{"id":690618,"date":"2026-01-12T07:55:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T07:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/690618\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T07:55:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T07:55:14","slug":"budget-warning-as-scotland-nears-child-poverty-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/690618\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget warning as Scotland nears child poverty deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The anti-poverty campaigners said incremental or short-term measures were no longer sufficient if ministers are to hit the target set out in the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\n That aims to cut relative child poverty to less than 10% by 2030-31 and absolute poverty to under 5%, meaning there are just four budgets left before the deadline.\n<\/p>\n

\n The think tank said a further 100,000 children must be lifted out of poverty if the targets \u2013 signed by all parties at Holyrood<\/a> \u2013 are to be met.\n<\/p>\n

\n Ministers were urged to show \u201curgent and significant\u201d commitment in the Budget to reduce child poverty, warning simply reallocating money earmarked for mitigating the two-child benefit limit<\/a> would fall well short of what is required.\n<\/p>\n

\n Chris Birt, JRF\u2019s associate director for Scotland, said: \u201cThe Scottish Government<\/a>\u2019s budget for 2026-27 is one of the few remaining chances for action to be taken to meet the child poverty reduction targets.\n<\/p>\n

\n Read more:<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cTo get there, the Finance Secretary must announce bold commitments that support the First Minister<\/a>\u2019s stated aim of putting tackling child poverty at the \u2018heart\u2019 of the budget.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cTo do so, the heart needs to beat a lot stronger and a lot faster. Far too many children in Scotland face the day-to-day realities of living in households struggling to make ends meet.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cOur polling shows that nearly one in four low-income households in Scotland are unable to keep their homes warm, which is a shocking indictment of a society where bills are too high and family\u2019s incomes are too low.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cBy taking action on things like childcare, social security, support for work, and housing, this budget should be a crucial step in ensuring that all children in Scotland can have the childhood that they deserve. If we get these decisions right, it will build a better future for us all.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n The warning comes as ministers decide how to deploy up to \u00a3155 million previously set aside to offset the two-child limit \u2013 funding that has been freed up following the UK Government<\/a>\u2019s decision to abolish the policy.\n<\/p>\n

\n However, in a briefing, seen by The Herald, the foundation noted that an estimated \u00a330 million of that sum is likely to be absorbed by mitigating the benefit cap for newly affected families, leaving closer to \u00a3120 million available.\n<\/p>\n

\n The foundation said that spreading the money across a series of small projects would be a \u201cbig mistake\u201d, arguing that the time for pilots has passed.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n One option would be to use the funding to increase the flagship Scottish Child Payment, currently set at \u00a327.15 per week, to around \u00a335.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n However, senior figures within government have previously expressed concern about the long-term affordability of further increases to the payment.\n<\/p>\n

\n The child payment costs taxpayers about \u00a342 million a month.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cContinually increasing the child payment is not sustainable and senior figures in the civil service are dead against further commitments,\u201d one senior figure at Holyrood told the Sunday Times.\n<\/p>\n

\n Read more:<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe issue is that any rises would be locked in for future years, because it would be politically impossible to cut it, and it already has to increase every year with inflation.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Another would be to target support more sharply at families with babies and pre-school children, who experience the highest poverty rates.\n<\/p>\n

\n The foundation estimates that helping 50,000 parents into work, and a further 20,000 parents into better-paid or more secure employment, could lift around 60,000 children out of poverty.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n Achieving that would require a substantial expansion of employability support, with an estimated additional investment of \u00a3150 million.\n<\/p>\n

\n First Minister, John Swinney<\/a>, has repeatedly emphasised his commitment to \u201cwhole family support\u201d as a central plank of his approach to tackling poverty.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n But the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said funding for such support has so far been patchy and short-term, calling for a sustained financial commitment over the longer term.\n<\/p>\n

\n Childcare is likely to feature prominently in Tuesday\u2019s Budget, with ministers aware that\u00a0 costs remain both a driver of financial hardship and a barrier to work, particularly for women.\n<\/p>\n

\n According to reports, this could be around tweaking the rules which means families are forced to wait until the school term after their child turns three to access free hours.\n<\/p>\n

\n That means parents with a child born in March might have to wait until the next August after they turn three to access their entitlement of 1,140 free hours.\n<\/p>\n

\n That would mean the government providing councils with the cash to cover care from a child\u2019s third birthday.\n<\/p>\n

\n Winning Scotland, an organisation which administers the Planet Youth programme in Scotland, urged ministers to think beyond the crisis response, with a focus on prevention.\n<\/p>\n

\n The Planet Youth model, originally developed in Iceland, focuses on reshaping community environments to reduce substance misuse, improve mental health and strengthen engagement with education.\n<\/p>\n

\n Zahra Hedges, chief executive of Winning Scotland, said: \u201cPut simply, we can cut the time and money we spend on mopping up crises after they have already happened, and invest in meaningful prevention work to change the environments that our children are growing up in.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n A Scottish Government spokesperson said eradicating child poverty was the \u201ctop priority\u201d for ministers.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe Scottish Government must take a balanced approach to tackling poverty and consider asks to raise the Scottish Child Payment alongside requests in other areas, such as expanding childcare, employability services, or support with travel to unlock work as a route out of poverty,\u201d the spokesperson said.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cScottish ministers are committed to building on the progress made to date, with the First Minister pledging to allocate all resources from the Two Child Limit Payment on other measures to tackle child poverty. Spending proposals for 2026-27 will be set out in the budget next week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The anti-poverty campaigners said incremental or short-term measures were no longer sufficient if ministers are to hit the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-690618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-scotland","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115881058129665590","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}