The Scottish Parliament's Local Government and Communities Committee is holding an inquiry into child poverty in Scotland. The effects and causes of child poverty are well documented and the Committee's inquiry is intended to identify actions that would lead to significant improvements in the lives and prospects of children living in poverty in Scotland.

The Committee is keen to hear the views of all interested parties to assist in its inquiry.

The Committee is particularly interested to hear views on:-

• Targets - how to ensure effective scrutiny of progress made in achieving the target of halving child poverty by 2010 and eradicating child poverty by 2020?
• Single Outcome Agreements - the role of Single Outcome Agreements and Community Planning Partnerships in relation to policy and service delivery.
• Committee's role - how can the Committee ensure its scrutiny of progress is both regular and effective?
• Employment - supporting parents into, and remaining in, decently paid work.
• Benefits - practical issues around increasing uptake of benefits.
• Equality - the issue of sections of society being left behind and remaining out of reach of policies designed to reduce poverty.

The above list is not exhaustive and the Committee would like to hear any views relating to child poverty.

The Committee has already held a roundtable discussion with Bernardo's Scotland, Save the Children, the Child Poverty Action Group, NCH Scotland, One Parent families, the Poverty Alliance and the Working for Families Fund. The Committee wished to hear the views and share the experience of stakeholder groups working with children to inform their approach to its inquiry.

The above groups have sent a joint submission to the Committee detailing their main concerns on child poverty. The submission can be viewed here (92.85KB pdf).

Please could all views be received by Friday 27 June 2008.

• Written submissions received by the Committee will be added here.

How to contact us

Written views of no more than six side of A4 should be submittted by e_mail to lgc.committee@scottish.parliament.uk, preferable in WORD format. If you do not have access to a computer, please submit evidence in hard copy to the address below.

Please address submissions to—

The Clerk to the Local Government and Communities Committee

Room T3.40

The Scottish Parliament
Edinburgh

EH99 1SP

The deadline for responses is Friday 27 June 2008.  Late submission may, however, still be considered - please contact the assistant clerk, Ian Cowan, on 0131 348 5223 if your submission is likely to be late.

Next steps

The Committee intends to use the written views it receives to inform the rest of its work on the inquiry.

Updates on the progress of the inquiry will appear regularly on the Child poverty inquiry page of the Local Government and Communities Website.

The information you provide will be treated as evidence to the inquiry. before sending in your views in writing please enusre that you have read our policy for handling information received in response to calls for evidence (15KB pdf)