SWBG blog

Reaction to the Scottish Budget 2024/2025

On Tuesday 19th December, the Deputy First Minister (DFM), Shona Robinson, published the Scottish Budget 2024/2025. As stated in our pre-budget briefing, we knew that this budget was coming at a time of increased pressure on public finances due to an estimated funding gap of over £1billion for the next financial year (Fraser of Allander, 2023). The Autumn Statement did not help ease budgetary pressures. Consequently, the Scottish Government had to make tough decisions to balance the books. What are these decisions and what do they mean for women and gender equality in Scotland?  

Here is our initial analysis of some budget portfolios. 

Social Justice 

Starting with the positives, the DFM announced the increase of all Scottish benefits in line with September’s 2023 CPI. This was a welcomed measure, and one we had advocated for as women are more likely to rely on social security and receive more of their individual and household income from the social security system than men (WBG, 2022). However, we were disappointed that the Scottish Child payment did not increase to £30 per week. Women’s poverty is inextricably tied to child poverty. Due to the high cost of essentials, particularly food for those on lower incomes, we argue that choosing not to increase the Scottish Child payment beyond inflation rates will have a detrimental impact on women and their children, worsening poverty rates.  

In addition, we were also disappointed to see standstill funding for the Scottish Welfare Fund despite increasing demand (Scottish Housing News, 2023) as well as cuts to the housing portfolio. Most importantly, there seems to be a lack of equalities’ analysis justifying these decisions, or providing detail as to how these decisions will affect people in Scotland, particularly women and girls.  

NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care 

This is a key area of the budget as it includes the revenue awards for Social Care Support and the delivery of the National Care Service. The percentage increase of this budget line is 29.1% in cash terms and includes funding for the pay uplift for adult social care staff to £12 per hour and additional investment in Free Personal Nursing Care.  

Based on our cost-modelling research to support the transformation of adult social care in Scotland, we consider the total amount allocated to this area insufficient if the Scottish Government is to address the current challenges of the sector. The pay uplift does not recognise the value of the workforce, doing little to tackle staff shortages. Equally important, and despite making a reference to ‘increasing capacity’, there is no mention within the budget of expanding the workforce to meet current demand in line with care needs. While technology and data could play a role in increasing capacity, the very nature of social care is labor-intensive. Therefore, without appropriate levels of investment, the Scottish Government risks realising its intention of delivering a NCS able to “future-proof the social care sector for generations to come - and for people coming into the profession” (Scottish Government, National Care Service, 2023).  

Education and Skills 

Within this budget portfolio, we are pleased to see a rise of 205.8% (in cash terms) for the expansion of Early Learning and Childcare (ELC), with a commitment to ‘supporting sector sustainability’. This change in funding levels aims to deliver the commitment to pay £12/hour to staff in the private, voluntary and independent sector who deliver funded ELC. This is an important step to support these providers in offering better, more competitive rates for their workforce. Yet, this increase may fall short when we consider the impact that increasing operating costs such as higher energy and food prices are having on childcare providers. Regrettably, the budget failed to address the cost of expanding funded childcare for 1- and 2-year-olds, which is having a detrimental impact on families, and particularly women, in Scotland (SWBG, 2023). 

In addition, while we welcome the 2.2% increase (in cash terms) in the budget line for ‘equalities, inclusion and additional support for learning’. Yet, this increase simply ensures the continuation of ‘statutory services affected by inflation rises’. Our Childcare Survey 2023 revealed the difficulties that mothers encounter when they try to access specialist services for children with learning support needs, and the personal and economic impacts that this has on them.   The budget does not address this issue, or the lack of wraparound care for children with additional support needs (SWBG, 2023) let alone the ‘growing need’ for specialist support services as indicated by the Scottish Children’s Services Coalition (SCSC, 2023). We are unsure if this 2.2% increase will be enough to also cover the pay uplift promised for the sector.  Given the implications that that the lack of adequate childcare services has on women (SWBG, 2023), it is uncertain how this budget line will work towards the Scottish Government’s goals on gender equality and the Equality and Fairer Scotland Budget Statement doesn’t provide relevant information on this  

Other budget portfolios 

The budget includes other changes which may potentially entrench inequalities. We are particularly concerned about the 11.2% decrease in support for bus services. Our Women’s Survey 2023 found that 37% of women respondents from minority ethnic communities and 27% of disabled women relied on buses, with 41% of disabled women struggling to manage transport costs and 53% of women from ethnic minority communities having to change their travel plans due to the cost of public transport. Considering that last year transport costs rose 15% across Scotland (BBC, 2023), the decision to decrease support could have a detrimental impact on women from these communities, who are also most vulnerable to the cost-of-living crisis (SWBG, 2023; SWBG and Poverty Alliance, 2022). And while the decision has been justified because of shrinking demand, we argue that withdrawing support could also lead to lower demand, and overreliance on less sustainable modes of transport, such as cars, despite the government’s commitment to reduce car kilometers by 20% by 2030 (Transport Scotland, 2022).  

The Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy budget portfolio has also been severely affected by changes in the budget. Within this portfolio, the Fair Work and Labour Strategy has seen a decrease of 51.4% compared to last year’s budget, resulting for example in the (planned) closure of the Workplace Equality Fund and the Disability Public Social Partnership. The reduction of the budget line for Fair Work is a disappointing decision from an equalities’ perspective. Further information in relation to this change and the impact of it on women and girls would have been helpful to understand how the Government intends to achieve greater equality in the labor market.  

Finally, we are concerned about standstill funding for the legal aid fund, which represents a real-terms cut to this budget line, with consequences for those in most need. According to the Law Society (The Law Society, 2023), cuts to legal aid in England and Wales have left people unable to get help with family, employment, housing and debt problems, or having to go to court without representation. Research by the UK Women’s Budget Group found that 85% of respondents from support services said vulnerable women are unable to access civil legal aid and 77% said a major consequence of the legal aid changes is ‘women reaching crisis point or problems escalating’ before they receive any legal help or advice (WBG, 2023). Therefore, the decision not to increase the legal aid fund could disproportionally affect women, particularly women reporting domestic abuse or discrimination, including maternity/pregnancy discrimination.  

Conclusions 

We knew that this budget was going to be a challenging one given the estimated funding gap for the next financial year. While some spending commitments are welcomed, these are not ambitious enough to tackle inequality and to substantially improve the lives of women and girls in Scotland.  

 

 

References 

Fraser of Allander Institute, 2023. Scotland’s Budget Report 2023. Last accessed 08/01/24: https://fraserofallander.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Scotlands-Budget-Report-2023-FINAL-for-publication.pdf  

STV News, 2023. Warning over lack of support for children with additional needs. Last accessed 08/01/24: https://news.stv.tv/scotland/resources-are-lacking-to-support-scottish-children-with-additional-needs-say-campaigners  

Transport Scotland, 2022. Reducing car use for a healthier, fairer and greener Scotland. Last accessed 08/01/24: https://www.transport.gov.scot/news/reducing-car-use-for-a-healthier-fairer-and-greener-scotland/   

BBS News, 2023. Soaring bus fares ‘devastating’ for passengers. Last accessed 08/01/24: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-65165906   

The Law Society, 2023. A decade of cuts: Legal aid in tatters. Last accessed 08/01/24: https:// www.lawsociety.org.uk/contact-or-visit-us/press-office/press-releases/a-decade-of-cuts-legal-aid-in-tatters  

Scottish Housing News, 2023. Statistics reveal 7% increase in demand for Scottish Welfare Fund. Last accessed 08/01/24: http://www.scottishhousingnews.com/articles/statistics-reveal-7-increase-in-demand-for-scottish-welfare-fund  

National Care Service, Scottish Government. Social Care policy. Last accessed 08/01/24: https://www.gov.scot/policies/social-care/national-care-service/#:~:text=Our%20goal%20is%20to%20future,and%20delivering%20social%20care%20support  

Scottish Women’s Budget Group, 2023. Women’s Survey 2023. Experiences of rising costs across Scotland. Last accessed: 08/01/24 https://www.swbg.org.uk/content/publications/SWBG-Cost-ofLiving-report-proof-06.pdf   

Scottish Women’s Budget Group, 2023. Policy Briefing: Childcare Survey 2023’. Last accessed 08/01/24: https://www.swbg.org.uk/content/publications/Policy-Briefing---Childcare-Survey-2023.pdf   

UK Women’s Budget Group. 2022. The gendered impact of the cost-of-living crisis. Last accessed/ 08/01/24: https://wbg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/The-gendered-impact-of-the-cost-of-living-crisis.pdf 

UK Women’s Budget Group, 2023. Gender Gaps in Access to Civil Legal Justice. Last accessed 08/01/24: https://wbg.org.uk/analysis/reports/gender-gaps-in-access-to-civil-legal-justice/ 

 

 

Invest to prevent VAWG

Blog by Robyn Moffat-Wall, Training and Engagement Officer at Financially Included & Heather Williams, SWBG's Training Lead about women's experiences of public sector debt.

