Child Poverty Action Plan

Our Child Poverty Action Plan sets out how we will work together to reduce child poverty in South Lanarkshire. It has been produced by a wide range of local organisations including:

South Lanarkshire Council
NHS Lanarkshire
South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership
Skills Development Scotland
voluntary sector partners

This plan is our first and will be produced every year.

We want to make sure that what we do will make a real difference to families struggling every day to make ends meet. In South Lanarkshire 22% of our children are living in poverty (23% in Scotland).

A family is considered to be living in relative poverty if their household income is below 60% of the average UK household income (currently £28,400). This means that just under 14,000 children in South Lanarkshire (22%) are living in poverty and this is increasing.

Poverty has a grip on every town or neighbourhood but in some communities this can mean as many as four out of 10 children are living in poverty. The following groups are more likely to be affected by poverty than others:

lone parents
children in households where someone is disabled
families with 3+ children
minority ethnic families
families with youngest child aged under one year and mothers aged under 25

The Scottish Government has asked us to focus this plan on three areas of work that are most likely to help reduce child poverty.

Income from employment

hourly pay
hours worked per household
skills and qualifications
labour market
availability of affordable and accessible transport and childcare

Income from social security

housing costs
other costs of living
debts
availability of affordable and accessible transport and childcare
enablers (access to affordable credit, internet access, savings and assets)

Income from social security and benefits in kind

generosity of benefits
reach of benefits
eligibility criteria
take-up

We have summarised the Plan here but you can also ready the full Child Poverty Action Plan.