Lifeline payments being delivered within days will pull some of Scotland’s most vulnerable families from the brink of financial crisis, but a leading charity says more must be done long-term.
Aberlour Children’s Charity said frontline teams are already working with families across the country to ensure an extra £550,000 of emergency grants will deliver immediate help and build a foundation for a more secure future.
The money is part of a £10million package announced by the Scottish Government on January 8 to be shared between charities and government agencies providing emergency financial support to ease child poverty.
Justina Murray, chief executive of Aberlour, said the extra funding for the charity’s Urgent Assistance Fund (UAF) is welcome with the emergency support providing both short-term help and an opportunity to build more stability and security for families.
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She said: “Our immediate priority is to ensure this money is used most effectively to help families facing financial calamity right now.
“These emergency grants will help families unable to pay for absolute essentials, from food and heating to clothes and bedding.
“This money is a lifeline but remains only short-term relief and, when today’s emergency is averted, our responsibility is to offer practical, life-changing support for those families tomorrow and all the days after that.
“This extra money awarded by the Scottish Government is welcome and will undoubtedly protect hundreds of children and their families in the short term, but crisis care is not enough.
“As a country, we must do more to raise our families out of poverty for good.”
The emergency grants, rushed to families within days of approval, helped ease household financial crises across Scotland last year with £174,000 (46 per cent) of the money delivered in Glasgow.
Research last year revealed child poverty is still rising in Scotland’s biggest city where one in four young people – 25,690 young Glaswegians, 26% of the city’s children – are living in families where income is below 40% of the national median.
Aberlour said its emergency payments to families surged by a fifth last year, with £378,000 of emergency payments from its Urgent Assistance Fund approved in the year to October 2025, up 17 per cent on the preceding 12 months.
Since 2021, the charity, delivering frontline care and support for families and children, has distributed almost £3m from the fund with the majority of applicants seeking help to buy food, clothing and heating. The average payment was £236 last year.
Ms Murray, who joined Aberlour, one of Scotland’s most influential charities, last year, said: “These payments are relatively small, a few hundred pounds, but can mean children will not go to bed cold or to school hungry.
“Many families are living from pound to pound and a single unexpected bill, for a broken washing machine or bedding damaged by damp, can topple them into crisis.
“Our teams offer a whole range of practical assistance and emotional support but, at times of absolute need, families require money most urgently.”
“These crisis payments can literally keep the lights on for families and gives them a chance, with our support, to find a more solid footing.”
The emergency funding became available after First Minister John Swinney confirmed £10 million originally earmarked to support the two-child limit mitigation payment in Scotland would be reallocated to tackling child poverty.
He said the money would “provide some immediate short-term relief for individuals and families facing the most challenging of circumstances. Our local authorities and charities have well-established means of getting support out quickly to people in need.”
His government’s budget last week increased the Scottish child payment from £27.15 to £40 a week for babies under one and the impact of the benefit north of the border has been welcomed. However, the Scottish Government was criticised for not doing more to tackle child poverty, an issue the first minister has called a “national mission” and ministers’ priority.
Campaigners said far more radical and far-reaching reform is necessary to deliver targets included in the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act demanding no more than 10 per cent of children are living in poverty by 2030. The most recent statistics suggest 22 per cent of children in Scotland are still growing up in poverty.
Find out more about Aberlour’s Urgent Assistance Fund at www.aberlour.org.uk