 

The theme for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence 2023 is “UNITE! Invest to prevent violence against women and girls”, set by UN Women who identify violence against women and girls as one of the most prevalent and pervasive human rights violations in the world.  

Violence Against Women and Girls is a cause and consequence of women’s inequality. To combat VAWG, it is essential that governments take action to address women’s wider inequality and understand how the decisions they take can help tackle VAWG or further entrap women and girls. Using gender budgeting approaches to analyse decisions can help ensure that we tackle inequality. 

One often overlooked form of violence against women and girls is economic abuse. Economic abuse is defined as “behaviours that control a woman’s ability to acquire, use, and maintain economic resources, thus threatening her economic security and potential for self-sufficiency” (Adams et al. 2008) and is recognised as a tactic of coercive control in the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018.  

 

Cara’s Story: Cara (not her real name) was subject to economic abuse for a period of 20 years. Her abusive boyfriend had total control over their household finances and assured her everything was in order. When she fled his abuse, she discovered over £20,000 in Council Tax arrears which he’d hidden from her.  

This is an extreme example with a large amount in arrears, however this is a common theme among our clients, many of whom had been sending their contributions to their partners under the belief that these bills were being paid. 

 

Council Tax legislation considers couples living together in a household as “joint and severally liable”, holding both parties responsible for payment. There are no specific policies or procedures for debt collectors to consider situations like Cara’s, where council tax arrears have been accrued without her knowledge. Negotiations can be made about the pace of collection, but the full amount must be paid. 

Our clients struggling with council tax arrears tell us about how they know their abusive ex-partners are avoiding collection of this joint debt leaving them having to deal with this. Through our work we know that men are better able to avoid this debt. Women are more identifiable by authorities due to their ties to community through caring responsibilities. Women with children are more likely to be: 

• registered with an NHS GP, dentist, health visitor, nurseries’, schools.  

• dependent on social security (Engender, 2015).  

These systems require an up-to-date address, making women more visible to local authorities. 

From our clients' experience, debt collection methods around public debt has the effect of exacerbating the impacts of the economic abuse they have suffered.  

Public Sector Debt Management is an area that would benefit from applying a gender budgeting approach. 

To mark this year’s 16 Days of Activism, alongside the Scottish Women’s Budget Group, we are calling on the Scottish Government to work with local authorities across Scotland to invest to prevent violence against women and girls. As part of this investment, we’d like to see a commitment to the redevelopment of debt management strategies and incorporating trauma-informed policies to safeguard against economic abuse within their Council Tax collection processes.

 

Financially Included are a partnership project between GEMAP Scotland Ltd and the Glasgow Violence Against Women Partnership dedicated to tackling economic abuse and improving responses for survivors. We provide specialist advice to women who have experienced gender-based violence and tailored training for workers in Glasgow on best practice in supporting survivors. We have secured financial gains of £860,000, money that our client would not have accessed without our specialist support, of which debt write-offs amount to £35,802 granted by the private banking sector, where we’ve seen a growing understanding of economic abuse. We have partnered in a pilot with Surviving Economic Abuse who lead the way in improving understanding of economic abuse in the private sector. 

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References:  

Adams, A. E., Sullivan, C. E., Bybee, D., & Greeson, M. R., 2008, “Development of the Scale of Economic Abuse”, Violence Against Women, 14 (5), pp. 563-588. [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1077801208315529]  

Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2018/5/contents/enacted  

Engender, 2016, Securing Women’s Futures: using Scotland’s new Social Security Powers to close the Gender Equality Gap, Engender. https://www.engender.org.uk/content/gendermattersinsocialsecurity  

Social Justice and Social Security Committee, 2022, Robbing Peter to pay Paul: Low income and the debt trap, The Scottish Parliament. Robbing Peter to pay Paul: Low income and the debt trap | Scottish Parliament 

UN Women 2023, Unite! Invest to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls, UN Women.  https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/unite/theme  

Reaction to the Autumn Statement

Our Training Lead, Heather Williams, reflects on yesterday's budget announcements.

 

With any budget or Autumn Statement it is often said “the devil is in the detail”, and this one is no different.

