Scottish Churches Parliamentary Office, Edinburgh - Briefing Document Twelve

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Parliamentary Officer:Rev Graham Blount
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Briefing Document No 12 - Page 6 of 6

Good News for the Poor? The Scottish Executive's First Social Justice Annual Report - Continued.

· There has also been some progress on issues we felt were missing from the targets, like fuel poverty and debt.
(a) Tackling financial exclusion has become a major part of empowering communities (see the June Action note), and we are promised a credit union development strategy; micro-credit schemes for women, basic bank account provision and the Scottish debtline are all mentioned as "action for communities".
(b) The commitment to ensuring central heating and decent insulation for all pensioners and most tenants is a step in the right direction on fuel poverty; and a new indicator is to be added, re fuel poverty (as evidence that the agenda is "dynamic" and the Executive is listening to comments made). However, more has to be done, as the Social Inclusion Committee has recognised following meetings with Communities Against Poverty.

· Elements of independence and scrutiny would dramatically increase the credibility of future annual reports (some local authorities are trying to do this scrutiny, eg with SIPs in Edinburgh).

· While not a great deal can be read into one year's figures, there are some worrying reversals in the past year's figures on milestones 6, 7, 10, 13, 14, 19 and 24.

· The general trend of improvement in unemployment does not seem to be translating into a narrowing of income differentials. This seems quite serious when getting people into employment is so central to the overall strategy for social inclusion. It may be that the damage done in recent years by large-scale unemployment will take more than the availability of work to repair.

· Problems of lack of data and of breakdown of data remain, notably re homelessness and drugs; the patchy persistence of unemployment does not fully show up; and there are concerns about the appropriateness of some measures - for example, statistics about the move towards owner occupation may not be a real measure of the "quality and variety of homes in our most disadvantaged communities". However, progress is clearly being made in building up available data. There is also a valuable suggestion of future research on public spending patterns by local area, some of which would be done by local groups.

· The report confirms some very disturbing situations, eg the growth in inequalities over the past twenty years, and differentials in health.

· As was emphasised in the debate, most of the key measures towards the most basic targets on employment, income, etc are matters for Westminster.

· The report continues to stress a "partnership" approach, involving local authorities, NHS, enterprise networks, the voluntary sector, Scottish Homes, colleges and universities, and "corporate Scotland". However, future reports should focus more specifically on how "partners" can contribute to each milestone.

· There is still no recognition that action to address inequalities will have a cost; commitments are severely constrained by the Executive's refusal to use the Parliament's tax-varying powers to redistribute resources.