Battling with Bias

Some people are poor because they spend money on cigarettes. Some people are poor because they spend money on alcohol. Some people are poor because they spend all day watching television, rather than going out to work.

Right?

Well, I’m not convinced.

Sure, there are people living in poverty who smoke and there are people living in poverty who drink. There are people living in poverty who spend time watching television. I have yet; however, to meet a single person who is poor BECAUSE they smoke, drink or watch daytime television.

Poverty is multifaceted and complex. Systems and circumstances beat people down and tie them to the unrelenting cycle that is poverty.

Before I began working with the Poverty Truth Commission, I found it relatively easy to make unfair judgements. I’m sure I still make unfair judgements. I applied for the role because I was passionate about helping those who really needed help but was sure there were plenty people out there who just really needed to help themselves. I cringe now. What I was saying is that there is a deserving poor and an undeserving poor.

For me, one of the most powerful messages of the Poverty Truth Commission is that we cannot make judgements or decisions about people’s lives without really getting to know people with first-hand experience of the situation. I’ve been privileged in that my role has allowed me to get to know people experiencing poverty: to spend time with them on the good days and the bad; to be the first person they speak to when, already struggling, they have received news their benefits will be cut; to sit down for a good old catch up over a cup of tea.

This insight, and more importantly the people I have met, has challenged my biases. People experiencing poverty aren’t scroungers. Many categorically refuse to visit a Food Bank; it is preferable to go many days without eating. They aren’t lazy.  It is saddening the number of people I have met whose health (or more accurately, ill health) has meant they are genuinely currently unable to work.

Some people are poor despite being hard working. Some people are poor despite positively contributing to society. Some people are poor despite being kind hearted and generous.

Yes, there are people who make unfortunate choices but we cannot blame people living in poverty. The statements I opened with (about people living in poverty smoking, drinking and watching television) are fictional, based largely on media portrayals. The later statements (about people in poverty being hard working and kind hearted) are factual, based on real people who have generously shared their stories with me.

The reality I have seen is that people living in poverty go out to work every day despite being paid minimum wage on insecure contracts with no holiday entitlement or pension package. They volunteer whilst looking for paid employment. They are unable to work because they are caring for their grandchildren whose parents are unable to do so.

Next time you are ready to pass judgement, I challenge you: think about someone you actually know in the situation and ask yourself “does my conclusion match their reality?” If it doesn’t, the chances are it doesn’t apply more broadly either. If you cannot think of anyone in the situation, perhaps ask yourself “am I really in a position to pass judgement?”

Siobhan Murray

Administration and Communications Assistant, The Poverty Truth Commission

Poverty and the NHS

Many GPs say they know about poverty from their work, and some will have direct experience or stories from their own family background.

The doctor- patient consultation is a unique space; each participant getting  information across, making decisions and seeing  a way forward in a  tight time frame. So this brief meeting means a distilled version of the patient and the doctor is present in the room.

Being a commissioner

These were at the forefront of my mind being a commissioner with the Poverty Truth Commission, representing GPs at the Deep End over the past eighteen months.

I thought I knew about poverty- but getting to know the commissioners and listening to what they had to say about their day to day experiences was different.

Hearing what it is like to spend every day, every week- with little chance of respite-  ensuring  money for food, heating, clothing and children’s needs, can stretch enough.

Hearing  about how public organisations like the department for work and pensions, social work, housing, the police and the NHS can be so unthinking, stigmatising or even cruel when people who experience poverty use their services.

Hearing about the resilience of individuals and communities and the active steps commissioners were taking to change things and the progress that has been made.

I was also struck by many of the commissioners being surprised that despite being a doctor I seem to be a normal person. Is our society so divided that people who work as doctors and people who experience poverty can’t know each other as normal?

Discrimination

Poverty is not a ‘protected characteristic’ when it comes to equality legislation and it shouldn’t be -because poverty is not an intrinsic part of a person or a choice actively made. However this means that public organisations can ignore the fact of poverty in their service users lives when they are designing and delivering services.

The challenges for us all

·        

• Ensuring  the NHS and other public services do not discriminate against people experiencing poverty and actively involve the experts-people who experience poverty- in doing  this.
• Ensuring  that all people who work in public services treat people who are experiencing poverty with respect and are sensitive to their needs.
• Working actively to make Scotland a place where social and economic barriers do not exist between people.

Andrea Williamson

Andrea Williamson is a GP who works in homelessness health, addictions and at the University of Glasgow. She is a member of the GPs at the Deep End steering group.

