Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200
- 219)
TUESDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2007
MR PETER
KELLY AND
MS CAROL
YOUNG
Q200 Chairman:
Good afternoon. May I welcome you to today's meeting of the Scottish
Affairs Committee, which is taking evidence for our inquiry into
poverty in Scotland. Would you please introduce yourselves for
the record.
Mr Kelly: My name is Peter Kelly
and I am Director of the Poverty Alliance in Scotland.
Ms Young: My name is Carol Young
and I am a research officer at the Scottish Low Pay Unit.
Q201 Chairman:
Before we start asking detailed questions, would you like to make
opening remarks?
Mr Kelly: I have a brief statement.
The first thing I would like to say is to welcome the inquiry.
The inquiry comes at a very important time. As we know, we are
moving into an election period in Scotland and many voluntary
organisations/campaigner organisations in Scotland are keen to
get the issue of poverty on the agenda and we hope that the Committee's
deliberations will help improve the awareness and knowledge about
poverty in Scotland. The other factor that is important at this
point is that the DWP have just announced a review into the welfare
state, the Freud Review, which I think is going to be crucial
in determining the future direction of welfare policy, so the
timeliness of the Scottish Affairs in conducting this inquiry
could not be better. Finally, there are a few things that I think
we should all remember, all of us who are concerned with poverty
in Scotland and across the UK, when discussing the issues. The
first thing to remember is the successes we have had over the
last 10 years. The reduction in poverty is not widely understood
or widely recognised in the public debate and it should be. Related
to this is the positive policy context we have now, where there
are strategies and plans in place. Regardless of any criticisms
we may have of them, they are there. The other factor is that
all political parties in the UK are now committed to tackling
poverty. I think we are in a different context now and it is a
good time to review where we have got to since the last investigation
that the Committee had. I will leave it there.
Ms Young: I would just like to
agree with what Peter says. Could I also apologise to the Committee
in advance, just to pre-empt anyone who has already noticed, in
that I made quite a serious spelling error in my written evidence
which was submitted to you earlier. I claimed that there were
something like 358 million instead of 358 thousand low paid workers
in Scotland—although I did give a percentage, so hopefully
everyone will know it was a spelling mistake. I do apologise.[15]
Q202 Chairman:
Later on in our inquiry we may wish to concentrate on particular
aspects of poverty, for example child poverty, pensioner poverty,
fuel poverty, et cetera, but we felt it would be invaluable to
have a couple of evidence sessions on general poverty issues.
We took evidence from Professor Sinfield and Professor Veit-Wilson
which was extremely useful for the Committee members but we wanted
input from organisations like yours. I believe all the Committee
members will recognise that your organisations are doing very
valuable work to tackle poverty issues in Scotland. Could you
remind the Committee of the support your particular organisation
gives to those people experiencing problems from poverty.
Ms Young: Our organisation offers,
from a client-centred process, advice on employment rights matters,
particularly support to help clients who are having difficulty
with dealing with rights like the national minimum wage which
is obviously essential for people on low incomes. Also, using
the information that we gain from our helpline into problems that
our clients are facing, we campaign on their behalf to try to
improve matters with regards to low income and employment and
national minimum wage issues.
Mr Kelly: The primary role of
The Poverty Alliance is to act as a national network in Scotland.
In that way, we are not primarily a service delivery organisation.
One of our key objectives is to try to have the voices of people
who experience poverty heard more clearly in policy discussions,
so we have organised various projects and programmes to try to
do that. I have passed the final report to the Committee, the
Get Heard project, which was invaluable in trying
to gather the experience of folk who are living on low incomes
in Scotland and get that into the policy discussion. We also do
run more targeted projects, working with people who are living
on low incomes. For example, we are running a peer education project
in Glasgow just now, working with young people who are making
the transition out of school and who might be at risk of becoming,
to use the jargon, NEET (not in employment, education or training).
We do that through a mix of campaigning, working directly with
folks to have their voices heard and a little bit of service delivery.
Q203 Danny Alexander:
In your submission one of the things you mention in terms of the
role of Poverty Alliance is that it is "To empower people
living in poverty to combat poverty on their own behalf."
Given that a lot of what we are talking about in our report and
our evidence sessions is about what governments are doing and
what institutions are doing, and you are talking there about helping
people combat poverty on their own behalf, what sort of things
do you do to help those individuals help themselves, as it were?
