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Today, from the Scottish Government but nowhere on BBC Scotland:
Scottish Child Payment was helping the families of more than 327,000 children at the end of December last year, official statistics have shown. The £25-a-week payment helps families as part of a wider package of Scottish Government actions to tackle child poverty and support people during the cost of living crisis.
The figures published today show more than 4,000 extra children were being supported since the previous quarter – the fourth consecutive rise. Scottish Child Payment launched in February 2021 and it has since risen in value twice – firstly from £10 per week to £20 per week then, in November 2022, to £25 per week.
At the time of the second rise, it extended from being a payment for the families of children under the age of six to all those eligible under 16. It is the families of that older group of children who have driven the latest increase in uptake. The total overall amount paid out since the payment was launched reach passed £573.2 million.
Official statistics on Social Security’s other family payments – Best Start Foods and the three Best Start Grants (Pregnancy & Baby Payment, Early Learning Payment and School Age Payment) are also published today. Since first launching in December 2018 until December 2023 471,670 applications for the payments have been processed and a total of £145.4 million paid out.
Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice Shirley-Anne Somerville said:
“Despite cuts to Scotland’s budget, the Scottish Government is prioritising support for families. Our investment in the game-changing Scottish Child Payment and other benefits is unparalleled in the UK. It delivers a lifeline from the Westminster austerity agenda and continued cruel policies, such as the two-child cap. These statistics show that we are reaching more of the people who most need our support as we continue to make tackling child poverty our key mission. It is encouraging to see that we are also continuing to do that more quickly, making progress in the time it takes from receiving applications to getting money into people’s pockets.”
Families of more than 327,000 young people helped by Scottish Child Payment – gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
But, but, from BBC Wales and Welsh Labour’s Children’s Commissioner:
Introducing a weekly child payment system for poor families would be “transformational”, according to Wales’ children’s commissioner. Rocio Cifuentes said she hoped ministers would consider adopting the Scottish Child Payment which gives £25-a-week to every child in poverty. An expert at Oxford University said the Scottish system has had a substantial effect on child poverty.
Child poverty: Could Wales cut rates by copying Scotland? – BBC News
And, from the Joseph Rowntree Trust last year:
The Scottish Child Payment is already helping families north of the border to stay out of poverty despite the cost of living crisis, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The payments, introduced for children under the age of 6 in 2021 and being extended to under 16s today is worth £25 a week for each child in a family. This will mean a boost of £1,300 a year per child for household budgets and, unlike Universal Credit, with no limit on the number of children who will benefit. JRF analysis shows that if the payment were extended to England, Wales and Northern Ireland a further 5.3 million children would be eligible for this crucial support.
https://www.jrf.org.uk/news/scottish-child-payment-extension-a-watershed-already-showing-that-poverty-can-be-tackled-with
Isn’t this big news BBC Scotland?
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Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Never mind General Grievous, Dame Grievance aka Jackie the Hutt, will be along shortly in the msm with her usual bluster and bullsh1t that will make everything appear to be the SG’s fault.
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Are they hanging their heads in shame in the photo?
Ha ! Ha ! Shame is not a word in the Labour vocabulary these days .
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Aye we have HQ lapdogs Murray and Shanks cast aspersions upon the SNP and too upon all of the decisions and actions in Covid via the Scottish government….yet….
The Bold highlights in black have been added by me….for emphasis.
Open Democracy states :
“Welsh ministers were also slammed by Covid bereaved for deleting texts and failing to establish independent inquiry”
“The Welsh government has “refused to open itself up to scrutiny” over its decision-making during the pandemic, the UK Covid inquiry has heard”.
“A lawyer acting for Covid Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru (CBFJC) said the group was left “bitterly disappointed” after ministers in Cardiff refused to establish an independent Wales-specific inquiry “despite repeated calls from the Welsh bereaved and political community”.
“Nia Gowman said the ‘special purpose committee’ the Welsh Assembly set up instead “lacks teeth” and has been likened by its own members to “using a sticking plaster to treat a bad wound”.
