Support for more than 1.2 million people in Scotland
All Scottish social security benefits are increasing by 6.7% in April, providing more support for disabled people, unpaid carers and people on low incomes.
Scottish Child Payment, which helps the families of more than 327,000 children, is now worth £26.70 per child per week.
A person eligible for the highest rate of Adult Disability Payment will receive £184.30 per week.
Carer Support Payment, Scotland’s newest benefit, has gone up to £81.90 every four weeks. The benefit for unpaid carers launched in three local authorities last year and will be available across Scotland by Autumn 2024.
Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said: “Our investment in social security helps low‑income families with their living costs, enables disabled people to live full and independent lives, and supports older people to heat their homes in winter.
“This financial year we are committing a record £6.3 billion for benefits expenditure – which is £1.1 billion more than the UK Government gives to the Scottish Government for social security.
“We are making a choice to increase direct support for people who need it the most and that is more important than ever during the current cost of living crisis.”
Modelling shows vital impact of Scottish Government policies
First Minister Humzah Yousaf has welcomed analysis which estimates 100,000 children will be kept out of relative poverty in 2024-25 as a result of Scottish Government policies.
Updated modelling of the cumulative impact of policies such as the Scottish Child Payment indicates the relative child poverty rate will be 10 percentage points lower than it would otherwise have been.
Speaking after joining a Book Bug session at Drum Brae Library Hub in Edinburgh with the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Mr Yousaf highlighted estimates in the report of the impact the UK Government could have on child poverty, if it were to bring in selected welfare changes alongside the Scottish Government’s actions.
These show that removing the two-child limit and reinstating the family element in Universal Credit – worth £545 per family in 2017 – could lead to an estimated further 10,000 fewer children in Scotland living in poverty in 2024-25.
Meanwhile, introducing an Essentials Guarantee to ensure Universal Credit is always enough to meet people’s basic needs could lead to 30,000 fewer children experiencing poverty.
The First Minister said: “It is utterly unacceptable that, in 2024, children continue to live in poverty in Scotland. That is why we have very deliberately chosen to invest in our public services, and the social contract which binds the Scottish Government to the people we serve.
“From the introduction of the innovative and transformative Scottish Child Payment – described as ‘game-changing’ by frontline organisations and already improving the lives of so many children and families across Scotland in real and immediate ways – to investing £1 billion to tackle the poverty-related attainment gap, continuing delivery of the Whole Family Wellbeing programme, providing £50 million to develop and scale up holistic family support and investing around £1 billion every year in high quality early learning and childcare, ensuring Scotland delivers the most generous funded childcare offer in the UK.
“The economic modelling published today estimates that the actions we’re taking will mean the relative and absolute child poverty rates will be 10 and 7 percentage points lower than they would have otherwise been.
That’s 100,000 children kept out of relative poverty and 70,000 kept out of absolute poverty next year. These are the lives of children across Scotland, in every single community, being improved by the action we are taking.
“While we all know the challenging financial situation Scotland faces, the Scottish Budget continues to prioritise tackling and reducing child poverty. Against a backdrop of the UK Government’s two-child limit and continued austerity, we are taking real action to lift children out of poverty and improve their chances in life.
“We know that the UK Government could lift a further 40,000 children out of poverty in Scotland this year if they made key changes to Universal Credit. That includes introducing an Essential’s Guarantee and scrapping the two child limit.
“Every child in Scotland deserves a life free of poverty and I will continue to do everything in my power to make that a reality.”
Fourth rise in uptake since support was increased to under-16s
Scottish Child Payment was helping the families of more than 327,000 children at the end of December last year, official statistics have shown.
The £25-a-week payment helps families as part of a wider package of Scottish Government actions to tackle child poverty and support people during the cost of living crisis.
The figures published yesterday show more than 4,000 extra children were being supported since the previous quarter – the fourth consecutive rise.
Scottish Child Payment launched in February 2021 and it has since risen in value twice – firstly from £10 per week to £20 per week then, in November 2022, to £25 per week.
At the time of the second rise, it extended from being a payment for the families of children under the age of six to all those eligible under 16.
It is the families of that older group of children who have driven the latest increase in uptake.
The total overall amount paid out since the payment was launched reach passed £573.2 million.
Official statistics on Social Security’s other family payments – Best Start Foods and the three Best Start Grants (Pregnancy & Baby Payment, Early Learning Payment and School Age Payment) are also published today.
