RSS Press releases

Dumfries and Galloway Council, NHS Dumfries and Galloway and local partners continue to be committed to and united in determination to improve the lives of children and families living in or at risk of poverty. Although work throughout 2020-21 was dominated by the immediate need to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been significant achievements in ensuring that families hit the hardest have received help and support to meet their basic needs and respect their human rights, and this is reflected in the recently developed Dumfries and Galloway Local Child Action Report for 2020-21.

Planned work to tackle child poverty and mitigate its impacts seen a wide range of key successes including the early and successful Council’s expansion of Early Learning and Childcare to 1140 hours a year, supporting parents to be able to access work, training and education, while helping to improve outcomes for young children. The Council increased the eligibility for free school meals, ensuring that 450 more families could be supported. A free home delivery service for sanitary products was also introduced in order to address period poverty, and a Counselling in Schools programme which provides a dedicated Youth Information Worker for each secondary school was rolled-out.  These additional staff have supported young people who are concerned about their wellbeing including mental and emotional health; considered vulnerable; at risk of offending; struggling with a loss, bereavement or significant change or; struggling with low self-esteem or confidence. 

In response to the pandemic the Council collaborated with local partners to achieve a number of key actions including provision of food and other essential supplies to individuals and families in need of support, particularly during periods of local and national lock-down. During school closures, there was a move from providing food packages for families entitled to free school meals to instead providing direct payment to enable them to purchase preferred items and reduce waste. Isolation packs were also provided to 4,000 young people across the region and a further 400 learning and play activity packs were provided to families, providing additional support during school closures and holiday periods.

The key drivers of Child Poverty continue to be the cost of living, income from employment, and income from social security and benefits. Although progress is being made the most recent statistics show that the rates of Child Poverty in Dumfries and Galloway continue to increase with 26.7% of children living in poverty in 2019/20, rising 1.7% on the previous year. Our realistic expectation is that Dumfries and Galloway will be dealing with the fallout from COVID-19 for many years, with a recent assessment of economic vulnerability indicating that Dumfries and Galloway is particularly vulnerable due to the sectors, hospitality and tourism in particular, on which it relies.

A new Sub-Group of the Poverty and Inequalities Partnership has recently been established to further develop the partnership approach to Child Poverty in 2022 and beyond. It is planned that this group will provide opportunity for extensive collaboration with a wider range of local partners and will help to increase the voice of those with lived experience of poverty, in order to ensure actions are influenced by those most impacted by the effects of poverty.

Councillor Elaine Murray, Leader of Dumfries and Galloway Council said: “The 2020-21 Local Child Poverty Action Report demonstrates the work of the Council and partners to deliver a very broad range of activity to tackle child poverty and mitigate its impacts on local families. We are proud of our achievements but recognise there is more work to be done.”

Councillor Rob Davidson, Depute Leader of Dumfries and Galloway Council said: “As an increasing number of local children are living in poverty, we remain committed to working with our partners to address this. We are excited about our new approach to this work and the actions we plan to take over the next year.”