Mr Kelly: The best example of
that is the Get Heard project. We are not providing
direct training in that sense to get people jobs and that kind
of thing. The Get Heard project worked with around 500
people in Scotland using workshops to ask the question: What is
working in the community and what is not and what needs to change?
The people themselves gave us the answers to those questions.
Reports were written from that and it was fed into UK policy processes
in the development of the DWP's National Action Plan on Social
Inclusion. We also had evidence sessions with the Communities
Committee in the Scottish Parliament. In that way we are working
with people to empower them in terms of having their voices raised,
identifying issues in their own communities. Reports were distributed
that they can use then to lobby their own local policy makers
to try to increase resources to help tackle poverty in that way.
Q204 Danny Alexander:
You have sent us the Get Heard report[16]
and it is very powerful, and you have said you used that, for
example, to talk to the DWP about the National Action Plan on
Social Inclusion. To what extent do you think that has had an
influence on the policy outcomes?
Mr Kelly: That is a crucial question.
If we take that example of the National Action Plan, it is not
just The Poverty Alliance that has contributed to that. Get
Heard was a UK-wide project. I think it would be fair to say—and
hopefully the DWP would say the same—that we have managed
to move some policy issues slightly further up the political agenda
within the DWP and raised the awareness of the real impact on
a day-to-day level for folk who are living on low incomes. The
example that is probably the clearest is issues around debt and
over-indebtedness. Whilst the UK Government and the Scottish Government
recognise those problems, there is something different when people
who are directly experiencing those problems talk to you about
them. That is one of the things that we try to do when we are
talking about empowering communities. There are other projects
that we have done in the past I could talk to you about as well.
Q205 Danny Alexander:
Taking that as an example, because it is a very important issue
and one we have heard quite a lot about, the figures seem to suggest
that on an aggregate basis, across society as a whole, personal
debt is continuing to rise substantially. A crude analysis might
suggest that that might mean the fact that you presented powerful
evidence of the damaging impact debt has on the lives of the poorest
people in society has not had an impact on policy in terms of
controlling debt overall. What other things would you point to
that the Government is doing as a consequence to tackle debt specifically
for those people living in poverty which would suggest that what
you are doing has had some success?
Mr Kelly: It is very difficult
to say that because we said this, because we lobbied around this
issue, therefore the policy changed. Most campaign organisations
would probably say the same sort of thing: that it is rarely one
voice that makes a difference. Around issues of debt and over-indebtedness,
it is not only the work we have done through Get Heard
but our work in the cross-party group on debt in the Scottish
Parliament and our work with Church Action Poverty and Debt on
our Doorstep. Those kinds of organisations coming together raise
the issues in moving the policy agenda on somewhat. The clear
identifiable policy gains are sometimes difficult to draw out,
I think.
Q206 Danny Alexander:
Do you think the Government has grasped the importance of that
debt issue for people living in the most severe poverty?
Mr Kelly: To some extent, yes.
The agenda has moved on. In terms of some of the demands that
some organisations make in terms of interest rate caps and so
on and things like that, then clearly there is not a desire to
have that on the part of the UK Government and the Scottish Executive
does not have the power. But, then, when we look at what has been
going on in Scotland in terms of provision of money and advice
and those kinds of things, I think progress has been made. For
example, the provision of basic bank accounts: there are more
people in Scotland have access to bank accounts now than did in
the past. I think there is greater recognition. Whether that recognition
then turns into the best policy solutions from our point of view
is the nature of the debate. That is why we have the ongoing debate.
One of the other things to say about hat whole Get Heard
and the National Action Plan process is that it is a different
way of doing policy development. It is a different way of trying
to contribute to the policies that are developed. We have regular,
ongoing discussions with the Department of Work and Pensions which
we certainly find very useful in terms of informing us of the
thinking behind the direction of policy and also affording us
opportunity to have some input, we hope, into the way it develops.
Q207 David Mundell:
I want to ask you a bit more about the Get Heard project.
Could you summarise its aims, what you see is the way forward
in achieving those aims and what you think the result of the project
was and what it could still be.
