Gerry Hassan: It’s time to champion the poorest in Scotland

WE ALL like to think that one of the proudest of Scottish traditions is our commitment to social justice, caring about and acting to aid those in disadvantage and poverty. If the debate about Scotland’s constitutional status is to be meaningful and relevant beyond the political classes, one powerful argument is that it should put at its centre – the promotion of social justice.

Poverty fell over the Labour decade of growth; from 1998-99 to 2008-9 Scots poverty rates fell by more than in the rest of the UK. There were larger falls in pensioner and child poverty than among working age adults. In 2008-9, 17 per cent of Scots were living in relative poverty.

This was a decent Scottish story of progress; part of a wider British advance. We now know that poverty levels are increasing and can guess that the next decade will see rising poverty and hardship .

The political framework of a devolved Scotland has seen a flurry of activities and initiatives on these issues. There have been a host of SNP government papers with good ambitions, Achieving Our Potential, Equally Well and the Early Years Framework. However, much of the Scottish debate across the political spectrum tends to get stuck on the fact that areas such as employment rights and welfare are reserved.

The Tackling Poverty board report of the Scottish Government and Cosla brought together a wealth of expertise and identified a range of devolved areas where action could have a significant impact. These included driving down the cost of fuel, action on childcare, bringing anti-poverty initiatives into school education, and developing an adult skills agenda that more successfully targets those with the least skills.

Part of this strategy is implicitly critical of some of our public agencies: Scottish Enterprise and its emphasis on inward investment and big projects and Skills Development Scotland, which seems to have focused on skills in groups that produce the most tangible results. The Scottish Government has answered these suggestions by abolishing the board.

The Scottish Child Poverty Strategy was published last year and focused almost entirely on how local authorities could deliver it through the Scottish Government-Cosla concordat. It seemed to have little awareness of how deep the councils’ commitment was to this or their know-how and expertise. If we are to progress in the area of social justice we have to recognise the limits of what we are doing, from government to public bodies and other agencies.

Prominent policies such as the Scottish social wage and the medium-term freezing of the council tax do not actually help the poorest in our land: one is universalist and not targeted; the other is deeply regressive. Just as important, we seem as a society to have forgotten how to have an ethical and moral debate about what is good, sustainable, rewarding employment or how to address and express our views on employment rights. How do we speak up on employment abuses and exploitation? What is our sense of a generation of young people being offered nothing but unpaid internships, or UK government-backed schemes which offer work placements for nothing more than jobseeker’s allowance (JSA)?

Where is the Scottish debate, beyond attracting big name companies such as Amazon north of the Border, and emphasising inward investment and tax competition? What is our opinion on Workfare and a Scottish response to private providers and contractors? Where are the champions in Scotland who will speak for this agenda? The SNP has done many good things, but there is a sense as times get hard that is lacks the commitment to redouble efforts in these areas. Labour which made progress on this in the early years of devolution hasn’t said anything of worth on this in the entirety of its period of opposition. As times get tougher, it seems content to take the low road and hector and point the finger which doesn’t really help anyone.

Local government is isolated and facing cuts, while the voluntary sector has put forward a muted agenda wary of making waves with government. The record of public bodies is patchy to poor, but even worse has been the record of Scotland’s business organisations such as CBI Scotland and SCDI who seem to be completely silent about the plight of hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens.

How we make things different involves people speaking up, championing this and seeing how Scotland could be a very different and more flourishing land.

It is all fine, as many do, to invoke the Nordic model and see Norway, Sweden and Denmark as more cohesive societies with lower levels of poverty. However, these countries have succeeded by building up and nurturing decades of intricate networks of collaboration bringing together different sides, labour, business and other sectors, and recognising tensions and conflicts and how to manage them.

Fundamentally, we have to ask, does Scotland want to be different? Does it seriously want to shift from the narrative of difference to the potential of difference?

If it does, many will judge it on how we treat our most vulnerable and disadvantaged. This represents a massive challenge to politicians, policy makers and Scottish public life from public bodies to the voluntary sector and business. Yet it also offers a huge opportunity, for whoever politically or institutionally can begin to talk convincingly and champion this agenda could shape much of our debate over the next few decades.

What have we to lose in this? Such an approach would come from the best of Scottish progressive, compassionate traditions, and could mobilise large parts of society in a shared national project. It would require leadership, vision and direction. Why can’t we make the next two years about what would be the best ways to advance the cause of social justice in Scotland?