Memorandum submitted by Kathleen Marshall,
Scotland's Commissioner for Children & Young People
WHAT THIS
IS ABOUT
. . .
The Scottish Affairs Committee has agreed to
undertake a major inquiry into Poverty in Scotland. The Committee
will proceed in stages, producing reports as the inquiry progresses.
The inquiry will begin by addressing such issues as:
What is poverty?
The extent of poverty.
Contributing factors.
Impact of Government policy on poverty.
The scope of the inquiry, which will cover poverty
in both urban and rural areas of Scotland, will also include the
availability of affordable money and the activities of loan sharks,
as well as major Government programmes, such as Welfare to Work.
CONTENTS
1 The Commissioner's Role
2 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
3 General Comment
4 What is poverty?
5 Extent of child poverty
6 Contributing factors
7 Impact of Government policy on poverty
1. THE COMMISSIONER'S
ROLE
The office of Commissioner was established by
the Commissioner for Children and Young People (Scotland) Act
2003. The general function of the Commissioner is to "promote
and safeguard the rights of children and young people." In
particular, the Commissioner must review law, policy and practice
relating to the rights of children and young people with a view
to assessing their adequacy and effectiveness. Specific regard
must be had to any relevant provisions of the United Nations Convention
on the Rights of the Child, especially those requiring that the
best interests of the child be a primary consideration in decision-making,
and that due account be taken of the views of affected children
and young people.
The Commissioner must exercise this responsibility
towards all children and young people in Scotland who are under
18 years of age, or under 21 if they have at any time been looked
after by a local authority or in their care.
2. UNITED NATIONS
CONVENTION ON
THE RIGHTS
OF THE
CHILD
The United Nations Convention on the Rights
of the Child (UNCRC) was passed by the UN General Assembly in
1989 and ratified by the UK in 1991. Ratification commits the
UK to bringing its law, policy and practice into line with the
Convention. Whilst not directly enforceable in UK courts in the
way that the European Convention on Human Rights now is, it should
be noted that the European Court of Human Rights increasingly
makes reference to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in
its judgments, as a common standard amongst member states.[106]
Section 2 of the Human Rights Act obliges UK courts to take account
of European jurisprudence in making their own decisions.
The UNCRC sets out the fundamental human rights
that all children around the world, without discrimination, are
entitled to. It sets out minimum benchmarks in rights for children
rather than "best practice"; countries are thus encouraged
to exceed the standards laid out in the Convention, but should
not fall short of its basic requirements.
When the UK ratified the UNCRC, it made promises
to the children and young people in this country that it would
make life better for them by respecting and promoting the standards
set out in the Convention. The promises relevant to the inquiry
include the four basic principles of the UNCRC:
— non-discrimination—that is,
the rights in the Convention should be respected, no matter what
the race, colour, sex, ethnic origin, or status of the child or
the child's legal guardians (Article 2);
— the best interests of the child should
be at least a primary consideration in decisions made by legislative
bodies or administrative authorities (Article 3(1));
— the state should ensure, to the maximum
extent possible, the survival and development of the child (Article
6); and
— the views of the child concerned
should be given due weight in all matters affecting the child
(Article 12).
The articles most closely connected with the
inquiry are:
— the right of every child to a standard
of living adequate for the child's physical, mental, spiritual,
moral and social development (Article 27); and
— the right of every child to benefit
from social security, including social insurance (Article 26).
Other relevant articles include:
— the State is required to take appropriate
measures to ensure that a child who is seeking refugee status
or who is considered a refugee in accordance with applicable international
or domestic law and procedures shall, whether unaccompanied or
accompanied by his or her parents or by any other person, receive
appropriate protection and humanitarian assistance (Article 22);
and
— the right of every child to be protected
from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is
likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education,
or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual,
moral or social development (Article 32).
3. GENERAL COMMENT
I very much welcome this inquiry into poverty
in Scotland and look forward with interest to seeing how it progresses
and the outcomes it reaches for children and young people living
in Scotland. I am familiar with the last inquiry the Committee
undertook in 1999-2000 and of its principal conclusions and recommendations.
