Child Poverty in Glasgow
At the Centre for Civic Innovation, we have been producing a Child Poverty Report every year since 2020
We have been working to better understand Child Poverty in Glasgow.
We produce an annual Child Poverty report which charts Glasgow’s progress on meeting the Scottish Government’s 2030 child poverty targets.
Having reported on the level of child poverty in the city since before the pandemic, we have a clear baseline which allows them to compare to pre-pandemic levels of family income and poverty.
This report is intended to support service providers with the insight needed to help design better policies and services so we can meet the Scottish Government's national targets.
Child Poverty Dashboard
Each year we try to add a new dimension or way to understand poverty in Glasgow. This year, in addition to the report we’ve produced the Child Poverty Dashboard. It makes the data that we use to measure child poverty in the city publicly available and allows anyone to scrutinise the data we have produced.
Scottish Government Targets
In December 2017, the Scottish Government passed the Child Poverty bill into law which outlines targets to reduce the number of children experiencing the effects of poverty by 2030.
- By 2023 there is an interim target to ensure that fewer than 18% of children are living in relative poverty
- By 2030 there is a target to ensure that fewer than 10% of children are living in relative poverty
On behalf of Glasgow City Council’s Child Poverty Governance Board, The Head of Financial Inclusion and Transformation approached the Centre for Civic Innovation (CCI) to assist with this City Challenge.
The Child Poverty Report for 2024 highlights and underscores the ongoing scale and impact of poverty on our children, young people, and families within the city of Glasgow. The insights from the report are both immensely helpful but hugely sobering in terms of the distress caused to families and the economic consequences for the city. The data and insights not only highlight the day-to-day impact on parents, families, and their children, but the ongoing requirement for a city and civic response to this unacceptable crisis. The report continues to reaffirm the City’s Community Partners' determination to remain focused on dismantling barriers and ensuring that all efforts are geared towards enabling our families and city to flourish.
Programme Director
Child Poverty and Prevention
The First Child Poverty Report
In partnership with the Financial Inclusion Team, the CCI wrote the first Child Poverty in Glasgow Report for 2019/2020. Our team has produced four further reports
Our latest released in Autumn 2023 has detailed the landscape of Child Poverty in Glasgow pre-COVID as well as focussing on the recovery from the pandemic and identifying the major negative impact on the communities within Glasgow.
A report every year
Taking action informed by data
The insights gathered in the past reports have been used to better understand the need for interventions targeted at priority groups. The initial research carried out in 2020 highlighted a significant gap in the uptake of education benefits, which led to funding being secured to set up a pilot to embed Financial Inclusion Support Officers in secondary schools across Glasgow.
This was used as a justification for the provision of financial support in schools where the need was greatest.
The role of the officers is to increase awareness and knowledge in young people of the various grants and awards available to them as well as supporting parents to maximise their income by raising awareness of entitlements to welfare benefits, grants and awards.
This year we’ve been working in partnership with those who have been using the report to design and build tools that will help provide services where and when they’re needed.
Glasgow’s detailed understanding of the extent and depth of child poverty was also pivotal in both establishing and informing the work of our Child Poverty Pathfinder, a partnership focused on radically rethinking our approach to tackling child poverty.
We must not sit on our laurels and work in partnership across Glasgow to make an impact and make sure our families are made aware of and access the financial support and opportunities they are entitled to. We can all work together to help try and reduce child poverty in our city.
Depute Leader of Glasgow City Council