Indefinite delay to vital report on child poverty
● Government postpones work to focus on Covid-19 fight
The Scottish Government has been accused of “burying bad news” after announcing an indefinite delay to the publication of a major report into child poverty in Scotland.
Communities minister Aileen Campbell yesterday confirmed that a progress report on how the government is tackling child poverty would not be published as expected at the end of June, as the government focused on the coronavirus pandemic. She did not give a date for when it would be produced.
Labour and Conservative MSPS lined up to condemn the decision as “unacceptable” and said it “cast doubt” on the government’s claim that child poverty was a priority.
Currently, nearly one in four Scottish children live in poverty, with 65 per cent of all children in poverty living in households with at least one person in work.
The progress report is used to monitor the success of the Every Child, Every Chance plan, which laid out 58 actions for tackling child poverty under the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017. In the first report, published in June last year, Ms Campbell said 48 of the actions were in progress.
Scottish Labour’s communities spokesperson Pauline Mcneill, said the delay to publish the “crucial report” was “entirely unacceptable”.
She added: “The continued existence of child poverty in Scotland should shame us all and the economic impact of this pandemic will only make matters worse for too many families. By failing to publish this report the Scottish Government is sending a clear message to the people of Scotland: tackling child poverty is not a priority.”
Scottish Conservative education spokesperson Jamie Greene said: “This assessment is an important benchmarking exercise to ensure that the Scottish Government is making progress towards the ambitious targets the Child Poverty Act set out. The SNP government must declare a new publication date for this report immediately, or it looks increasingly like it is simply burying bad news.”
The decision to delay the report was revealed in a written response to a question lodged by SNP MSP Bob Doris, asking for the publication date. Ms Campbell replied: “Due to the unprecedented impact of coronavirus we have made the difficult decision to delay preparation and publication of the 2019-20 Progress Report on Child Poverty, which was required by end June 2020. Tackling child poverty remains an absolute priority and we are committed to publishing the report.”