The onus is on us all to raise voter turnout

Nothing About Us Without Us is For Us

In less than 3 months, the people of Scotland will take part in what is one of the most important democratic decisions that our nation will take during my lifetime. It is the decision about whether or not Scotland should become an independent country or remain a part of the union with the rest of the United Kingdom.

All the signs are that record numbers of people will turn out to vote. That, regardless of the outcome, is fantastic. So too are the record number of village, town and community hall meetings which are taking place the length and breadth of the land as we think about how to vote. And the campaigning which we are seeing on our streets every day is brilliant, even if occasionally it goes a little bit over the top. We must never forget that in other nations, and at other times, people have died for the right to exercise the choice that we will do freely on in September. Maybe, when our descendants look back on this period in our history, they will point to it as a time when popular democracy was re-ignited. When we discovered again that our voice, our opinion and our vote mattered. I hope so.

However, whilst it is exciting that so many people are involved in the debate, we need to recognise that thousands and thousands are still not. They are not only those who could vote but won’t – turned off by scandal or the sense that nothing changes. They are also those who, whilst eligible to vote, are not yet on the electoral register. They are frequently those who have the least in our society. There is still time for people to register to vote. Let’s all do our part to make sure that that happens. To make sure that no one who has the right to vote in September is not able to do so.

For the last 5 years I have been involved with Scotland’s Poverty Truth Commission. The Commission brings together 2 groups of people: some of Scotland’s senior leaders and some of Scotland’s very poorest and most marginalised citizens. Our understanding is simple: that Scotland will never be as great nation as we could be until those who struggle against poverty every day are seen as part of the solution rather than part of the problem. In our work we have adopted, from the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, one of the great slogans of that historic struggle. Nothing About Us Without Us is For Us.

20 years on, the TV images of people queuing to vote in South Africa’s first free and democratic elections still give me goose-bumps. It would be great if similar pictures could be transmitted around the world on the 18^th September. As we turn out, in record numbers, to make our decision about what sort of future we want for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, our friends and our neighbours.

Martin Johnstone

Martin is a Church of Scotland minister involved in a wide range of anti-poverty organisations. He is Secretary of Scotland’s Poverty Truth Commission. 

In-work Poverty: an idea whose time has come?

Just before the 2010 UK election, David Cameron famously declared that the living wage was an idea “whose time has come”. After four years, however, it seems that in-work poverty has become for many a more decade defining phenomenon, and you do not need to look far to find Dave’s vision illusory.

Just round the corner from his house, in fact, you will find 12 out of 17 Whitehall departments paying their cleaning staff below the Living Wage. The dark humour is certainly not lost when you consider this dozen includes the departments for Health and for International Development, the latter of which has a mandate for tackling poverty globally….

“[the lack of a living wage is]…an affront to human dignity”

John Sentamu, Archbishop of York

The need for a proper living wage is self-evident. There are now more people in Scotland living in poverty in households where at least one person is working than in homes where no-one is in paid employment. There are fundamental flaws which mean that education and employment are not providing people with a route out of poverty.

However, just as spurious as Dave’s vision, is the belief that the manifestation of a living wage across society will neatly end in-work poverty.

It is a vital component in the campaign for a fairer society and a reduction in poverty. However, to regard it as the all-encompassing solution shows a lack of understanding of the intricacy of in-work poverty.  

We need a deeper insight. We need to hear from the experts: people with experience of it.

The PovertyTruth Commission has been doing just this over the last few years. Our findings have revealed the numerous barriers which are everyday realities for many, but often fall below the public radar. These include: lack of support for training and development; expensive and inflexible childcare; caring responsibilities going unrecognised; limited opportunities for career progression; the inflexibility of the current Benefits System and the rising trend of underemployment.

This is set against a backdrop of rapidly escalating costs for food and fuel in particular. In addition, it has been matched by a trend of decreasing working conditions for those on the lowest incomes. The increasingly ubiquitous zero-hour contract has brought no guarantee of working hours and, as such, no assured income. In addition, these working arrangements are extremely unlikely to leave their recipients with any holiday entitlements or pension contributions.

Challenges for all of us

It is palpable that the Living Wage Campaign needs continued support from all of us across society. It is deeply connected to legislation decided at Westminster and energy should be expended there. However, it also has a local current to it. Campaigning for it to be part of procurement considerations at both Holyrood and at local authority level is just one step we can all take.

However, we must also stop perpetuating the myth that work is the route out of poverty for everyone. It is only the case in the right environment and unless we make a concerted effort to address that context, we will remain in an age of in-work poverty.

