Random Journal and thoughts about Child Poverty

Ok so I can't remember whatever happened to my journal 6 because I tend to be incredibly disorganised so here's a more recent journal in March about the debates and Child Poverty. 

With regards to this week, I honestly didn’t work on a single political briefing or anything Parliamentary related; however, I did start working on an Aberdeen Donside constituency report describing the suburbs of Aberdeen Donside from population to council resources. Perhaps the most interesting part of that research was reading the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) assessment of Aberdeen Donside. 

Aberdeen Donside is the region where my Member of Scottish Parliament, Mark McDonald works at, and well this is how it's divided.
Ward 1- Dyce/ Bucksburn/ Danestone
Ward 2- Bridge of Don                          
Ward 3 Kingswells and Sheddocksley
   Ward 4 Northfield                                      
Ward 5 Hilton/ Stockethill (part)            

In 2012, SIMD found that although the SIMD ranks measuring deprivation e.g- (employment, income, health, education, child poverty, crime, access to services, and housing ) were lower in Aberdeen Donside overall compared to other constituencies. However, the lower south-eastern suburbs of Aberdeen e.g. Northfield and parts of Hilton/ Stockethill contained 15% of Scotland’s most deprived data zones. Furthermore, what’s interesting about this is the fact that the SIMD 2009 analysis, the datazones in Aberdeen Donside containing the top 15% most deprived zones did not change. This suggests that there has been no change in regeneration policy etc to lower the depravity of this area, or that the policies of both Scottish Parliament and Scottish government were not executed to help decrease the depravity region. To me this point is relative in the sense that on Thursday there was a debate on child poverty in the Chamber; however, while both Labour Party and Scottish National Party agreed that it was a priority to reduce child poverty, the argument was mainly about Scotland Independence and how the policies of the other party historically have exacerbated the rates of child poverty. 

Child Poverty is when the child is living a life that fails to meet the minimum acceptable standard of living.  

For example, Labour Party’s Jackie Baillie stated, “the answer is independence, whatever the question. When Labour was creating the welfare state, the answer for the SNP was independence;….national wage…..SNP was independence…Scottish government has failed….to use the powers it already has.” In another case, SNP MSP Christine Grahame stated, “I voted for Labour……rich got richer and the poor got poorer….Blair….rich got richer- and the poor got poorer.” Personally, I do agree with Jackie Baillie’s statement that the SNP’s answer for everything amounts to independence, and that this is not politically efficient enough to reduce child poverty. At the same time though, it is important to note that child poverty itself is an incredibly vague issue, and if Scotland were to truly eliminate poverty, it would need to have some reserved powers e.g. ability to tax its citizens, and freely use that fund to support lower income families and children through multiple programmes. Right now with a SNP majority in both Scottish Parliament, and Scottish Government, I believe more support and policies can be done to tackle different aspects of child poverty.

According to Child Poverty Action Group, “One of the problems with child poverty is the fact that by the age of 16, children receiving free school meals achieve 1.7 grades lower at GCSE than their wealthier piers.” Education itself is a devolved issue in Scotland, and I believe that what Scotland could do is introduce a policy to make online educational sources available to all so that children would still be able to take the opportunity to learn. The other thing that can reduce child poverty or at least decrease the problems of child poverty is increasing community support financially and programmes. In Aberdeen Donside, the Woodside Community Centre has multiple programmess for children from afterschool classes to childrens clubs etc. These programmes have helped children from impoverished areas gain access to better childhoods. While these programmes do not effectively lower child poverty rates, or reduce rates of deprivation, they do mitigate some of the consequences of child poverty. Overall, I do believe that child poverty is an incredibly vague issue, and to truly tackle child poverty, a combination of reserved powers, support for community services, availability to academic information etc is needed to eliminate child poverty and its effects.