Although these made no direct reference to addressing the problem
of children living in poverty in Scotland, a number of the recommendations
would have addressed this indirectly. With this in mind I feel
that it is important that my response highlight for the Committee
the issue of child poverty in Scotland. Where appropriate my response
draws attention to the issues and recommendations the UN Committee
on the Rights of the Child noted in its last set of Concluding
Observations on the implementation of children's rights in the
UK.
4. WHAT IS
POVERTY?
There are a myriad of definitions of poverty
with the UK Government currently defining poverty as living in
a household with an income below 60% of weekly median income after
housing costs. Although Governments throughout the OECD countries
like to use this formula to define and measure poverty, it is
not particularly meaningful to the children it has the greatest
impact on. Far more meaningful is the European Union's working
definition of poverty which is: "Persons, families and
groups of persons whose resources (material, cultural and social)
are so limited as to exclude them from the minimum acceptable
way of life in the Member State to which they belong".
Similar to the European Union definition I believe that, through
Article 27, the UNCRC defines child poverty more succinctly and
in a meaningful way for children and young people wherein child
poverty can be defined as not supplying a standard of living adequate
for a child's physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development.
In Scotland people find it difficult to accept
that there are children living in poverty. There is a tendency
for some to equate child poverty with images they watch on their
TV of ecological disasters or civil war. People do not equate
poverty with going without a winter meal or with having little
hope of doing well at school. In industrialised nations such as
Scotland, there is a campaign for people to recognise that poverty
is not purely an issue of income poverty but that there is poverty
of expectation and opportunity, particularly in the case of children
and young people.
I am particularly concerned with the problem
of severe and persistent poverty which impacts on children and
young people living in Scotland who are seen to be at greater
risk of poverty such as children living in lone-parent or large
families, or those children who are in care.
5. EXTENT OF
CHILD POVERTY
In the Concluding Observations of the Committee
on the Rights of the Child issued in October 2002 to the UK Government,
it was noted that:
"The Committee is extremely concerned
at the high proportion of children living in poverty in the State
party, which limits their enjoyment of many rights under the Convention
and leads to a higher incidence among those children of death,
accidents, pregnancy, poor housing and homelessness, malnutrition,
educational failure and suicide. The Committee welcomes the State
party's commitment to eliminate child poverty and the initiatives
taken in this regard, but notes the lack of an effective and coordinated
poverty eradication strategy across the State party".
The above concerns were confirmed more recently
in a Unicef[107]
report where it was noted that the UK amongst another five countries
including Ireland and Italy was "found to have exceptionally
high rates of child poverty (15% to 17%)".
As you are aware, in 1999 the UK Government
announced that it was committed to eradicating child poverty within
a generation. Statistics released in March 2006 by the Department
for Work and Pensions and the Scottish Executive indicated that
Scotland had met its first target towards eradicating child poverty
by 2020. Households Below Average Income data for 2004-05 showed
the number of children in absolute and relative low income households
had fallen over the last decade, meeting the target of reducing
the number of children living on low incomes by 25%.
While the achievements mentioned above are commendable,
I am concerned that it is changing the living circumstances for
the families and therefore the children who are on the margins
of living in poverty and who are easier to move beyond the 60%
threshold. According to the Child Poverty Action Group, there
are currently 280,000 children living in poverty in Scotland,
or more than one in four children.[108]
Part of the problem of talking about the extent
of child poverty in Scotland is the lack of data collected and
published on child poverty. This has been brought to my attention
by a number of organisations including Save the Children Scotland
and the Child Poverty Action Group. This is especially the case
when accounting for children living in severe and persistent poverty,
particularly children leaving care, children living in gypsy and
traveller families or asylum seeking families. I recommend that
not only for the purposes of this inquiry but in order to identify
where children are living in poverty in Scotland that a regular
survey on Scotland's poorest children be undertaken similar to
Save the Children's survey of Britain's poorest children.
