Economic growth, not benefits or legally binding targets, is the key to tackling child poverty

The SNP has a track record of setting targets and then failing to meet them

Having a target can be worthwhile. Unless, of course, it is easily achieved because it was set too low or if it is simply ignored.

The SNP had set a target that 18 per cent or fewer children would be living in poverty by 2023/24. New figures have now confirmed that 22 per cent were officially in poverty in that year, so the target was missed.

However, Scotland’s child poverty rate was considerably better than the UK-wide rate of 31 per cent. Part of the reason is unquestionably the Scottish Child Payment and the SNP will take some comfort from this, even as they are pilloried by anti-poverty campaigners.

But the problem is that the funding for these payments relies on tax revenues and, with the economy continuing to teeter on the brink of a recession, the SNP’s approach could become increasingly untenable.

The SNP has missed a target to reduce child poverty rates to 18 per cent (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell) | Getty Images

Well-paid jobs

John Swinney complained that Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Spring Statement, which included sweeping cuts to benefits, would make further progress more difficult. But she has to live in the real world and must balance competing demands on the public purse, particularly the pressing need to increase defence spending.

In the end, the solution to child poverty and poverty more generally is to be found not in the welfare system but in policies that grow the economy, so more people have well-paid jobs which mean they do not need benefits and tax revenues are increased, allowing the less fortunate to receive the help they need.

For all the criticisms about how Starmer and co are managing the economy, they clearly understand this far better than the SNP.

And even if the nationalists were to focus on growth with the necessary rigour and determination, no doubt they would set a plethora of targets which – judging by NHS waiting list targets, the A9 dualling target, climate change targets and now the child poverty target – they would almost certainly not meet.

Missed targets can feel like broken promises that corrode public trust in government. If we all paid less attention to them and focussed more on achieving steady progress, we might get to a better place more quickly.