Watchdog slates poverty budget

The Scottish Government’s budget has been criticised by an in dependent poverty commission for alack of transparency.

In a new report scrutinising this year’s budget, the Poverty and Inequality Comm issi on said it had been “impossible to ac curately calculate” how much is spent addressing poverty.

The report also demands the introduction of an income supplement to raise children out of poverty be brought for ward, recommends the government use its tax-raising powers more effectively to tackle poverty.

John Dickie,director of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, said the report showed the “massive gap” between the ambition to tackle poverty and the resources allocated to delivering on it.