Since first launching in December 2018 until December 2023 471,670 applications for the payments have been processed and a total of £145.4 million paid out.
Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice Shirley-Anne Somerville said: “Despite cuts to Scotland’s budget, the Scottish Government is prioritising support for families.
“Our investment in the game-changing Scottish Child Payment and other benefits is unparalleled in the UK.
“It delivers a lifeline from the Westminster austerity agenda and continued cruel policies, such as the two-child cap.
“These statistics show that we are reaching more of the people who most need our support as we continue to make tackling child poverty our key mission.
“It is encouraging to see that we are also continuing to do that more quickly, making progress in the time it takes from receiving applications to getting money into people’s pockets.”
The deadline to apply for Best Start Grant School Age Payment is midnight on 29 February 2024.
Your child could be eligible if they were born between 1 March 2018 and 28 February 2019 and your family receives Universal Credit, tax credits or other qualifying benefits.
If you get Scottish Child Payment then there’s no need to apply. Your School Age Payment will arrive automatically. But there are some people who don’t get Scottish Child Payment who might still be able to get School Age Payment – for example those who get housing benefit.
If you think you could be eligible, please visit our website and apply before 29 February 2024:
Best Start Grants awarded without need for a separate application
More than 43,000 payments have been paid automatically to help parents and carers with the cost of living and starting school, latest official figures show.
The introduction of automatic payments means that tens of thousands of people getting Scottish Child Payment have been awarded Best Start Grant Early Learning and School Age Payments without the need to apply separately.
For each of the two benefits, people are awarded one-off payments of £294.70 per child to help with costs like clothes, toys and school trips.
Some parents and carers don’t get Scottish Child Payment but could still qualify for the two grants and they have been urged to apply.
These include people who opted out of automatic payments and some who get housing benefit.
Social Justice Secretary @S_A_Somerville visited @ibroxPS today to talk about the automatic payment of our Best Start Grant Early Learning Payment and School Age Payments.
More than 43,000 have been paid automatically to help with the cost of living and starting school. pic.twitter.com/P6zXqzj8a0
On a visit to Ibrox Primary School and nursery in Glasgow, Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice Shirley-Anne Somerville said: “The introduction of automatic payments means we are getting money to families quickly in the crucial early years of their child’s development, as these figures show.
“The majority of eligible people get these payments automatically, but we are urging those who don’t to check if they are eligible and get the support they are entitled to.
“The UK Government makes no equivalent provision to either the Early Learning or School Age Payments and removing the need for separate applications has made things even simpler for people who need this support most.
“While the UK Government chose to continue with welfare cuts in the middle of a cost of living crisis, the Scottish Government has allocated £3 billion each year to protect people as far as possible.
“In 2024-25 we are committing a record £6.3 billion for benefits expenditure, providing support to over 1.2 million people.
“This is £1.1 billion more than the UK Government gives to the Scottish Government for social security, demonstrating our commitment to tackling poverty.”
Satwat Rehman, the chief executive of charity One Parent Families Scotland said: “Many of the single parents we support have limited access to digital devices so automation ensures that children in need will not lose out.
“Due to the inadequate levels of Westminster’s benefits these payments help at some of the most important stages of a young child’s development to give them the best start in life.”
The UK has seen a “shameful increase” in destitution, though Scotland has had “by far the lowest” rise in the numbers, a new report has found.
Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) found that across the UK, there were an estimated 3.8 million people suffering from destitution – with this including more than one million children.
According to the report, rising levels of destitution mean almost two-and-a-half times as many people are suffering as there were in 2017, with nearly three times as many youngsters affected.
Rates of destitution – where people are not able to afford to meet their basic needs to stay warm, dry, clean and fed – were highest in the London borough of Newham, it found.
While Glasgow City Council was ranked 26th in the 30 local authorities with the worst rates of destitution, it had dropped 16 places from the previous report in 2019.
The report found that at a regional level, London had the highest destitution levels in 2022, followed by the North East and the North West of England, and then the West Midlands.
The regions in the south of England had the lowest rates of destitution, with both Wales and Scotland having rates comparable with the Midlands.
While destitution had increased in all regions of the UK over the period 2019 to 2022, the report found Scotland’s position had improved “with by far the lowest increase since 2019”.
It added: “This may be indicative of the growing divergence in welfare benefits policies in Scotland, notably the introduction of the Scottish Child Payment.”
