Appendix 2
Letter to the Chairman of the Committee from the
Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing,
Scottish Executive
I am writing to welcome your Committee's reports
on Poverty in Scotland and Child Poverty in Scotland as useful
contributions to understanding of these issues; and to provide
an update to the Committee on work that is underway to develop
the Scottish Government's approach to tackling poverty.
I launched at the end of January a wide ranging Discussion
Paper on Tackling Poverty, Inequality and Deprivation in Scotland
which is available on the Scottish Government's website, with
an associated consultation period running until the end of June.
This will lead to the production of the Scottish Government's
Anti-Poverty Framework later this year, in full partnership with
CoSLA and the Poverty Alliance.
That Anti-Poverty Framework will be set firmly within
the context of our Government Economic Strategy (GES). The GES
sets out the overarching purpose of the Scottish Government, to
"create a more successful country, with opportunities for
all of Scotland to flourish, through increasing sustainable economic
growth". It is underpinned by the realisation that too many
of Scotland's citizens are failing to reach their potential and
that this is damaging Scottish society as a whole.
Our Anti-Poverty Framework will set out how we will
meet the Solidarity Target set out in our Government Economic
Strategy:
"To increase overall income and the proportion
of income earned by the three lowest income deciles as a group
by 2017".
This target explicitly commits the Scottish Government
to ensuring that the poorest members of Scottish society benefit
most from economic growth, ensuring that Scotland becomes a wealthier
and fairer country. We welcome the Committee's comment
that "At root, poverty is caused by a lack of money",[18]
which appears to support our focus on income. The Scottish Government
also remains committed to doing what it can within the available
powers to help achieve the UK milestone to halve child poverty
(from a 1998/99 baseline) by 2010, and the goal of eradicating
child poverty by 2020. We will integrate action on this front
into our Anti-Poverty Framework.
We have grouped our responses to the relevant recommendations
of the Committee under broad headings in Annex A. I would in return
welcome input from members of the Committee to our consultation
process and any reflections on where we should focus our efforts.
Nicola Sturgeon
Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing,
Scottish Executive
23 April 2008
18 Poverty in Scotland, Volume 1, paragraph
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