Councils are essential to tackle child poverty, but funding and policy changes are still needed to reach targets, says COSLA

On Challenge Poverty Week, COSLA has highlighted that child poverty remains a key priority for local government. Despite the current challenging times, local authorities remain strongly committed to our shared priority under the Verity House Agreement to tackle poverty, particularly child poverty, and to deliver a range of services and support children and their families in need. COSLA’s ‘From Targets to Action’ document, released today, explores some of the work local authorities in Scotland are doing to tackle child poverty.

COSLA’s Children and Young People Spokesperson, Councillor Tony Buchanan, commented:

“While there is no way to capture all the great work underway across local authorities, we are delighted to be able to take this opportunity to highlight some of the important initiatives underway to tackle child poverty in Scotland. In my role as COSLA’s Children and Young People Spokesperson I am privileged to hear about a great deal more work that is underway at a local level across the country. I want to extend my gratitude to those who are providing support to our young people and their families in these difficult situations and delivering vital services to their local communities.

"However, we are all too aware that more can and needs to be done to end child poverty. The Scottish Government is unlikely to hit the statutory targets for child poverty reduction set by the Scottish Parliament. While local authorities remain committed this priority, we face significant financial challenges to supporting the Government to getting there.

"We call for the Scottish Government to take action to ensure that future national policy allows for partnership approaches, to provide local authorities with holistic and sustainable funding to tackle child poverty, and for national policy to be developed holistically.

"We recognise that there is still much progress to be made towards our shared ambition to see an end to child poverty, and while we hope to highlight some of the fantastic work local authorities are delivering to reach this, we implore the Scottish government to take serious sustainable action in order to reach these targets.”