Mr Kelly: The aims of the project
were simply to have the voices of people experiencing poverty
heard in the development of the National Action Plan on Social
Inclusion—the development of the last action plan which
was published in 2006. We achieved bringing together across the
UK hundreds of people with the experience of poverty to discuss
the issues in a way that I think often does not happen. People
come together in groups, and we piggy-backed on groups that already
existed. This was not a research process in the traditional sense;
this was about going out and engaging with people to find out
what is going on in their communities and what they think needs
to change. In terms of the achievements, some of the achievements
were about process, were about trying to get embedded within the
DWP thinking. It might only be a small part of the DWP, but an
approach that says that what people who are experiencing poverty
have to say is valid and is important, and here is a direct way
of trying to hear those voices, in terms of process is quite important.
We always recognise that to some extent you feed into the policy
process; you feed in the knowledge, the views, whatever you have.
There are no guarantees that you are going to get out of that
what you demand or what you would like. We also had good feedback
from the DWP. A lot of Get Heard was about more participatory
ways of doing policy. It was about involving people who are affected
by policy at national level. A lot of us will have experience
of community planning partnerships or, in Scotland anyway, the
social inclusion partnerships, where people who lived in the community
had a role in sitting on boards and in trying to determine policies
and so on. This is about having that kind of process at a UK level.
I would think it was the first time we tried to do that on that
sort of broad, anti-poverty policy area, so it was very ambitious.
We did work in Scotland; we produced reports; we had meetings
with the Scottish Parliament. I think a couple of the members
thought was one of the best committee meetings they had had, so
I would recommend maybe getting some of those folk down here to
talk to you again about poverty in Scotland. From what I can see,
the members in the Scottish Parliament—our dissemination
in Scotland is obviously to the Scottish Parliament and it was
handled separately at UK level—recognise that this is an
important resource to look at, to think about when they are developing
policy. In terms of the future development of that process—and
this is where we are getting to the dreadful jargon—it is
part of an EU-wide process. All Member States of the European
Union have to produce a National Action Plan on Social Inclusion.
For us, as an organisation, we managed to secure some funding
from the European Commission to run a project which is different,
which builds on some of the learning for us, so the next stage
of that project—this is not, if you like, a direct comparison—will
work with people who experience poverty, local authorities and
devolved and national government, again, to try to have another
exchange but more focused around particularly policy areas and,
in that way, hopefully influence the development of the next National
Action Plan in 2008.
Q208 David Mundell:
I am interested in what you are saying in relation to the role
of the Scottish Parliament because I do accept that it has taken
a lot of interest in the poverty issue but there is not a lot
it can do in some senses. How do you see that working relationship
between Westminster, the Executive and the UK Government coming
together? Are they going in the same direction and is it co-ordinated?
Mr Kelly: There appears to be
some co-ordination.
Q209 Mr Davidson:
That is a rare endorsement!
Mr Kelly: At a formal level, it
is hard to say. Let us say that, at a formal level, I think there
is a joint ministerial committee on child poverty which brings
together the devolved Assemblies and the Executive down here.
I am not sure how often it meets or when it meets or what it discusses,
so in that sense I am not sure in the formal sense. The National
Action Plan on Social Inclusion is not very well known as a policy
document but in terms of co-ordination between devolved bodies
and local authorities and Westminster it has the potential to
be quite an important way of bringing all that together in a way
that helps co-ordinate anti-poverty policy. I think the Parliament
in Scotland has a big role to play in tackling poverty. Looking
at the evidence that has already been given to you in Inverness—looking
at the impact of poverty, if you like, looking at what people
might call social inclusion and some of the effects, whether it
is over-indebtedness, whether it is access to work or employability—the
Executive has a big role and what happens at the UK level has
an impact on what they are doing there. Employability is a good
example. The welfare reform approach that has been taken by DWP
at the moment I think has a big influence on what happens in Scotland
in terms of employability. Because I am outside government, I
am not sure how that co-ordination takes place but for welfare
reform policies to operate effectively in Scotland there needs
to be co-ordination between the two governments.
Q210 David Mundell:
At the other end of the devolved relationship, it seems there
is a very variable approach by local authorities within Scotland
as well in terms of the various initiatives. There is not a consistent
approach. There are some very good initiatives in relation to
money, advice and such like, but it is a very random approach,
it would appear, to me.
