TPAS Annual Conference Keynote Speaker: Professor John McKendrick
We spoke with Professor John McKendrick – Scottish Poverty and Inequality Research Unit, Glasgow Caledonian University who is speaking at this year’s Annual Conference on the topic of Poverty in Scotland in 2023: The Way Ahead.
Recent reports suggest that a million people in Scotland are affected by poverty, with 24% of those being children. Work to reduce child poverty, fuel poverty, and in-work poverty has been affected by recent events.
Professor McKendrick’s keynote talk will discuss the current poverty issues in Scotland and how communities and government can work together to achieve better outcomes for our tenants and our communities. It will be based on a literature review and research report he authored Poverty in Scotland 2021; Towards a 2030 without Poverty.* The research was full of powerful and harrowing extracts of the lived experience of not having enough in Scotland, for example: My son’s away at school today with sewn up trousers because I can’t afford to buy him a new pair of trousers at the moment, because he’s wrecked all his other ones. And my trainers are filthy because my daughter had them on … [the] ones that she usually wears were wet, so she couldn’t wear them, so she had to wear mine. (Peripheral housing estate in a large rural town)
Housing and the communities people live in play a massive part in tackling poverty. On a local level there are two key strategies to consider
- Protecting those living in poverty from the worst excesses of living with poverty, or
- Enabling people to increase their and others’ chances of living a poverty-free life
We are sure many of you will have a strong opinion on this subject; some of you are many already living in poverty. Join us on Wed 28th June to have your say.
*(http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2003/09/18143/26158)