This is supported in the Concluding Observations
of the Committee on the Rights of the Child when they recommended
in 2002 that the UK Government: "Establish a nationwide
system whereby disaggregated data are collected on all persons
under 18 years for all areas covered by the Convention, including
the most vulnerable groups, and that these data are used to assess
progress and design policies to implement the Convention."
Although there is a clear lack of data when
discussing the extent of child poverty, my work as Commissioner
places me in a prime position to meet with groups of children
and young people for whom poverty is one of the many issues they
are tackling in their day to day lives. As noted by the Committee
on the Rights of the Child in their Concluding Observations:
"...The Committee is concerned that the
principle of non-discrimination is not fully implemented for all
children in all parts of the UK and that there is unequal enjoyment
of economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights, in
particular for children with disabilities, children from poor
families, Irish and Roma travellers" children, asylum-seeker
and refugee children, children belonging to minority groups, children
in care, detained children and children aged between 16 and 18
years old."
I would like to draw the Committee's attention
to the above groups that are seen to be at greater risk of severe
and persistent poverty that I have met or received enquiries from:
Children affected by disability. The
target of ending child poverty by 2020 cannot hope to be achieved
without the UK government paying specific attention to children
affected by disability. Children are affected by disability in
numerous ways be it that they are disabled themselves or that
their parent or sibling has a disability.
Children leaving care. My office has
set up a Care Action Group of young people who are or have been
in care in Scotland. The purpose of this group is to identify
the issues children and young people face when they are in care
or have left care. A specific issue concerns the age of leaving
care and the fact that in some areas of Scotland young people
feel pressurised into leaving care at 16. Young people have expressed
concerns about the level of financial support they will receive
when they leave care.
Children from asylum seeking families.
A key issue that has been brought to my attention relates to young
people when they turn 16 who are not entitled to the Educational
Maintenance Allowance that other young people are. This creates
problems in terms of remaining at school past this age or going
into further education.
Children from Gypsy and Traveller families.
Many in Scotland suffer from living in poor environments through
lack of appropriate site provision.
All of the above are only some of the poverty
issues that each of these groups face and I have merely mentioned
them to give a flavour to the Committee of the current state of
child poverty in Scotland. I do not suggest that these are the
only disadvantaged groups in Scotland and I am very much aware
of the problems faced by children from lone-parent or large families
who are still being disadvantaged via the benefits system in Scotland;
children whose parents or siblings may have addiction problems
which impact on the way income is spent within the family; young
people who are in secure or prison accommodation; young carers;
and children or young people who are homeless.
6. CONTRIBUTING
FACTORS
A number of organisations, academic institutions
and think tanks in the UK have undertaken research on contributing
factors. I am sure you are aware of the range of research and
would recommend you refer to it when undertaking this inquiry.
In particular there is the work currently in progress by the Joseph
Rowntree Foundation on child poverty, a range of material published
by the Child Poverty Action Group. Save the Children UK and Scotland
have set as one of their key priorities the need to tackle child
poverty in the UK. To this end, they have sponsored a range of
research.
7. IMPACT OF
GOVERNMENT POLICY
ON POVERTY
In the last set of Concluding Observations of
the Committee on the Rights of the Child on the UK, it was noted
that:
"The Committee urged the State party:
(a) To take all necessary measures to
the "maximum extent of... available resources" to accelerate
the elimination of child poverty;
(b) To better co-ordinate and reinforce
its efforts to address the causes of youth homelessness and its
consequences; and
(c) To review its legislation and policies
concerning benefits and social security allowances for 16 to 18-year-olds."
Both the UK and Scottish governments are clearly
committed to attempting to reduce child poverty and to this end
are undertaking a plethora of initiatives to improve the quality
of life for many children and young people. Due to the brevity
of this response it would be impossible to comment on all these
initiatives. I have therefore been selective in my response and
focused on the key initiatives of the Scottish Executive.
I have noted above the advances made in Scotland
in eliminating child poverty by the UK and Scottish Governments.