When tackling poverty, it's not just statistics

‘I want the opportunity to have a life – to thrive not just survive.’ Marie

Last week the Labour party argued for more rigorous monitoring of child poverty levels in the UK. The call was for the Office for Budgetary Responsibility to produce two yearly assessments, as it currently does with economic growth predictions. The logic being that greater public awareness of poverty statistics could lead to improved Government action on what is an increasing problem.

Certainly child poverty has been absent from George Osbourne’s last three budget speeches and independent analysts predict child poverty rates are set to rise significantly. One estimate of a 600,000 increase by 2015-16 is truly shocking and should make everyone take note.

The Coalition’s approach

The government’s defence is that its new welfare regime has been designed to encourage people back to work and support those unable to do so.

How it has been carried out, however, has been roundly criticised on numerous fronts. A report on sanctions this month from Citizens Advice Scotland, for example, documents some of its brutal shortcomings.

The Poverty Trap

Moreover, aside from the actual implementation, there seems a deeper structural flaw to the system. By removing the safety net, huge swathes of people are being pushed into poverty, without recognition of how once there they can be easily trapped. Many of those bearing the brunt of the cuts are already working full time, stuck on the minimum wage, or struggling in an elusive search for more hours to cover rising living costs.  

There appears no understanding that poverty traps people: once there your opportunities decrease significantly, you encounter damaging stigma, and not only is your income reduced but you are charged more for basic goods and services.

A return to the safety net?

The previous administration’s record of reducing child poverty by 800,000, from 3.4m to 2.6m, seems, at first glance and in our current climate, to be of notable achievement.

Further analysis, on the other hand, highlights that the policies of New Labour did not display a deep enough approach. Heavily reliant on tweaks such as increases in Child Tax Credit and Child Benefit, this method lowered levels of child poverty statistically. However, this was against a backdrop of a failure to dent income inequality, as calculated by the Gini coefficient.

It gave many low income families some much needed extra income, but its inability to alter the overall structure of power, or encourage people’s sense of agency to flourish within it, resulted in a lack of sustainable progress.

Rethinking the Welfare System: involving people directly

It is clear that we need a wider dialogue around welfare policies which halt and reverse the rising inequality which has gone largely unquestioned over the last thirty years.

Income transfers are required and the welfare system should provide a safety net to prevent individuals from falling into poverty. However, to merely stop there would be a failure to learn from our past mistakes.

We cannot expect to create a sustainable system to lift people out of poverty if we do not directly involve those whom the changes are meant to be helping. People living and experiencing poverty on a daily basis need to have control over how it is shaped. We need their voices to help guide us.

Alternative Approach

The Poverty Truth Commission is trying to create this. On Saturday 21^st June, an audience of over 450 heard people with experience of poverty stand side by side with people in positions of power in Scotland. As well as hearing true stories of life on low incomes, those in attendance heard a vision for the future often ignored by the mainstream media. A vision of a fairer and more inclusive economy, geared towards the benefit of all in society, with universal and equal participation in decision making.

Challenges for us all

Since its inception in 2009, the Commission has been constantly and profoundly challenged by the testimonies it has heard from people living in poverty. In that spirit, it has offered a set of challenges for everyone across society, from politicians to the woman or man on the street.

Chief amongt them is this:

“We challenge politicians and civic leaders to stop talking about those in poverty and to start learning with them”

The Challenge to see past the Stereotypes

I was annoyed but, truth be told, not really surprised when reading Harriet Harman's account of the rifeness of sexism within UK politics. The gender disparity statistically which exists at Westminster, Holyrood and at lower levels of politics, is clear to see. Harman’s personal account, however, helped to illuminate the everyday realities of life in a heavily male dominated environment.

She spoke of how a female MP is "still defined by her marital status and reproductive record in a way that would be unthinkable for a man".  

Harman struck on a wider issue then gender equality, however, when she spoke of how unrepresentative of society parliament is. She identified that although many in positions of power have adopted the rhetoric of supporting equality, they feel this is enough in itself to bring about change. She said:

"You don't have to openly oppose equality to perpetuate inequality … All it takes is for those in positions of power to do nothing and the status quo prevails.”

The Poverty Truth Commission has learnt all about how this exists and impacts on the daily lives of people living in poverty. We have understood how the language and practices of different organisations - public service bodies, businesses and charities – can make individuals feel as if they are second class citizens, not worthy of equal treatment. One commissioner told us:

‘I’ve seen me fill in application forms and I’ll put down I live in Govan. But I’m then told “No, you don’t put down Govan. Write Glasgow, because if you say Govan, no-one is going to employ you.” They are even saying that at the Job Centre’.

