Action required in East Renfrewshire to tackle child poverty

East Renfrewshire has some of the lowest levels of child poverty in Scotland, but there are around 3600 children – 16 per cent – living in low income families.

“We want all children in East Renfrewshire to experience a stable and secure childhood and succeed,” the report states.

“In order to do this, we need to both tackle the root causes of poverty and reduce the impact of poverty.”

Cabinet members are recommended to approve the publication of the area’s second child poverty action report when they meet next week.

Publishing a report is a duty under the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017, which aims to significantly reduce child poverty in Scotland by 2030.

It has been worked on by council and health board staff and had been planned for publication in June but was delayed due to Covid-19.

The pandemic could also have an impact on the proposed work to reduce poverty.

“We recognise there will be challenging times ahead and Covid-19 is likely to have an impact on the profile of poverty, including child poverty, in the future,” the report states.

“Poverty should be considered within all Covid-19 recovery and renewal planning.”

Feedback from people with ‘lived experience’ found a “number of different barriers to employment”, including a lack of appropriate childcare and the loss of benefit entitlement.

“Some noted that increasing their earnings from employment could result in them being financially worse off as they could lose their entitlement to certain benefits, including free school meals and school uniform grants.”

Living costs are a concern for families with financial pressures “focused around ‘one off’ spends on items such as furniture or white goods” and around managing household bills.

School uniform costs and the price of childcare were also raised during talks.

Planned actions to address the issues include setting up an East Renfrewshire Living Wage action group to encourage and support employers to work towards accreditation.

The council “continues to work towards” becoming a Living Wage accredited employer and has shared a proposal with trade unions for a model to consolidate this pay rate.

Fair Work practices are encouraged in discussions with local employers and the Work EastRen, the council’s employability service, do not put forward clients for any zero-hour contract jobs

There should also be increased support for in-work parents to stay at work and help from the council’s Money Advice and Rights Team to understand any impact on benefit entitlement, the report adds.

It states extra staff should be recruited to increase support following the pandemic.

Other required actions listed in the report include more help to tackle food poverty, such as establishing a partnership group to “develop a sustainable, community-led approach”.

Work to address child poverty has included a pilot breakfast ‘Grab n Go’ initiative at Barrhead High School, where toast and fruit were available to all pupils in partnership with Greggs.

Focus groups have “provided positive feedback” and the school “noted a positive impact not only on identified young people but also on the health and wellbeing of the wider school population”.

The scheme is expected to continue when pupils return to school later this month.

Work is also under way on the council’s housing department’s ‘new build’ programme, which aims to deliver 362 homes.

So far, 45 homes have been finished, with 23 aimed at families, and a further 206 family homes are planned.