A report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation warns that local government reform risks becoming a “distraction” from helping families with the least, as one in five children in Scotland remain in poverty.
The report, published today, says that while Scots have high levels of dissatisfaction with local authorities, council workers themselves – from teachers to care workers – retain high levels of public trust.
Government priorities questioned
John Swinney promised that his Government’s number one priority was child poverty. Yet his Cabinet now finds itself talking about little else other than slashing health boards, merging councils and generally ripping up the public sector in a blind panic.
The Government was repeatedly warned it was running out of money yet still went on a years-long civil service hiring spree and established a social security system with little thought on how it would be paid for. All the while workers earning more than £33,000 are expected to cough up more income tax than workers living elsewhere in the UK.
This mess means government energy is being diverted away from other priorities such as reducing child poverty.
Declining school standards
If Swinney was serious about child poverty, we would be in the middle of a national conversation on how to offer kids from all backgrounds the best start in life. Instead, the recent Pisa report found standards in our schools have been declining for 20 years.
One in five kids doesn’t deserve to live in poverty. Another generation of youngsters can’t be failed while Nationalist ministers stick their fingers in their ears and pretend everything is fine. Rhetoric is one thing, results are another.
Payouts to criminals criticised
We all know money is tight all across the public sector. Councils are skint, hospitals in places such as Monklands are crumbling and schools are struggling to provide basic teaching materials.
So the fact that hundreds of thousands of pounds is being spent compensating criminals for their treatment in jail is sickening. Some are being handed payouts because they have not had access to rehab or educational facilities inside. Others are getting compensation for so-called human rights breaches. Some get cash because they have suffered some sort of injury related to a health and safety breach.
It’s time that the law was changed so criminals have to cross a very high threshold before being allowed to sue prison chiefs. Every penny of that cash could be better spent on the NHS or schools.
