied programme of events over the week, including Councillor visits to food poverty projects, the launch of the Edinburgh Equalities and Rights Network, Fairer Scotland conversations being run through third sector organisations, additional welfare advice sessions and staff events.
The Lord Provost, as President of Edinburgh’s independent social justice charity, the OneCity Trust, will also visit Bridgend Inspiring Growth, a project grant-funded by a the Trust to tackle the impacts of poverty through learning, eating and exercise. It is hoped that these activities will raise awareness in the city, where one in five families are experiencing poverty right now.
For further information visit
http://povertyalliance.org/challenge_poverty
ChallengePovertyWeek_Leaflet_2015
Closing the gap: city council to focus on child poverty
Edinburgh is one of the richest and most successful cities in the UK and regularly appears high on the list of most desirable places to live – and yet one in every five of our children are growing up in poverty. And in areas like Forth, Craigmillar and Wester Hailes the plight of children is even worse – there, the figures are one on four as families face the daily challenge of trying to make ends meet.
Despite the efforts of successive governments – and because of the legislation introduced by some of them – the gap between rich and poor continues to grow, and tackling child poverty is the focus of a new awareness drive being spearheaded by the City of Edinburgh Council.
A report going to the Education, Children and Families Committee next week (Tuesday 6 October) shows that just over 21% of children in Edinburgh live in poverty and this figure is forecast to increase significantly by 2020.
Every area of the city is affected with each Council ward having child poverty rates of over 10% and it’s estimated that the cost of delivering services to address the impact in the Capital is around £156m a year.
Next week’s Child Poverty report outlines various actions being taken by the Council to lessen the impact.
Key areas identified include:
*Developing more flexible and affordable good quality childcare to meet the needs of families on low incomes
*Improving attendance at schools and early years establishments, and the attainment and achievement of young people
*Reducing the attainment gap between lowest achieving pupils and their peers across the city
*Identifying and developing more safe places to play
Other actions include increasing breakfast club provision, working in partnership with food banks to better understand why families in poverty are using their services and further developing family engagement with a focus on strong home-school partnerships.
A major school project – the ‘1 in 5: Raising Awareness of Child Poverty in Edinburgh’ – has already started in five primaries and one secondary school. It aims to identify best practice and changes that can be introduced to make school more affordable for families on low incomes. The project involves working with children, staff and parents to challenge the stigma that affects children living in poverty.
The report also highlights the importance of income maximisation to raising attainment. Research has shown that the level of household income plays a major role in attainment levels with more initiatives needed to increase wages, encourage take up of unclaimed benefits and other finance-related poverty costs.
Councillor Paul Godzik, Education, Children and Families Convener, said: “Child poverty matters to us all as it damages childhoods, damages life chances and damages society as a whole. Children from poorer backgrounds lag behind at all stages of education so it’s important we do all we can to close the attainment gap.
“We have developed a range of actions to challenge and mitigate the impact of child poverty in the Capital and will continue to work closely with our partner agencies to ensure everything is done to ensure children given every opportunity to have the best possible start in life.”
Alison Noble, Head Teacher at Sciennes Primary School, is one of the schools taking ‘1 in 5: Raising Awareness of Child Poverty in Edinburgh’ project.
She said: “This project provides a valuable opportunity for Sciennes to make a difference and ensure the outcomes for our children are not undermined by poverty and inequality. By taking part we can focus our efforts on addressing the barriers that exist within our community and help us to begin to fulfil one of the objectives in the Scottish Attainment Challenge – to close the attainment gap and provide every child with the same opportunity to succeed.
“Our ward includes an area of multiple deprivation so raising awareness of the issues surrounding poverty may contribute to our children making a positive contribution to the school, local and wider community.”