Earlier this year the Department for Work and Pensions launched
a new child poverty measure. The measure consists of three tiers:
tier 1 focuses on absolute low income; tier 2 on relative low
income; and tier 3 on material deprivation and low income combined.
The thresholds set for these three tiers are set at 60%, 60%,
and 70% respectively. To supplement these measures, I recommend
that the UK Government adopt a set of indicators against which
they can measure the extent of severe and persistent child poverty.[109]
This would allow policies to be informed and therefore structured
and targeted at reducing the number of children living in such
circumstances.
As I mentioned in section 5, Scottish and UK
Government policies are having very little impact on the poorest
children, those living well below the benefits level. In Scotland
we are talking in terms of 80,000—100,000 children and young
people. I would suggest that Government policy needs to start
to focus on the poorest families. I recommend that the targeting
of disadvantaged groups and particular issues such as homelessness
needs to operate in parallel with the policies the government
has developed so far in tackling child poverty.
In 2004 the Scottish Executive announced a commitment
to "Closing the Opportunity Gap" as a means to preventing
poverty, providing routes out of poverty and sustaining individuals
and families in a lifestyle free from poverty. One of the six
stated objectives of this commitment was "To improve the
confidence and skills of the most disadvantaged children and young
people—in order to provide them with the greatest chance
of avoiding poverty when they leave school". The six
objectives are then underpinned by 10 targets. I find it difficult
to comment on the success the government is having in meeting
these targets as all of them are not due to be met until 2007
or 2008 or 2010. As part of the inquiry, I would recommend that
the Committee request that the Scottish Executive provide them
with an interim assessment in meeting the 10 targets.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child also
recommended that:
"The State Party undertake an analysis
of all sectoral and total budgets across the State party and in
the devolved administrations in order to show the proportion spent
on children, identify priorities and allocate resources to the
`maximum extent... of available resources'".
To the best of my knowledge I do not believe
that the Scottish Executive have undertaken this analysis of budgetary
spending. One of the impacts of this lack of action was brought
to my attention when I ran a consultation earlier this year on
my work priorities for the forthcoming two years. A number of
organisations working for and with children and young people asked
that my priority be "improving family support". Many
of them highlighted the lack of funding and the need to scrutinise
funding streams, as issues of particular concern to them.
It would be appropriate at this point to commend
the Scottish Executive on two recent policy initiatives on improving
the wellbeing of children living in Scotland. There is currently
before the Scottish Parliament the Schools (Health Promotion and
Nutrition) (Scotland) Bill. This Bill seeks to build on early
initiatives such as Hungry for Success and improve the
nutrition of school meals and the provision of them. There may
be means within this Bill to mitigate the adverse effects of poverty
by providing nutritious school meals free of charge.
The Scottish Executive's childcare strategy
seeks to provide affordable, accessible, quality childcare across
Scotland. Recently and as part of a pilot scheme the Scottish
Executive announced that it was making 900 free extra nursery
places available to two-year-olds in Glasgow, Dundee and North
Ayrshire. This is a two-year scheme and hopefully will be extended
to other authorities in need after the pilot period.
The Committee on the rights of the Child also
recommended that:
"...the State party reconsider its policies
regarding the minimum wage for young workers in light of the principle
of non-discrimination."
As yet the UK government has not addressed this
issue and young workers continue to be exploited and economically
disadvantaged in Scotland. The Equalities Act 2006 which recently
came into force may be one way to tackle this problem as it legislates
against discrimination on the basis of age.
Kathleen Marshall
Scotland's Commissioner for Children and Young People
19 October 2006
106 A v United Kingdom-25599/94 (1998) ECHR 85 (23
September 1998), paragraph 22. Back
107
Child Poverty in Rich Countries 2005. Unicef Innocenti Research
Centre, 2005. Back
108
Ten steps to a society free of child poverty. Child Poverty
Action Group, 2005. Back
109
In Save the Children's Britain's Poorest Children Revisited
Survey, 2005 they define "severe poverty as living below
27% of median income". Back
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