From the Scottish Government today but not making it onto BBC Scotland or any front pages:
More than 38,000 payments have been paid to families to help with the costs of early learning and starting school.
Families who qualify for Scottish Child Payment are now automatically awarded Best Start Grant Early Learning Payment and School Age Payment when their child becomes eligible, without them having to apply separately.
Figures showed that since Social Security Scotland introduced automation of the payments in November last year, 14,825 Early Learning Payments and 23,810 School Age Payments have been made, up to the end of June 2023.
Early Learning and School Age Payments are one-off payments of £294.70 to help eligible families as their child grows up, with things like clothes, travel, stationery or toys for home learning.
Social Security Scotland began making these payments automatically to eligible families who already get Scottish Child Payment, which is £25 per child per week, when it was extended to under 16 year olds.
1.7 million Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods payments have been made with more than £130 million paid to clients since the benefits launched in 2018.
More at:
More than 38,000 automatic payments help families with the costs of early learning and starting school – gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Scottish Government just getting on and doing their day job. Well done.
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And more than this – https://www.thenational.scot/news/23808614.scottish-child-payment-significantly-impacting-child-poverty/#:~:text=This%20comes%20as%20Professor%20Danny,a%20week%20per%20eligible%20child.
While it should be treated with a degree of caution as an informal/ rough calculation, is it not a surprise it’s not had more publicity which it would have had if it had contributed to the biggest rise.
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Pity the BBC use an acronym as their title as perhaps if they instead used their full title as in the ‘British Broadcasting Corporation’ then it may be more obvious , to more within Scotland, why they adopt a constant onslaught of negativity upon the SNP who, as a political party, seek to be independent from their BBC’s preferred BRITISH state ….
Hiding behind an acronym though does not disguise their allegiance to Britain in the way they neglect to highlight any positivity connected to any Scottish government policies while simultanously promoting an onslaught of negative output ,sourced mainly from Pro British political parties, against the Scottish government and indeed the SNP……once more people in Scotland realise that then suddenly it will become clearer as to what motivates the ‘BBC’ in way of what news they choose to report and what news is chosen by them to NOT be reported…..though this is also adopted by other Pro UK media too in what has been, since 2014, a constant campaign by them to keep us , Scotland, within their UK. (how much money, time and effort collectively via all sources , political , media and other, have the British nationalist side spent and given to their pro UK campaign to stop Scotland becoming independent from their Britain) …….I would say tis far in excess of anything the Independence side has…..and too less publicity given as well as to their collective pro UK input and expenditure)……
So if the SNP as the current , and too also as the previous Scottish government(s), were truly failing us all within Scotland as is promoted by the collective British Nationalists (political and media) ….why then have we within Scotland, as voters, constantly elected them to be our PREFERRED Scottish government…..an enigma for British Nationalists (but not really) or via reality is it because we, as voters, know they are THE best party to represent Scotland in a politically hostile UK ruled by other UK parties whose focus is very much ONLY upon another nation within their UK (as in the ONE NATION who are the REAL political UK ‘King makers’ and who get to decide, via their larger population and seats awarded, who , via UK party, gets to rule in the English dominated parliament at WM)……a fact NOT to be promoted by the BBC or rather the BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION in SCOTLAND……but hopefully a fact that more in Scotland will come to realise….sooner hopefully rather than later….
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