Mr Kelly: Random with regard to
what the Executive is doing?
Q211 David Mundell:
Again, it is co-ordination the other way, in terms of what you
as a citizen might be able to talk about what is being delivered
locally, either through local government or indeed the voluntary
sector.
Mr Kelly: It is a crucial issue.
It is a really important issue. We have been doing seminars around
Scotland for the last few months. Last week, myself and a colleague
were up in Aberdeen, Elgin and Inverness doing seminars to discuss
what are the next steps in tackling poverty in Scotland. We spoke
to quite a few folk from local authorities up there. The view
was mixed on that particular issue because, in some ways, the
closing of the opportunity gap approach, the new or the revised
anti-poverty approach in Scotland, determines to some extent what
local authorities are going to focus on. It sets out some key
priorities that all local authorities are going to have to achieve.
Then local authorities also have to respond to local conditions
and what are the big issues for them. I know from reading the
evidence and also from being up there last week that rural poverty
is a big issue. Is it sufficiently addressed in the closing the
opportunity gap approach? There is a bit of both. There is direction
from the Executive, and I certainly do not want to speak on behalf
of local authorities but for some it might be seen as trying to
determine too much what they do and maybe in other cases it is
not prescriptive enough. If we all have shared targets and a shared
understanding of what poverty is and what the priorities are for
tackling it, part of the role of the Scottish Executive is to
set that out, I think.
Q212 Mr Davidson:
Following up on that distinction between the Scottish Parliament
and ourselves, the way in which I have been looking at it is that
the Scottish Parliament has a responsibility for local authorities
for area regeneration because they know local conditions, whereas
we deal with issues relating to the individual and their particular
circumstances. That leads me on to another point I want to make.
My impression is that the voice certainly of the poor and the
dispossessed and, indeed, of almost everybody except Edinburgh
civil servants has to a great extent been suborned by the CEP
and CPP mechanism. It seems to me to be a classic case of bureaucratic
catch-up in the means, basically, by which the poor areas of Glasgow
are run from Edinburgh. I have diverted myself for a second, but
I wanted to ask really about the extent to which, looking at unemployment,
we are clear there is a distinction between those who have several
difficulties, the long-term unemployed, and those who, as it were,
are part of a churn. Looking at those who are poor, is it reasonable
to make the same sort of distinction and therefore to be looking
at policy solutions for those who are, as it were, in long-term
generational poverty, as distinct from those who are part of,
as it were, a poverty churn, with short-term debt and so on and
so forth? Is that a meaningful way for us to start looking at
solutions, given the initial context of what I was saying about
the distinction between area regeneration and looking at individual
solutions?
Mr Kelly: There is a distinction
to be made there between people who are long-term severely deprived.
When we use our measures of poverty, when we talk about the 60%
of household median income, that only becomes meaningful when
you start to look below that, when you start to understand there
is range of experiences below that threshold. Whilst I think there
is a case for looking at people with long-term severe problems—and
those are going to be people with long-term severe problems who
are out of the labour market and how you help them move back towards
the labour market, if that is appropriate, in terms of lifting
them out of poverty, and looking at a whole other range of individual
consequences of living in poverty for a long time, whether in
terms of health and educationally and so on—I think at the
heart of your question was an issue about a targeted approach
and a more universal approach. I maybe want to have my cake and
eat it but I think local authorities and perhaps the Scottish
Executive need to be able to understand where to target their
resources best but at the same time we need approaches both from
the Scottish Executive and from Westminster that emphasise universal
approaches to lifting everyone out of poverty. There is a thing
about that churn issue which again is very important and it is
coming up the policy agenda as well. That is quite an important
experience—and I am sure Carol will say more about it—of
being on low pay, of being out of work for short periods of time.
I think we need to be clear about what that means. In my experience
of talking to folk that I have known, it is not a choice. It is
not something that people want to be in. They prefer to be in
longer term employment, stable employment, but partly that is
not what is available to them. That is the conditions in the labour
market and also partly it might be to do with the skills and experience
that they have, that they cannot retain that job in the longer
term. There is a mix of approaches there: one that is about more
universal approaches but aligned with more targeted approaches.