“Speaking today on behalf of the group CBFJC , Gowman also criticised the Welsh government’s failure to declare relevant communications to the UK inquiry“.
“She said the inquiry will be shown evidence in the coming weeks that shows “senior special advisers suspiciously and systematically deleting communications…[and] reminding themselves and others that they had agreed, quote, ‘to clear out WhatsApp chat once a week’.”
“Gowman said there is evidence of Vaughan Gething, who was Wales’s minister for health during the pandemic, “turning on ‘disappearing messages’”, a WhatsApp function that automatically deletes texts after a period of either 24 hours, a week or 90 days”.
“The issue of ministers’ deleted WhatsApp messages has cropped up throughout the course of the UK inquiry. Evidence shows that both Scottish and UK ministers have deleted WhatsApps sent during the pandemic”.
“Gowman also claimed that Welsh ministers had repeatedly tried “to hide behind and deflect blame onto the UK government”.
End of some of the Open Democracy’s article as not all of article is included above.
******
Nia Gowman is Barrister for the Covid 19 Bereaved Families For Justice Cymru.
Also remember the Welsh Labour Health Secretary Vaughan Gething is one of the candidates campaigning to be the next Welsh Labour FM.
So next time Ian Murray and the other HQ stooge Michael Shanks opines on how badly they think that the Scottish government handled the pandemic in Scotland, indeed Murray opined in the Edinburgh Evening news that they, the Scottish government ministers , deleting WhatsApp message was “disgusting” and we also had the irrelevant and non entity from the Scottish (INO) Lib Dems …..leader in title only….one Alex ‘F*ck You Maree’ Cole-Hamilton declare “it could be the biggest national scandal in devolution”….well he needs to get out and about more and start smelling the Coffee…..because his bias and hatred of the SNP must be making him blind to the revelations on actions via Welsh Labour……and I guess he must also be blind to the many (much greater) shenanigans (scandals) involving Tory HQ aka the UK government during the pandemic…..(actually Pre and Post Pandemic)….I guess he is also blind to many of the wrongs (and scandals) via his own HQ party….one being Ed Davey’s inclusion in criticism in the Post office scandal…..
Karma is a bitch….but it does catch up with many political big mouths ,who speak far too soon in accusing others of that which they themselves , and too their parties, are guilty of (or witness)…. and then subsequently they are left with egg on their collective faces……though I am sure no shame or remorse will be forthcoming from any of them…..as it will still be #Full steam ahead’ for their combined venture as in project #SNPBAD………however it does make them all look very very very foolish (time they all got off their (self appointed) moral High Horse…No)
NMRN
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The payment has just been increased in the SG’s Budget passed today to £26.70 per wk.
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The lack of coverage – of acknowledgement – by BBC Scotland and the mainstream media that supposedly serves Scotland for some time now of the innovative, progressive, unique in the UK, and by all accounts effective intervention by the SNP government of the Scottish Child Payment is ‘telling’. And recall, it would be even more effective in changing the lives of children in the least well-off families if it hadn’t been eaten away by Westminster reversing an increase in Universal Credit.
The lack of much if any acknowledgement by the leadership of the Labour Party of the significance of the Scottish Child Payment is also noteworthy – adhering to the Bain Principle yet again? The grudging acknowledgement by certain campaigning NGOs who go on to claim that the level of payment is not high enough does them no credit: OF COURSE IT’S NOT HIGH ENOUGH but are they really so unaware of the context determining Scotland’s public finances? Which Peter do they propose to rob to pay Paul?
When Labour’s manager or his sidekick dame in Scotland demand more funding from the Scottish Government for whatever is their current focus in media statements, would they recommend that the savings in Scotland’s public finances to pay for their priorities come AT THE EXPENSE of the Scottish Child Payment? Candidly, given the present state of the leadership of a Labour Party that I once voted for regularly, I’m not sure the matter would enter their head except perhaps in terms of short term tactical considerations and related media management issues – in Labour’s pursuit of power, do the latter now trump all?
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they are not hanging their head in shame , they are doing what what Scottish turncoats do they are grovelling , cowering , in hope that they will be accepted and thrown a few coins by their masters
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