Revised Scotland Child Poverty Strategy 2014-17

Date: 10th March 2014
Category: Disability, Basic Health and Welfare

The Scottish Government released a revised Child Poverty Strategy 2014-2017 for Scotland on 10th March 2014, which continues to focus on the same key areas as the Child Poverty Strategy 2011.

The Child Poverty Act 2010 requires Scottish Ministers to produce a Scottish Strategy, review and revise it every three years, and report annually. Scottish Ministers published their first Child Poverty Strategy for Scotland in March 2011.

The Strategy concentrates on three outcomes:

• Maximising household resources - to reduce income poverty and material deprivation by maximising financial entitlements and reducing pressure on household budgets among low income families, as well as by maximising the potential for parents to increase family incomes through good quality, sustained employment, and promoting greater financial inclusion and capability. (Pockets)
• Improving children's wellbeing and life chances - to break inter-generational cycles of poverty, inequality and deprivation. This requires a focus on tackling the underlying social and economic determinants of poverty and improving the circumstances in which children grow up - recognising the particular importance of improving children's outcomes in the early years. (Prospects)
• Children from low income households live in well-designed, sustainable places - to address area-based factors which currently exacerbate the effects of individual poverty for many families by continuing to improve the physical, social and economic environments in local areas, particularly in those areas of multiple deprivation in which child poverty is more prevalent. (Places)

Download the Child Poverty Strategy 2014-2017 here.

The Deputy First Minister in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon MSP, and the Shadow Minister for Social Justice and Equalities, Jackie Baillie MSP, both spoke at the launch event in Edinburgh for the book Poverty in Scotland 2014: The Independence Referendum and Beyond, co-edited by Dr. John H McKendrick. The book contains a compendium of evidence on poverty and child poverty in Scotland, and short essays on principles and strategies to tackle this issue. The book can be ordered directly from the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG).