COSLA welcomes the Scottish Government’s announcement yesterday that it will bring forward the delivery of the Scottish Child Payment to support low income families and to combat rising levels of child poverty.

COSLA Community Wellbeing Spokesperson Councillor Kelly Parry, welcomed the announcement -

“This new benefit will help the struggling families within our communities and will complement the vital work already carried out by councils, through universal services and by targeted and innovative initiatives.  This includes a number of programmes from local authorities to tackle food insecurity over the school summer holidays.

Councillor Stephen McCabe, COSLA Spokesperson for Children and Young People added -

“Scottish Councils remain deeply concerned about the impact of poverty on our families and our communities.  Whilst we welcome this announcement from Scottish Government, we will continue to push for a wider range of properly resourced local services which will address the wider impact of deprivation on children and their families.”

Background

The Scottish Child Payment will cost £180 million in 2023-2024 and aims to lift 30,000 children out of poverty and reduce the relative child poverty rate by an estimated three percentage points.

It is estimated that in 2021-2022, 170,000 children aged under six in 140,000 households will be eligible for early delivery of the Scottish Child Payment, which will launch by the end of this parliamentary term.