I think that has always been our approach in the UK. The targeted
approach probably receives more emphasis now and we need to look
at what is the role of universal approaches, particularly in reaching
the targets that we have set ourselves. The child poverty targets
are incredibly ambitious. I do not know if the Committee have
seen it, but the Joseph Rowntree report that came out in the middle
of last year I think was basically trying to estimate how much
it is going to cost to reach the child poverty targets. They were
talking about just over £4 billion per annum to reach the
2010 target.[17]
Q213 Mr Davidson:
Once you start talking about ten years, you are talking about
serious money.
Mr Kelly: Yes. Once you start
talking about the 2020 target to eradicate child poverty, we are
talking of serious money. What came up in that report was that
we cannot neglect universal approaches. We cannot neglect those
who need targeted help. Again I would direct the Committee to
look at work that Save the Children have been doing about the
most deprived children and about some of their suggestions there,
because there is a continuum, I think. There is not a clear dividing
line between this group who are severely deprived.
Q214 Danny Alexander:
You have struck at the heart of the issue here, in terms of: Is
it the universal benefits or is it the more targeted ones? That
is a debate that has gone on for years and years. Political priorities
fluctuate as time has gone on. In your submission you talk about
poverty and that it is important to understand that poverty is
not just financial but is about an individual's participation
in society as well. I wonder if that is not a useful thought to
apply to the distinction Ian is making about Westminster's role
and the Scottish Executive's role. Some of the things that you
might use to try to break down some of this intergenerational
poverty that we have talked about are through the education system
and the health system and so on. It is about people's ability
to engage in those processes and the ability of those services
to engage with those people to help tackle the intergenerational
aspects of poverty, as well as the purely financial side which
you have been stressing so far in your evidence.
Mr Kelly: Going back to the Get
Heard report, one of the things that comes out loud and clear
through that is that when people talk about their experience of
poverty they talk about low incomes. The discussion starts from
the low incomes. But that is not very helpful in describing what
that experience is. The experience of living on a low income is
one of not having choices or being able to make the choices that
most of us take for granted. Having income at the heart of the
discussion is important. Going back to what Professor Veit-Wilson
was saying about income adequacy and the need to take that seriously
and to think about what does inadequate income mean and trying
to start applying that approach to our benefit system is important,
but you cannot separate it from the services that help lift people
out of poverty, and education is absolutely crucial.[18]
There are big questions about whether we are making the progress
we need to make in Scotland about tackling educational disadvantage
for those particularly at the bottom. We are seeing average improvement.
Attainment levels are increasing. I know that is just one way
of measuring improvement. We are seeing that average increase,
which is good, obviously, but for the bottom 20% there is a flat
line in terms of attainment. That is a very important issue, about
breaking that cycle.
Q215 Mr Wallace:
Perhaps I could follow up on the point about it not just being
financial. The issue of health inequalities is a major contributor
to poverty. We have seen that grow in the last ten years. That
is one area where the gap has got wider. What can we do to reverse
that? That trend is a worrying trend if health inequality is not
improved. What do you think can be done at a Westminster level,
a national level, or a Scottish Parliament level to try to reverse
that part?
Mr Kelly: There is a whole range
of factors. I am no expert on health inequalities but reducing
health inequalities is related to all the other things that we
have talked about in terms of tackling poverty, about getting
people into better and more sustainable jobs, about improving
the quality of housing and improving the quality of local communities
and the environments in which people live. Not focusing on the
medical aspects of health inequalities, if you like, sounds daft,
but look at the context in which people live. Mental health problems,
for example, are more significant in areas of deprivation. People
who are living on low incomes are more likely to suffer mental
health problems. It is more about the context within which people
live and work, and it is maybe about other service providers and
so on and thinking about the health impacts of living on a low
income. There is a lot of good work done in Scotland around health
inequalities by the various agencies and by community-based organisations
and community-based health projects and so on to encourage people
to tackle problems with their own health. There is need for that
kind of support, for more community centres or community-based
approaches to tackling health inequalities, and not one that focuses
purely on health service provision. I am not convinced that that
is the way you are going to bring down the inequalities. Life
expectancy is increasing across all social classes, it is just
that—
Q216 Mr Wallace:
The gap is widening.
Mr Kelly: It has gone faster at
the top. The Executive has targets around coronary heart disease,
and they are improving, but I think the gap will not close unless
the conditions in those poorest communities start to change—and
that is conditions overall, it is not simply whether people are
getting their five-a-day and those kinds of things.
