John Swinney hails ‘team Scotland effort’ to tackling child poverty

John Swinney has hailed the “team Scotland effort” to tackling child poverty, as he insisted he is “confident” that targets to reduce the number of youngsters living in poverty will be met.

Legally binding targets commit the Scottish Government to reducing the number of children living in relative poverty from the current rate of 23% to less than 10% by 2030.

However, with the Government due to announce an updated delivery plan later this week, Mr Swinney said he was “confident the Government can meet those targets in 2030”.

He said, however, there would need to be “sustained focus” on tackling the problem, along with the help of organisations from across Scotland.

This, he said, was “the approach we have taken”, with the First Minister telling the Press Association: “I am now much more confident, we have got an all Scotland effort, a whole team Scotland effort to eradicate child poverty.

“If we can draw together the strengths of the public, private and third sectors in Scotland, engage our communities, I think we can support families out of poverty and achieve those targets.”

Mr Swinney insisted his Government’s “central purpose is to eradicate child poverty”  – adding that actions taken by ministers were already “making a significant impact” on that.

He spoke out as he announced £5.8 million in funding for groups working to help families out of poverty during a visit to Kilmarnock on Monday.

In a speech there, he stressed that Scotland had “already made great progress towards ending child poverty in Scotland”, with the SNP leader adding that child poverty rates in Scotland are nine percentage points lower than the UK as a whole.

Adding that child poverty in Scotland had fallen to the “lowest level in almost a decade” in 2023-24, Mr Swinney said: “That equates to almost 90,000 fewer children living in poverty in Scotland, 90,000 children with better life chances because of the action we have taken.

“That is tremendous progress.

“But 90,000 is not the same as all. And our goal is all.

“Every single child. One child growing up in poverty is one child too many.

“We’re here not just to reduce child poverty in Scotland, we are here to eradicate it, utterly and completely.”

To achieve that, he said Scotland needs to “do things differently”, with the First Minister setting out the need to shift the balance of funding from “crisis response” to build a system of “preventative efforts” with support that can prevent people from reaching that crisis point.

Monday’s £5.8 million of funding comes from the £50 million whole family wellbeing fund for 2026-27.

Charity Aberlour will receive almost £2 million for its mother and child recovery homes, which help women tackle addiction issues without being separated from their children, while £1.88 million is going to a project which allows GPs to offer support to those in poverty.

Grow Your Own Routes, a group helping young people impacted by a family member’s addiction issues, receives £1.26 million, with £320,000 given to Foundations for Families, which identifies and supports young people at risk of “criminal exploitation”.

The Inverclyde Transformation Initiative will receive about £250,000, Open Kindergarten will get about £75,000 and the Dundee Pathfinder Fairer Futures Partnership will receive £50,000.