CPAG in Scotland’s Early Warning System has been operating for ten years! Over Challenge Poverty Week we are looking back at some of the social security events in this period, key findings from the Early Warning System and how they have influenced policy and practise.
The benefit cap and the two-child limit has caused hardship to tens of thousands of families, with both policies failing to meet their original aims, according to the findings of a new study.
The harms of the cost of living crisis are multiplied by the benefit cap and two-child limit, flagship policies of the welfare reform agenda which sharply sever the relationship between need and support provided by our social security system.
Ten years since the benefit cap was introduced across Britain, new research shows families affected by the policy have as little as £44 a week to live on after they’ve paid housing costs.
As we find out who Scotland’s new First Minister will be. What will this mean for action to end child poverty? Whatever people’s views of her wider legacy there should be no doubt Nicola Sturgeon has made huge progress putting in place the building blocks needed to end the scourge of child poverty in Scotland.
Today’s annual poverty statistics show an estimated 350,000 more children were pulled into poverty last year, largely because the Government cut the £20 universal credit (UC) uplift half-way through the year. New CPAG analysis shows child poverty costs the country £39.5 billion a year.