Is the record high employment rate masking the reality of in-work poverty?

By Heather Cameron The employment rate may have hit a record high of 74.6%, with unemployment continuing to run at an 11-year low, but in-work poverty has also reached unprecedented levels. More than half (55%) of people in poverty are living in working households, including millions of children, according to the latest Monitoring poverty and […]

Eating or heating: tackling fuel poverty in the UK

“It is a complete scandal that people die because they can’t afford to heat their homes. ‘I, Daniel Blake’ shows the tragic circumstances and daily dilemma of ‘heating or eating’ faced by many thousands of people in Britain today.” Those were the words of I, Daniel Blake lead actor Dave Johns as he backed a report […]

Talking to children about poverty: why education needs to get in on the act

1 in 5 children in poverty Scotland has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the UK. The latest figures from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimate that 1 in 5 children in Scotland live in poverty, with the figure rising to 1 in 3 in the urban centre of Glasgow. With more and […]

Local poverty, national wealth: reflections from the annual SURF conference

The annual SURF conference took place in Edinburgh on the 1st September 2016. The theme for this year’s conference was Local poverty, national wealth: resourcing regeneration. Delegates came from a range of organisations across Scotland, including local authorities, the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, COSLA, Creative Scotland, Skills Development Scotland and Transport Scotland. Speakers on […]

Fairness Commissions: tackling poverty and inequality in the UK

by Stacey Dingwall Next month, Brighton and Hove will become the latest council area to publish the report of its Fairness Commission. Established in 2015, Brighton and Hove’s is one of 24 Fairness Commissions set up in the last five years across the UK, in areas ranging from Dundee to Plymouth. What are Fairness Commissions? […]

Why child poverty can’t be allowed to slip down the political agenda

By Morwen Johnson Current forecasts suggest that across the UK, 4.7m children will be living in poverty by 2020 (equivalent to nearly the population of Scotland). This is despite the fact that the Child Poverty Act 2010 legally binds the UK Government to a commitment to end child poverty by 2020. This commitment was reiterated […]

Addressing the causes of in-work poverty

By Donna Gardiner This week is Living Wage Week and the issue of workers struggling to make ends meet has been in the news again. Back on 23rd September 2014, I attended an event held by the Glasgow Centre for Population Health (GCPH) on the changing nature of work and in-work poverty in the UK, […]

Going hungry? The growth of food poverty and food banks in the UK

by Laura Dobie Food poverty is a social issue which has been the subject of much media attention in recent weeks. The BBC 1 Sport Relief programme, Famous, rich and hungry, in which celebrities spent time with families experiencing food poverty, while controversial in its approach, has prompted concern and discussion around those who are […]

Recent research on poverty and deprivation

by Alan Gillies With over 300 current journal subscriptions, some weekly, some monthly, some quarterly, the Idox Information Service’s Research Officers review many journals and magazines every day, to identify the most useful and interesting articles for our members. Not all of our journals have relevant articles in every single issue, so a vital part […]

Leading by examples – retrofitting all types of social housing – part two

By Ian Babelon In the first part of two blog posts, published on 22 May, Ian Babelon provided examples of good practice in retrofitting social housing. The second part of this blog post looks at estate-wide and area-wide social housing retrofits. Introduction Upscaling social housing retrofits requires learning from individual property retrofits and wider retrofitting […]