Poverty in Scotland 2011 Towards a more equal Scotland? Edited by: John H McKendrick, Gerry Mooney, John Dickie and Peter Kelly CPAG • 94 White Lion Street • London N1 9PF CPAG promotes action for the prevention and relief of poverty among children and families with children. To achieve this, CPAG aims to raise awareness of the causes, extent, nature and impact of poverty, and strategies for its eradication and prevention; bring about positive policy changes for families with children in poverty; and enable those eligible for income maintenance to have access to their full entitlement. If you are not already supporting us, please consider making a donation, or ask for details of our membership schemes, training courses and publications. Published by Child Poverty Action Group, in association with Glasgow Caledonian University, Open University and Poverty Alliance 94 White Lion Street London N1 9PF Tel: 020 7837 7979 [email protected] www.cpag.org.uk © Child Poverty Action Group/Glasgow Caledonian University/ Open University/Poverty Alliance 2011 This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978 1 906076 59 7 Child Poverty Action Group is a charity registered in England and Wales (registration number 294841) and in Scotland (registration number SC039339), and is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England (registration number 1993854). VAT number: 690 808117 Cover design by Devious Designs (based on an original design by John Gahagan) Typeset by Boldface Printed in the UK by Russell Press Cover photos by Paul Box/Reportdigital; Jess Hurd/Reportdigital About the contributors Bronwen Cohen is Chief Executive of Children in Scotland. John Dickie is Head of Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland. Keith Dryburgh is Social Policy Officer for Citizens Advice Scotland. Tommy Gorman is Senior Project Manager with Macmillan Cancer Supp ort, responsible for the charity's financial advice services throughout Scot land. Richard Grant is Policy Adviser with Shelter Scotland. Richard Holloway is a writer and broadcaster. He was Bishop of Edin burgh and Primus (Archbishop) of the Scottish Episcopal Church until he stood down in 2000. Peter Kelly is Director of the Poverty Alliance. Zoe McGuire is Policy Assistant at Shelter Scotland. John H McKendrick is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at Glasgow Caledonian University. Gerry Mooney is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, Faculty of Social Sciences at the Open University. He is also Visiting Professor at the University of Strathclyde. Eurig Scandrett is Lecturer in Sociology at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh and co-ordinator of programmes in Justice, Gender, Environ mental and Social Justice. Kendra Strauss is a feminist economic geographer and Research Assoc iate in Urban Political Economy at the University of Oxford. Carol Tannahill is Director of the Glasgow Centre for Population Health. Claire Telfer is Policy and Advocacy Manager (Scotland) at Save the Children UK. Bruce Whyte is Public Health Programme Manager at the Glasgow Centre for Population Health. Sharon Wright is Lecturer in Social Policy and Deputy Head of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at the University of Stirling. About the organisations CPAG in Scotland is part of CPAG. It promotes action for the prevention and relief of poverty among children and families with children. To achieve this, CPAG aims to raise awareness of the causes, extent, nature and impact of poverty, and strategies for its eradication and prevention; bring about positive policy changes for families with children in poverty; and enable those eligible for income maintenance to have access to their full entitlement. If you are not already supporting us, please consider making a donation, or ask for details of our membership schemes, training courses and publications. For further information, please visit www.cpag.org.uk/scotland. With over 15,500 students across Scotland, The Open University is one of Scot land’s leading providers of part-time higher education. We are committed to widening access to higher education and have an open admissions policy and, as a result, no previous qualifications are nec essary to study at degree level. Many of our students are on a low income or unemployed; approximately half of all new students currently receive help towards the cost of their course fees. For further information contact The Open University in Scotland on 0131 226 3851, [email protected], or visit www.open.ac.uk/scotland. The Poverty Alliance is the national anti-poverty network in Scotland and was set up in 1992. It works with a range of community, voluntary and statutory organisations to find better solutions to the problems of poverty in Scotland. The Alliance attempts to