Yesterday, the Chancellor gave the illusion of helping those most hard pressed by the current cost-of-living crisis but in fact he gave with one hand and behind the scenes took with the other. At the start of his speech, he announced that benefits will increase by the September CPI rate, and that the triple lock for pensions will be maintained. At end of his speech, he announced a 2% cut in employee national insurance contributions and an increase in the national minimum wage to £11.44 an hour. For most women, he made these “apparent” increases in their income disappear as he maintained the freeze on the thresholds for tax and national insurance bands. According to the OBR, such freeze will see 4 million more people pay basic income tax and 3 million more move to the highest rate[1]. In addition, despite continuing higher rates of inflation, the Chancellor failed to maintain the £900 cost-of-living payment that many low-income households have been receiving.

The WBG estimate that lone parent mothers will benefit by £76 a year from the NIC changes compared to £248 for lone parent fathers and £417 for a dual parent household.[2] Given the ongoing cost-of-living crisis and higher inflation rates, this will be a real terms cut for many. Those on the lowest incomes will continue to struggle to manage basic household costs such as food and energy. 

During his speech, the chancellor quoted Nigel Lawson and said that borrowing is just deferred tax on future generations. We believe that yesterday's "tax giveaway" and failure to invest in public services or tackling climate change, is likely to mean women and girls will feel the economic pain in the near future as a result of needing to shore up already crumbling social infrastructure such as social care and childcare.

This prioritisation of tax cuts, which will benefit the wealthiest more over investment in public services, will impact on the Chancellor’s stated intention to grow the economy. This is because without addressing care and the level of unpaid care women do, economic growth will be hampered. 

The Chancellor’s statement was based on the premise that the UK is a high taxed nation. But while tax levels are at historically high levels, the UK is not a high tax country by other nations’ standards.[3] The illusion that we can provide good quality public services with low taxation needs to be shattered. Lowering taxation is not the only way to grow the economy and improve individuals’ standards of living. Public services, such as the NHS, high quality education, adult social care and childcare, can improve people's living standards, particularly women's, contributing to greater gender equality and much needed economic activity. 

The knock-on impact of these tax giveaways and the failure to invest in public services will have consequences for the Scottish Government and other devolved administrations. Difficult choices on spending will need to be made as it is likely inflationary pressures such as increased staffing and energy costs will wipe out any budget consequentials from the decisions announced yesterday. We hope that as these decisions are being taken, the Scottish Government uses an intersectional gendered lens to make sure that those most disadvantaged, particularly women, are protected at these already difficult times.

[1] https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-november-2023/

[2] https://wbg.org.uk/media/press-releases/wbgs-response-to-the-autumn-statement/

[3] https://wbg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Tax-Pre-Budget-Briefing-Autumn-2023-FINAL.pdf

What SWBG would like to see in the Autumn Statement

In times of insecurity and increasing levels of poverty and destitution (JRF 2023), comments about what may be included in the Chancellor’s statement leave little room to aspire to (Binns, 2023). While many issues remain devolved, public spending and tax issues as well as block grants, have a great impact on Scotland. This blog will detail what we’d like to see in the upcoming statement, especially in relation to advancing gender equality across the UK.

Social security

Social benefits are highly important to supplement women’s incomes, especially in households where the woman is the sole earner (Women’s Budget Group, 2022). As a result of rising costs, those on benefits have seen their incomes eroded. The cost of food is estimated by the ONS to be 30% higher in October 2023 than it was in October 2021; and while the headline rate of inflation may have dropped in October to 4.6%, the price of essential goods is not reducing (ONS, 2023). This is why, along with many other third sector organisations, we believe that the Chancellor must use this statement to increase all welfare payments in line with the September CPI inflation figure. Otherwise, those who rely on social security will be facing a further real terms cut in their income.

Current rates for Universal Credit mean that those who rely on this are living in poverty, unable to afford essential household costs and leaving people choosing between eating and heating. Our recent survey with Making Rights Real and Fa‘side Women and Girls Group found that 66% of those on Universal Credit struggled to manage food costs and 79% struggle with heating costs (2023) This is why we are backing the Essentials Guarantee campaign by the Trussell Trust and Joseph Rowntree Foundation which calls for a basic minimum floor of at least £120 for a single adult and £200 for a couple (Trussell Trust & JRF, 2023).

