CHALLENGE Poverty Week was held in Scotland earlier this month. 

Co-ordinated by the Poverty Alliance, the initiative was supported by hundreds of organisations raising our collective voice against poverty.

The STUC, my own union branch, Unison Scotland and Aberdeen Trades Union Council were all proud to join this initiative. 

It has never been more important to shine a spotlight on poverty. It was increasing before Covid, with the numbers of foodbanks growing. 

Even more worrying, it was becoming normalised — as if it’s acceptable to have so many of our most vulnerable citizens dependent on the charity of others just to survive.

However, under the pandemic, more and more people have found themselves jobless or with insecure or part-time work and dependent on universal credit.

In my part of the world, Aberdeenshire, generally considered to be one of the better-off parts of Scotland, a council report in August identified a 75 per cent increase in universal credit claims, with more people who have never fallen victim to poverty now at risk.

Across Scotland, government figures show that one in four of our children are living in poverty. Some 65 per cent of those children are living in households where someone is in work. In the UK that figure is 72 per cent.

The key messages of Challenge Poverty Week identified that, across Scotland, too many people are living with the constant pressure of poverty. 

It echoed the calls from the STUC, highlighted by general secretary Roz Foyer in her Morning Star piece in September, for a redesign of the economy to reflect the values of justice and compassion as we plan our economic recovery; and for people’s incomes to be boosted through decent pay and benefits alongside a reduction in the cost of living.

This is good as far as it goes. However, what poverty charities often fail to acknowledge is that the UK is the sixth-richest country in the world. 

There is no less money in our economy. It is just in the wrong hands. 

There is no doubt that inequality has increased since the introduction of austerity in 2010. 

I remember some years ago hearing a previous editor of the Morning Star say that austerity was allowing the Tory government “to preside over a mass transfer of wealth to the richest from the rest of us.” I have had cause to quote him many times.

Because as well as being the sixth-richest, the UK is also the seventh most unequal country in the world. 

Research by the Equalities Trust has shown that the 1,000 richest people in the UK in 2018 had a total wealth of £724 billion, an increase of £274bn in five years. 

Scotland is not immune. Government figures from 2015-18 show that income inequality in this country is growing, with the top 10 per cent of the population earning more than the bottom 40 per cent combined.

This suggests to me that, worthy though the aims of Challenge Poverty Week are, much more radical action is needed to tackle this inequality and to redistribute wealth back from the richest to the poorest. 

This needs to include the central role of council services in combating poverty. 

Unison has been warning since austerity that council services are of critical importance to low-income families in our communities. Cuts to local government budgets have the greatest impact on the poorest. 

Children from poor families depend most on many of the services that have fallen victim to the cuts including music tuition, school support, sports facilities and libraries. 

Poverty is not just about food, resource and health deprivation. It is also about denying our poorest children the opportunities to develop their potential and to achieve academically. 

I saw the Scottish government was supporting Challenge Poverty Week with a lovely picture of the First Minister and other party leaders holding up placards. 

However, the reality is that the Scottish government could be doing much more to tackle poverty and inequality. Holyrood has passed on more cuts to councils than even came down from Westminster. 

Between 2013-14 and 2018-19 the real-terms local government revenue settlement decreased by 7.5 per cent while the Scottish government revenue budget reduced only by 2.8 per cent.

Instead the Scottish government has chosen to fund universal benefits such as free prescription charges and tuition fees: politically popular but only redistributive if money is clawed back through progressive use of tax powers. 

So far they have not seen fit to do this.

We need to change the narrative around poverty which, even with rising numbers, still sees stigma attached to it. 

We need to help people realise that any one of us could end up dependent on benefits and foodbanks; and to understand that poverty could be addressed tomorrow if the political will was there.

We need to shame the Westminster government into taking action to end tax loopholes and to borrow to invest in properly funded public services and a welfare system that is fit for purpose. 

The Covid-19 crisis has brought into focus the stark inequalities in Scotland and the UK. 

It has exposed the scandal that the people we most rely on in times of need are the worst paid. 

It has shown that when times are hard, the rich still manage to get richer at the expense of the rest of us. 

We need to build our campaign for “no going back to normal” and articulate the radical policies that will address poverty and inequality. Otherwise the issues the pandemic has exposed will soon be forgotten.

Kate Ramsden is chair of Unison Scotland’s communications & campaigns committee and an NEC member.