We have heard stories of commissioners being judged and encountering stigma based on what clothes they are wearing or where they live. We as a Commission are appalled at the lack of moral courage of many within public life to stand alongside those who are unfairly caricatured.

Change is possible

As Harman correctly identifies this situation of acute gender inequality has continued because those in positions of power have done very little to address the root causes. The same is true of poverty. People in positions of power need to listen to those with experience of poverty. We challenge everyone to stand up to the stigmatisation of all marginalised groups across society.

Our Challenges

• We challenge all of us to see beyond the labels that stereotype people and which diminish our society as a whole.
• We challenge politicians to avoid unfair and prejudicial language against people living in poverty.
• We challenge organisations tackling poverty to engage more effectively with the media to ensure positive stories are heard

To read more about the work of the Commission and our challenges please have a look at our report.

How the Volume on Poverty was Turned Up

The volume was definitely turned up to the maximum on Saturday 21^st June as a packed Woodside Halls in Glasgow heard some truths about poverty. An audience of over 450 witnessed a stunning performance of comedy, drama, song, film, and conversation which, through showcasing personal experiences, revealed some shocking injustices and harsh realities of lives lived in poverty in 21^st century Scotland.

The event was organised to showcase the Poverty Truth Commission's work over the last 18 months, marking the closing of the current commission and the beginning of a new one. The Commission draws together people with experience of poverty and key decision makers in Scotland and has focused its work on a range of issues. These include food poverty, tackling the costs of being poor, welfare reform, in-work poverty, kinship care and the stigma faced by those in poverty.

Powerful Testimonies

A short video telling the Story of the Commission kicked off the proceedings.  What then followed were powerful personal testimonies. Such was the effect on the crowd, many were laughing at the humour in the performances one minute, only to find themselves a short time later close to tears and angry at the stigma and unjust situations faced by many. Hard-hitting stories of unfair sanctions were coupled with the humiliation of going to a food bank. There was outrage that, in a rich society such as Scotland, many still have to go without in order to feed their children, or have to choose between eating or heating.

The spotlight was shown on the experience of a young woman going through the asylum process. She explained how she had felt dirty and humiliated, as was met by a culture of disbelief at every turn, whilst routinely threatened with deportation to a country in which she knew she would suffer grave violence.

The senselessness of people on the lowest incomes often having to pay more for food, fuel and financial services acutely highlighted how many are trapped in poverty. The Commission showed how low wages, combined with employers inflexible to the demands of childcare, meant work is not a route of poverty for many.

These hard-hitting realities were often portrayed in creative ways. Using hip hop, a young woman spoke of her experience and her dismay at the inequalities she saw throughout Glasgow. ‘No Ball Games’ was a touching and clever film showing how poverty and the surrounding environment can stifle a persons need to express themselves.

A Call for Action

This event, however, was not merely designed to raise awareness of the unjust suffering of others. It was also a call for action.

A call for everyone in a position of power in Scotland to enable those with experience of poverty to have their voices heard, to give them a seat at the decision making table. It was a call for everyone to write to their energy companies, to demand better treatment of those on low incomes.

It was a call for all of us to stand up and say foodbanks are not the answer. Yes, we must ensure nobody is going hungry tonight in Scotland, but we must also focus our energies on tackling the causes of food poverty, so we do not have foodbanks tomorrow.

In addition, what emerged from the stories just as clearly as the injustices, was the real sense of resilience and determination of the individuals to keep striving for a better life for them and their children. Many highlighted the strength they had drawn from volunteering with organisations such as the Poverty Truth Commission, Bridging the Gap and the Scottish Refugee Council. Groups which managed to see past the label we often too readily put on people living in poverty.

Passing the Baton

After the work of the previous commission was presented the baton was passed to the new commissioners. Karyn McCluskey of the Violence Reduction Unit, speaking on behalf of the new batch, admitted she was left humbled and very much affected by the sheer strength of the performances. She was joined on stage by a host of other new commissioners, including Jackie Baillie MSP (Labour), Bob Doris MSP (Scottish National Party), Ross Finnie (Liberal Democrats), Margaret Lynch (Citizens Advice Scotland), Jim McCormick (Joseph Rowntree Foundation) and Most Rev Philip Tartaglia (Archbishop of Glasgow).

Nothing About Us, Without Us, is For Us

‘Nothing About Us, Without Us, is For Us’ was bellowed out three times by everyone in the hall as the event drew to a close. The message is clear: in order to eradicate poverty in Scotland, those with experience of it must be placed at the heart of the decision making process. They must be listened to.