[UK] Scots Lead Fight on Child Poverty

from The Scotsman

HAMISH MACDONELL
SCOTTISH POLITICAL EDITOR

Child poverty in Scotland has gone down by 25 per cent In the rest of Britain child proverty has been reduced by 23 per Child Poverty Action Group say 3.4 million UK children still live in poverty Key quote "We're disappointed that the [UK] government has fallen short of its target, but we should not forget that in the last six years, 80,000 children in Scotland and 700,000 across Great Britain have been lifted out of poverty." - John Dickie, Child Poverty Action Group

Story in full SCOTTISH ministers scored a notable success over their Westminster counterparts yesterday when new figures showed that a greater proportion of children had been lifted out of poverty in Scotland than in the rest of the UK.
In 1999, both the UK government and the Scottish Executive set targets of reducing child poverty by a quarter by April 2005.

Yesterday, the official figures were released, showing the number of children in poverty in Scotland had gone down by 25 per cent - exactly hitting the target - while for the rest of Britain, child poverty had been reduced by 23 per cent.

The 2005 target was merely a staging post for both administrations in the long-term pledge to eradicate child poverty completely by 2020.

If yesterday's figures are any indication, the Executive is on course to meet this target while the UK government remains a little way off.

The total number of children living in the accepted definition of poverty fell in Scotland from 320,000 to 240,000 between 1999-2000 and 2004-5, a drop of 80,000. In England and Wales, the number of children living in poverty fell by 700,000, from 4.1 million to 3.4 million, missing the target by 300,000.

But the figures did not convey completely good news for the Executive.

The number of pensioners in poverty before housing costs are taken into account has only dropped by 15 per cent over the same period, from 200,000 to 170,000.

This is almost certainly because of big rises in council tax, which will have helped cancel out pension increases from the government.

Campaigners said the Executive was not able to claim success for the achievements on child poverty on its own, as changes to benefits payments by the UK Treasury, including the tax credit system, had a lot to do with the reduction in the number of families in poverty in Britain.

And they suggested that the only reason the UK government failed to hit its target was because it was starting with a much bigger problem - lifting a million children out of poverty, rather than just 80,000 in Scotland.

Malcolm Chisholm, the communities minister, said the figures showed progress, but more needed to be done. "Across Scotland, more people are being lifted out of poverty," he said.

He went on: "We have met our initial target to reduce the number of children living in low income by a quarter."

But the Child Poverty Action Group called on ministers at both Holyrood and Westminster to do more.

John Dickie, the group's Scottish head, said: "Despite the progress that's been made in recent years, 240,000 children in Scotland and 3.4 million across Great Britain still live in poverty.

"In a country as rich as ours, that's a scandal."

He continued: "We're disappointed that the [UK] government has fallen short of its target, but we should not forget that in the last six years, 80,000 children in Scotland and 700,000 across Great Britain have been lifted out of poverty.

"It's not enough, but without this ambitious target and the extra resources government has committed to tackling child poverty, it's unlikely that such progress would ever have been made."

And Douglas Hamilton, the head of policy and research for Save the Children in Scotland, said: "Save the Children in Scotland welcomes the progress that has been made in Scotland to tackle child poverty, but the figures released today are not something to be proud of.

"Scratch beneath the headline figures and there is still the scandal of 240,000 - or nearly one in four - children living in poverty in Scotland.

"Our research shows that those closest to the poverty line in Scotland have been helped, but there is little impact on the poorest."

The SNP expressed doubt that Scottish ministers would hit their target of ending child poverty by 2020. Christine Grahame, the SNP's social justice spokeswoman, said: "It's disgraceful that in an energy-rich country, one in four children is still living in poverty."

Defining the line
THERE are several definitions of poverty used by the Scottish Executive and the UK government, but only one that is agreed as the benchmark, by ministers and poverty campaigners.

This is: households with an income of only 60 per cent of the median household income for Great Britain, after housing costs have been taken into account.

Any household with an income of less than this is designated as in "relative poverty".

According to government statisticians, 60 per cent of median income is £210 a week for a couple with no children.

This is accepted as the "poverty line" - below which families would be accepted as being in poverty.

The figures would change depending on how many children families have.