The benefit, which was introduced in Scotland in 2021, gives £25 per child under 16 a week to eligible low-income families.
The report, the fourth in a series by the JRF, with research carried out by Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University, found overall “there has been a shameful increase in the level of destitution in the UK”.
It highlighted the “growing number of people struggling to afford to meet their most basic physical needs to stay warm, dry, clean and fed”, insisting there was now an “urgent need for action”.
Stating that the problem has “been increasing at an alarming rate since 2017” the report added: “Around 1.8 million households were destitute in the UK at some point over the course of 2022.
“These households contained around 3.8 million people, of whom around a million were children.”
It found that as in previous studies, food was the most common essential that people struggling with destitution lacked in 2022.
But with energy bills having risen rapidly, heating was the second most common thing for people to struggle with, followed by clothes and toiletries.
The report calls on the UK Government to introduce an “Essentials Guarantee” into Universal Credit payments, ensuring that the basic amount people receive covers all basic needs “such as food, energy, toiletries and cleaning products”.
Doing this “would have a significant impact on destitution”, the report says.
However, Chris Birt, associate director for the JRF in Scotland said governments at both Holyrood and Westminster needed to “step up” to deal with the problem.
He said: “The UK is a country with dramatically increasing destitution, where millions of people can’t afford heating or can’t afford the basic essentials like clothes or food. In a country this wealthy, that is outrageous.
“But this needn’t be the case, destitution in Scotland is rising much more slowly than in other parts of the UK with the Scottish Child Payment and local welfare support offering some protection.
“Despite this, there is no cause for celebration when destitution numbers aren’t falling.
Mr Birt continued: “It is time for both governments to step up to this challenge that years of failed government policy have caused.
“This is particularly acute for the UK Government and all the parties that are bidding to run it after the next election – they must come through for the Scottish people by embracing the Essentials Guarantee.
“The Scottish Government can also do more and will need to show it is willing to turn the tide on destitution in its forthcoming budget.”
Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said that this year and last year the Scottish Government had “allocated almost £3 billion to support policies to tackle poverty and to protect people as far as possible during the cost-of-living crisis, especially those are most impacted”.
She added that as of the end of June, the Scottish Child Payment was providing 316,000 children with support worth £25 per week, with the Scottish Government also making £83.7 million available through Discretionary Housing Payments to “mitigate UK government welfare cuts”.
Ms Somerville said: “We estimate that 90,000 fewer children will live in relative and absolute poverty this year as a result of our policies, with poverty levels nine percentage points lower than they would have otherwise been.
“We continue to urge the UK Government to introduce an Essentials Guarantee to ensure people can afford life’s essentials and ensure vulnerable people are properly supported.”
An NSPCC spokesperson said: “Everybody, of any age, deserves to live with dignity. These shocking figures are a stark wake-up call about the increasing number of children facing the physical and emotional hardship of living in extreme poverty.
“Evidence shows that poverty can result in families, through no fault of their own, struggling to meet their child’s most basic needs so they can grow up in a happy, healthy and safe environment.
“Governments in the UK need to act now to address these spiralling levels of poverty and turn the tide for families who desperately need help.
“This means concerted action to reduce child poverty as well as significant investment in children’s services so families who are struggling get timely and meaningful support.”
Latest figures show 13,000 rise in children and young people benefitting
The families of more than 316,000 under-16s were benefitting from Scottish Child Payment by the end of June this year, according to the latest official statistics.
New figures published yesterday show the payment of £25 per week, which is unique in the UK, was reaching 316,190 – an increase of more than 13,000 compared to 31 March 2023.
The Scottish Fiscal Commission had forecast that the average take-up in 2023/24 would be 309,000.
The total amount going direct to lower income families is now more than £350 million since the payment was launched in February 2021.
The average time taken to process applications was 13 working days in June 2023 – down from 40 working days in March 2023.
The Scottish Government has twice increased the payment; first from £10 to £20 per week per child then £25 when it extended to include all eligible children under 16 in November last year.
Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice Shirley-Anne Somerville said:
“Scottish Child Payment is one of our key measures in tackling child poverty. It is an important safety net and one of many actions we are taking in government to lift people out of poverty.
“These statistics show the payment is reaching more of the children and young people who need it most.
“While things are clearly moving in the right direction I would still encourage people to spread the word about all Scottish Government benefits.