Q217 Mr Wallace:
At the beginning, you said, quite rightly, that things are moving
in the right direction, on financial matters, on debt and on housing.
For all the reasons you have just given in your answer for contributing
to health inequalities, it sounds logical, but, if all the factors
are beginning to go the right way, why is the gap in health inequalities
widening? Following the logic—and I would agree with that
answer—why is the gap widening?
Mr Kelly: Inequalities are influenced
by what is happening at the top as well as at the bottom. For
some communities, some areas, income is rising and income inequality
is increasing. In that broad context, those at the very top of
Scottish society and across the UK are doing relatively better,
as well, and relatively much better than communities at the bottom.
That is the overall context and I guess that influences the health
inequalities gap. I would say again that health inequality is
not my specialism.
Q218 Mr Wallace:
I wonder if it ties in with the question David Mundell asked about
the patchy application of the policies in the right direction.[19]
In the other words, if the Scottish Executive or Westminster has
the right direction and the right strategies but the local authorities
are not implementing them correctly, that could explain things.
The logic is not there, if you know what I mean, and perhaps,
Chairman, that is something to further investigate. There is an
annual report to the House, I believe, on health inequalities.
Mr Kelly:
As a final point on that, there is an organisation based in Glasgow
called Community Health Exchange which would probably be able
to give good information on health inequalities in Scotland and
how that can be tackled. I do not know if they have submitted
evidence or not.
Q219 Mr McGovern:
You have touched upon child poverty and you have also touched
on priorities. In a previous evidence session we asked Professors
Veit-Wilson and Sinfield about what they felt they would prioritise
and whether there was a particular form of poverty that should
be given priority, whether it was fuel poverty or pensioner poverty.[20]
They were reluctant to prioritise but the answers they gave seemed
to indicate that the most important was child poverty. How would
you comment on that?
Mr Kelly: I read their evidence
and I understood why they found it difficult to prioritise in
that way. Again, we can set up false divisions between the ways
that we tackle poverty. The thing which struck me, reading that
discussion, was that we need a holistic approach to tackling poverty.
I recognise that, as a government, as policy makers, priorities
will be set but I think they need to be set within an approach
which understands the broad range. One of our big concerns at
the moment is about what is happening about adults without children,
whether single or couples. The numbers who are living in low income
households is flat. In fact, it is generous to say that—it
is probably going up slightly. There has probably been a slight
increase over the last decade from about 15% to round about 18%.
That is a worry. That is important as to the incomes people are
living on just now and the experience they have just now, but
those are people who are going to be having children, we assume—although
maybe not with the declining birth rate. At some point they are
going to be starting families. Again, it is that thing about the
continuity. None of us live in this bubble where we are not affected
by other people around us or do not take into account the future
consequences. If you are in a couple or single it makes it very
difficult for you to plan for your future children. If you are
moving in and out of work, as many single people living on low
incomes would be doing, it again makes it difficult to plan. Again
these are issues around low income, which I am sure Carol will
talk about. Throughout their working lives, living on a life of
low wages predetermines that you are going to have problems later
in life with a lower pension. I realise I am fudging the question
here somewhat, but I would say take a holistic approach. You might
say that children are going to be your target and there are clear
ways that we can channel money to the families of children and
raise their incomes and lift the families out of poverty, and
that no one will argue with, but I would say be aware of the consequences
of having no targets and no priorities for other key groups. It
does mean that they tend to drop off the map. Part of that, I
guess, which is a big issue for me, is about the context in which
all of us who are concerned with poverty are trying to tackle
it. There is not a lot of political will for anyone to say, "Let's
raise benefits for a 24-year old." There is not a lot of
will for that, but if the consequence of that is the 24-year old
becoming an impoverished 35-year old then that has big implications
for your child poverty approach ten years down the line.
15 Written submission amended accordingly, see Ev
74 Back
16
http://www.povertyalliance.org/html/resources/publications/GH-Scotland.pdf Back
17
What will it take to end child poverty? Firing on all cylinders.
Donald Hirsch, 6 July 2006 Back
18
See Ev 53 Back
19
Q208 Back
20
Ev 56 Back
|
