South Lanarkshire Council has been successful in reaching national child poverty targets.
As part of the Scottish Government Child Poverty Act, local authorities and health boards are required to prepare Local Child Poverty Action Reports (LCPARs) to describe the measures taken in the area to tackle child poverty.
South Lanarkshire Council’s LCPAR was presented to elected members on the Executive Committee yesterday (August 24), and the review highlighted successes over the past year in addressing child poverty.
The review outlined the council’s priorities and how it has achieved goals in each priority. It also highlighted a 1.9 per cent decrease in children living in poverty from 2015 to 2021 and this represents 1180 children less living in poverty and is the seventh largest per cent decrease out of the 32 local authorities.
The council’s priorities are organised around three factors which have been done to reduce child poverty: Income from Benefits, Cost of Living and Income from Employment.
For the first priority ‘Income from Benefits’, the work of local financial advice services such as the Citizens Advice Bureau and South Lanarkshire Council Money Matters Advice Service helped to give support to locals. Outreach work to schools to roll out financial advice services was also undertaken by the services.
Progress on ‘Minimising the effects of the Cost Of Living’ was achieved by increasing the uptake of funded and early learning childcare entitlements for two- and three-year-olds. Over the last year the council exceeded the target to improve the uptake of funded places for eligible two-year-olds, increasing from 15.5 per cent to 24 per cent.
Participatory budgeting was also carried out in schools to improve engagement with children, parents and staff to make sure that the priorities of the school communities shaped funding decisions.
Housing and Technical Resources delivered 657 additional homes for rent during the course of 2021/22 this represents a 48 per cent increase on the number built in 2020 to 2021. The council have also maintained affordable rents for tenants.
For the priority of ‘Maximising opportunities to increase income for employment’ the council have increased employment support for low income families – this includes job fairs.
As well as this, there has been an emphasis on positive destinations for school leavers – the latest figures show that more than 96 per cent of South Lanarkshire pupils leaving school have moved onto a positive destination such as employment, training or higher/further education, and this is an increase over the previous year.
Councillors at the meeting welcomed the review and the progress made.
Councillor Kirsten Robb (East Kilbride East), said: “I happily agree with the report and I welcome it.
“There’s a couple of areas where I thought I wanted to raise that might increase action further, given the increase in energy costs. I know South Lanarkshire might be looking at heat banks and I’m wondering if there are any warm places people can go if their energy bills increase, and that just emphasises the point of keeping community spaces open.
“Also for other departments to play a part in the cost of living crisis, I know housing has a lot of land and there is a long waiting list for people to get an allotment to grow their own food, I’m wondering if there’s opportunities for food growing in housing and communal spaces.”
Council officers stated that no warm banks have been confirmed, but there will be initiatives in getting new allotment spaces and increasing the capacity for those interested.
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