Parents or carers who get Housing Benefit but don’t receive Scottish Child Payment need to apply for the School Age Payment as they will not receive it automatically.
Additionally, some young parents, those under 18 or 18 to 19 year olds who are dependent on someone else but don’t receive qualifying benefits, also need to apply for the School Age Payment as they will not receive it automatically.
Anyone who has opted out from receiving automatic awards, or who has chosen not to apply for Scottish Child Payment, will also have to apply for School Age Payment
The School Age Payment of £294.70 is designed to help with the costs of preparing for school. Parents or carers of children born between March 1 2018 and 28 February 2019 can apply online at the Scottish Government website.
Clients can contact a client advisor by calling 0800 182 2222 or by using our webchat.
People must apply before the closing date of 28 February 2024. Parents or carers who defer their child’s entry to school from August 2023 to August 2024 should still apply before the closing date.
The Scottish Child Payment is now being received by the families of more than 300,000 children and young people, according to official statistics.
New figures published yesterday show that 303,000 children were receiving the payment at the end of March.
The total amount of the benefit paid out since its February 2021 launch now stands at £248.6 million.
Scottish Child Payment was extended to include all eligible children until their 16th birthday and increased to £25 per child per week in November last year.
First Minister Humza Yousaf, who yesterday visited Castlebrae High School to hear how the Scottish Child Payment is making a difference to families, said: “The game-changing Scottish Child Payment is designed to tackle child poverty head-on and lift families out of poverty.
“Families in Scotland are able to benefit from five family payments delivered by the Scottish Government which could be worth more than £10,000 by the time an eligible child turns six and over £20,000 by the time an eligible child turns 16.
“I am pleased at the take up of the Payment but we still want to get that money to all of those eligible. I would encourage anyone who thinks they may be eligible to find out more and apply.”
Tackling poverty and protecting people from harm is one of three critical missions for the Scottish Government and it will continue to tackle child poverty via its second child poverty delivery plan for 2022-26, Best Start Bright Futures.
Earlier this month the First Minister convened a cross-party anti-poverty summit to listen to the views of people with lived experience of poverty, the third sector, academics, campaigners and other interested parties.
The First Minister added: “The Scottish Child Payment is one of an ambitious range of actions to support families immediately and in the long term.”
Polly Jones, Head of Scotland at the Trussell Trust, said: “Everyone in Scotland should be able to afford the essentials but we know that more families are struggling than ever before.
“We have long called for the Scottish Child Payment to be increased and extended to all children up to 16 and so it’s very encouraging to see the positive impact this is making, reaching more families and getting more cash into the pockets of people who need support the most.”
Kinship carers urged to check Scottish Child Payment eligibility
Kinship carers are being urged to check if they could be entitled to the Scottish Child Payment, after eligibility was expanded to include more of them last year.
The call comes at the start of Scottish Kinship Care Week, which celebrates the role of extended family or friends who care for children when they cannot remain with their birth parents.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon met with a group of kinship carers yesterday at an annual big breakfast hosted by the Big Hearts Community Trust at Tynecastle Park to thank them and highlight the extra support available via the Scottish Child Payment and other Scottish social security benefits.
Big Hearts’ Kinship Care programme was launched in 2015 and offers a range of support for young people and their carers, including after school clubs, coffee mornings, and wellbeing advice.
The First Minister said: “We owe kinship carers an enormous debt of gratitude for the role they play in providing loving and secure homes for children and young people, and it’s vital they receive every penny of support they’re entitled to.
“In line with our commitment to tackling child poverty, we increased the Scottish Child Payment to £25 a week per eligible child last year, and expanded the eligibility criteria to include more kinship carers.
“We want to ensure everyone gets the financial support they are entitled to, so I’d encourage carers to check whether they’re entitled to receive the Scottish Child Payment and any other Scottish Government benefits.
“In addition to the fantastic support provided by charities like Big Hearts, there are a range of events for kinship carers taking place across the country this week, and free advice and guidance is also available from the Kinship Care Advice Service for Scotland website.”
Craig Wilson, Big Hearts’ General Manager said: “It was fantastic to welcome Scotland’s First Minister to Tynecastle Park for the start of Scottish Kinship Care Week.
“We are so proud to work with so many amazing kinship care families and for many years we’ve strived to raise the profile of kinship carers and highlight the support they can and should receive.
“There’s no doubt that today adds to that and we want kinship carers to know there is always a warm and welcoming place for them here at Big Hearts.”