influence anti-poverty policy by lobby ing and campaigning, organising seminars and conferences, pro- ducing briefing papers and other information. A key goal for the Alliance is to have the voices of people experiencing poverty heard in policy pro- cesses. To do this we work with a number of partners across the UK and Europe and represent the UK Coalition Against Poverty and the European Anti-Poverty Network in Scotland. For further information on our work, please visit www.povertyalliance.org. Emeritus Professor Gill Scott, then of the Scottish Poverty Information Unit (Glasgow Caledonian University) was the driving force behind the first four editions of Poverty in Scotland. Dr John McKendrick has ensured the continuity of this Glasgow Caledonian University connection, with his edit- orial and writing contributions to this and the previous edition. The study of poverty in Scotland remains a focus within Glasgow Caledonian University – including the work of the Scottish Poverty Information Unit, academic research on issues such as child poverty in Scotland and the role of the media in shaping public opinion, and expert academic support to prac tition ers through its association with the Community Regeneration and Tackling Poverty Learning Network. For further information contact: [email protected]. Contents Section One: Introduction 1 Poverty and anti-poverty policy in Scotland: themes and issues 3 Section Two: The nature of poverty in Scotland 2 What is poverty? 17 3 How do we measure poverty? 30 4 What causes poverty? 47 Section Three: Poverty in Scotland: the evidence 5 Is poverty falling? 65 6 Is income inequality reducing? 76 7 Who lives in poverty? 91 8 What is life like for people experiencing poverty? 111 Section Four: Scotland in focus: 2007–2011 9 Presenting and representing poverty 133 10 Combating poverty through policy, practice and the provision of services 146 Section Five: Issues and future challenges 11 Inequalities in health 155 12 Early years: getting it right for Scotland’s youngest citizens 161 13 Child poverty 167 14 Education: closing the achievement gap 173 15 Income maximisation: coping with the cost of cancer and disability in Scotland 179 16 Poverty and debt 185 17 Poverty and the environment: environmental injustice 190 18 Rural poverty 196 19 Cultural participation 203 20 Poverty and participation: progress in Scotland 207 21 In-work poverty 213 22 Housing 218 Section Six: Conclusion 23 Conclusion: towards a more equal Scotland? 227 Appendix: Policy diary 237 Acknowledgements Many individuals assisted the authors with their individual chapters. Thanks are extended to: David Walsh (Chapter 11); Sarah Burton (Chapter 12); Dan Barlow, WWF Scotland, Colin Howden, Transform Scotland, Kathy Jenkins, Scottish Hazards Campaign, Morag Parnell, Women’s Environ mental Network, and Clare Symonds, Planning Democracy (Chap- ter 17); and Chris Carr, Alison Clark, Jeannie Holles and Emma Perring (Chapter 18). Particular thanks are extended to Adrian Sinfield, Kathy Armstrong and Anne Ketley, and to CPAG staff for bringing the book to a tidy con- clusion: Angela Toal, Jon Shaw, Mark Willis and Henri Krishna (for incisive reviewing and proof reading) and Alison Key (for patience, professionalism and more patience). Section One Introduction One Poverty and anti-poverty policy in Scotland: themes and issues Gerry Mooney This is the latest in a series of books that have been concerned to provide a detailed overview of poverty and anti-poverty policies in Scotland. Start - ing in the mid-1990s, the Poverty in Scotland series has aimed to provide an accessible account of the main themes and issues relating to poverty during the period in question. In addition, the books have also had an important role in providing a comprehensive, yet accessible, account of the evidence base of the state of poverty in Scotland, highlighting the main pat- terns and its impact on diverse groups and places across Scotland. Fur - ther, there has also been a concern to review existing anti-poverty policies, identifying strategies that have had a positive impact – as well as critiquing those that have either failed to ameliorate poverty or, more commonly, have worked to deepen the effects of poverty itself, or which have in different ways furthered the stigmatisation of people experiencing poverty. One of the hallmarks of the Poverty in Scotland series, at least in its more recent forms, has been the inclusion of a series of thematic essays that focus on particular aspects of poverty, disadvantage and inequality in contemporary Scotland. This reflects a concern to provide a range of nar- ratives and viewpoints, but in a way that also mirrors that this is the out- come of a genuine collaboration on the part of a number of practitioners, activists and academics who are working in this area.