Highest percentage of Scotland’s low earners are in North East Fife

With around 19% of children in rural North East Fife living in poverty, a significant proportion of those children live in St Andrews.

In addition, a study carried out by the Trades Union Congress a few years ago found that 34% of employees in North East Fife earned less than the living wage, which is the highest percentage in Scotland.

St Andrews Labour Fife councillor Brian Thomson describes the figure as “shocking” and says that whilst it’s good to have a thriving tourist industry in St Andrews, many of the jobs are low paid and often seasonal and more needs to be done to encouraging employers to pay a living wage.

Directly linking the situation to low wages, he said: “I’m pushing for Fife Council to assist in making housing more affordable by implementing a number of measures – e.g. extending the moratorium on HMOs, preventing new-build homes from becoming second homes, and making St Andrews a rent pressure zone.

“But the overall child poverty problem needs to be tackled by the UK and Scottish governments and, with a number of welfare powers now transferred to the Scottish Parliament, including child benefit, there’s now a real opportunity for Scotland to lead the rest of the UK by implementing measures that could lift children out of poverty.”

Many of the jobs are low paid and seasonal