Consultation Response: Impact of the rising cost of living on women

Poverty is gendered with women more likely to experience poverty compared to men at all points in their life. This is our joint response with the Scottish Women’s Budget Group to the Commons Women and Equalities Committee inquiry into how women are being affected by the cost of living crisis. In it, we outline how … Read more

Consultation response: Work and Pensions Committee on Safeguarding Vulnerable Claimants

The Commons Work & Pensions Committee is looking into how DWP supports vulnerable benefit claimants and whether its approach to safeguarding needs to change. In our response we call for the increased importance and recognition of ‘Vulnerable Claimants’ engaging with DWP services. We highlight the importance of the conceptualisation and operationalisation of vulnerable claimants, experiences … Read more

A stock photo of a man installing rooftop solar renewables. Community Wealth Building. Climate. Net Zero

Get Heard Scotland: Community Wealth Building

The Scottish Government have committed to the Community Wealth Building (CWB) approach to economic development as a means of achieving their wellbeing economy objectives. As part of the consultation on CWB legislation, the Poverty Alliance were commissioned to recruit, support and facilitate a citizen’s panel of people with experience of poverty to share their views … Read more

Collette Stevenson MSP holding a Challenge Poverty Week sign.

Scottish Parliament Member’s Debate on Challenge Poverty Week 2023

In advance of a member’s debate on a motion lodged by Colette Stevenson MSP, we sent this briefing to MSPs. It outlines all the policy asks that the Poverty Alliance and its members campaigned on during Challenge Poverty Week 2023. You can read it in the window below, our download it from here.

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Being brave means ending the regressive council tax

Responding to news that the First Minister wants to freeze council tax, Poverty Alliance director Peter Kelly said: “Progressive taxation is essential to allow for the investment in the public services that help create and sustain a just economy. It is disappointing then that the Scottish Government has decided to shelf plans to reform Council … Read more

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Child Maintenance During a Cost-of-Living Crisis – A System of Support?

Child Maintenance is a key source of income for many households in the UK, but long-term system issues are preventing parents from being able to access support. Improving systems of support around Child Maintenance should be a key priority area for policy. This research provides a critical snapshot of parent’s experiences of Child Maintenance during … Read more

Poverty is a human rights failure

Consultation response: A Human Rights Bill for Scotland

Poverty is a breach of our fundamental human rights. The incorporation of international human rights treaties is urgently needed to provide dignity for all, complementing our aims to see Scotland free from the grip of poverty. We therefore strongly welcome the consultation on a Human Rights Bill for Scotland. You can read our consultation response … Read more

Poverty is a human rights failure

Blog: Poverty is a cause and a consequence of human rights failures.

Ashley McLean, Policy & Parliamentary Officer & Lydia Murphy, Development OfficerThe Poverty Alliance Click here to read our consultation response Poverty means being unable to make ends meet, it means making sacrifices, and it means a life where you are not afforded dignity. Human rights are minimum standards developed to ensure we are all able … Read more

A stock photo showing a disabled woman in a wheelchair at work.

Get Heard Scotland: Lifetime Skills and Equalities

We report on sessions that we ran in order to test key messages around the Scottish Government’s Lifetime Skills offer with equalities organisations, adding important perspectives to our previous citizens’ panel work ensuring that the recommendations of the citizen’s panel reflected the needs of women, Black and minority ethnic (BME) people, and older people. Across the … Read more

Children in silhouette

Guest blog: Child poverty and the impact of imprisonment

Families Outside Reflecting on Challenge Poverty Week from Families Outside’s perspective, the message is clear: for many families in Scotland, poverty can be all-encompassing… and this can have a massive effect on children. When the current Scottish First Minister took office, ending child poverty was noted as high priority. However, in much of the legislation … Read more

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