To achieve a ‘caring social security system’, we also call for:

• Removal of the benefit cap along with other measures such as the two-child limit and young parent penalty due to their adverse impact on women and poverty rates more broadly.
• Reverse the conditionality requirements for parents on Universal Credit. This would have a positive impact on single mothers who are already experiencing increasing insecurity as a result of a lack of affordable/accessible childcare and flexible employment (Gingerbread 2023; SWBG 2023);
• Review thresholds for means tested benefits such as Pension Credit;
• Invest in a comprehensive programme of benefits take up;
• Increase the level of financial support for asylum seekers, people with no recourse to public funds and people when gaining refugee status.
• Unfreeze the Local Housing Allowance and increase housing benefit rates, which is contributing to a record number of people living in temporary accommodation across the UK and is resulting in increased spending on costly temporary accommodation (Gecsoyler 2023; Gecsoyler 2023).

Taxation and Public Services

The UK Government has a duty to show they are using the maximum available resources to ensure that the rights of those in the UK, such as the ‘right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family' (United Nations, 2023), are not regressing. Given the numbers who are struggling to manage essential household costs we do not believe now is the time for the possible tax cuts being trailed in the press (Savage and King, 2023).

Alongside our sisters at the Women’s Budget Group, we call for the reform of the current tax system. Women are more likely to have lower levels of wealth due to caring responsibilities and rely more often on public services. With rising costs and cuts to these essential services, tax can provide a means to fund critical social infrastructure, improving women’s living standards. Find out more in the Women’s Budget Group Pre-Budget Briefing on Taxation and Gender: Autumn Statement 2023: Taxation and Gender - Womens Budget Group (wbg.org.uk)

Investment is needed in public services such as the NHS, social care and childcare services if the UK economy is going to grow. Tax cuts will only starve essential public services of much needed cash and will severely limit the government's ability to tackle NHS waiting times or to deliver on its childcare targets. All of which will negatively impact on the government's ability to grow the numbers of those in employment and ultimately, on the government’s ability to grow the economy.

We need to strengthen basic universal services via funding from tax reform. This is key to ensure that this decade of austerity doesn’t persist, damaging more livelihoods and further entrenching pre-existing structural inequalities like gender inequality.

 

Engage with us!

Heather, our Training Lead, will be on BBC Scotland tomorrow at 2:15pm. Tune in and hear SWBG’s response to the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement.

If you’d like to find out more about what the UK Government’s Autumn Budget Statement will mean for Scotland, and what we think the Scottish Government should address ahead of the upcoming Scottish Budget, sign up to our event here: The UK Autumn Budget - Potential opportunities & implications for Scotland Tickets, Wed 29 Nov 2023 at 14:00 | Eventbrite

 

References

Binns, K (2023) ‘What to expect from the Autumn Statement 2023’. Last accessed 20/11/23: What to expect from the Autumn Statement 2023 - Times Money Mentor (thetimes.co.uk)

Gecsoyler (2023) ‘”Morale is very low”: evicted tenant’s three months and counting in a London Travelodge’. Last accessed 21/11/23: ‘Morale is very low’: evicted tenant’s three months and counting in a London Travelodge | Homelessness | The Guardian

Gecsoyler (2023) ‘Number of households in temporary accommodation in England at highest level’. Last accessed 21/11/23: Number of households in temporary accommodation in England at highest level | Housing | The Guardian

Gingerbread (2023) ‘Changes to Universal Credit conditionality: Gingerbread’s response’. Last accessed 20/11/23: Changes to Universal Credit conditionality: Gingerbread's response | Gingerbread

Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2023) Destitution in the UK 2023. Last accessed 21/11/23: Destitution in the UK 2023 | JRF

Office for National Statistics (2023) ‘Cost of living insights: Food’. Last accessed 21/11/23: Cost of living insights - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

Savage, M. & King, S (2023) ‘Millions of UK families using credit cards and loans to pay basic bills’. Last accessed 21/11/23: Millions of UK families using credit cards and loans to pay basic bills | Poverty | The Guardian

Scottish Women’s Budget Group (2023) Women’s Survey 2023: Experiences of rising costs across Scotland. Last accessed 20/11/23: SWBG-Cost-of-Living-report-proof-06.pdf

Trussell Trust and Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2023) ‘Guarantee our Essentials: reforming Universal Credit to ensure we can all afford the essentials in hard times’. Last accessed 21/11/23: https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/guarantee-our-essentials

United Nations (2023) ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’. Last accessed 20/11/23: Universal Declaration of Human Rights | United Nations

Women’s Budget Group (2022) Who loses from benefit uprating changes? A gendered analysis. Last accessed 20/11/23: Benefit-uprate-briefing.pdf (wbg.org.uk)