[UK] MSPs attack share out of funding to tackle poverty

from The Scotsman

A HOLYROOD committee today criticised the way in which funding is used to tackle deprivation.

Members of the Scottish Parliament's finance committee say that there are too many different funding sources and are instead calling for one cash pot to be set up.

They argue that having a single, national fund - rather than the ten which currently exist - would cut bureaucracy and make the system more effective.

But the committee has also questioned the role of the housing agency Communities Scotland in tackling poverty.

Communities Scotland is currently involved in both allocating funds to various projects and monitoring the use of cash.

The committee claims this is a conflict and wants the housing agency to have fewer and clearer roles. MSPs are also concerned that mainstream local government and health budgets are not sufficiently focused on tackling deprivation.

And they are recommending that the local government funding formula should be re-adjusted to take full account of the problem.

In order that resources are targeted better on those that need them most, the committee also wants to see local community planning partnerships - which are made up of council leaders, health chiefs, enterprise bodies and others - develop partnership outcome agreements.

These will be wider than the current arrangements and should set out what funding is being used and what is to be done with the cash.

Committee convener Des McNulty said that deprivation was still a problem, despite previous attempts to tackle it.

He said: "In our inquiry we questioned the effectiveness of having so many different programmes.

"The maximum available resources should be spent helping individuals, families and communities."