The Scottish Parliament should be allowed to use its funds to top up some benefits payments to tackle poverty and injustice, former prime minister Gordon Brown has suggested.

Mr Brown, who played a key role in the referendum campaign, has suggested 17 powers he believes should be transferred north as part of the pledge to deliver further devolution.

The Smith Commission, set up by the UK Government to examine what changes should be made, is due to report back next week.

Speaking ahead of the Commission's report, Mr Brown called for Holyrood ministers to be given a "very clear power" that would allow them to increase benefit payments north of the border.

The former Labour leader said that transferring powers over areas such as transport, infrastructure, employment, attendance allowance and housing benefit would give Scotland the chance to "formulate policies with the United Kingdom that will actually eliminate poverty and unemployment if we do it right".

He added: "I want us to think positively, constructively, about the next few years, whatever your views were in the referendum, how we can use the powers that we will have as part of the United Kingdom."

Mr Brown called on politicians to "bury the divisions of the Yes and No campaign and move forward as one nation".

He said: "I would give the Scottish Parliament the power to top up social security benefits if that is its wish to use its resources to do so. I do not want another bedroom tax fiasco.

"I would give a very clear power to the Scottish Parliament that it would be able to top up benefits if it thought in the interests of reducing poverty and injustice in this country that it was necessary to do so."

The Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath MP added: "Someone, somewhere, some time soon has got to put to the people of Scotland a programme, a social and economic programme, for bringing Scotland together, for uniting this country, for healing the divisions, for showing how all the energy we saw in the referendum can be best deployed to help create jobs, to create prosperity, improve the life of our communities, improve the social fabric of our cities our towns and our villages, and to deal with the perennial problems we still have to deal with of poverty and deprivation."

Mr Brown also used his speech to the Glasgow State of the City Economy Conference to demand improvements to Scottish education, and also to suggest Holyrood looks again at popular but costly universal policies such as free prescriptions, free care for the elderly and free higher education, as well as the council tax freeze.

"We pride ourselves in this idea that we favour a more just society, but we have got to look at what is happening in our communities and what we need to do about it," he said.

He said the council tax freeze, which was introduced by the SNP, cost £400 million a year, and added: "That is money that could have been used in Glasgow or elsewhere, in some of the poorest communities."

He claimed those living in the largest, most expensive properties saved £360 a year as a result of the policy - six times as much as those is the least expensive homes.

Mr Brown continued: "Let's look at some of the other decisions that have been made, and desirable as they are, you have got to look at the effect of them - free school meals for five to seven-year-olds, free prescriptions, free tuition fees, free personal care. The cumulative effect of that is £1 billion for universal services but that could be at the expense of helping the poorest areas.

"That money is not available, whether in the health service for the needs of the poorest people in the poorest communities, especially where mortality is at its worst, it is not available for young people wanting grants and wanting help with their accommodation when they go to college or university, and it's not available for the poorest families who are having to rely on food banks and money lenders.

"We've got to think about this in Scotland and have a sensible debate about the difference between universal policies that I think will not tackle poverty in the way that people want to see it tackled, and progressive universal policies that start with a universal floor, yes, child benefit, pensions, a free health service, free education, perhaps free other services as well. But we cannot finance these without remembering we have a responsibility to those in greatest need."

He also argued there was a need to "be honest about what has happened to Scottish education", saying that while "perhaps it was once the best in the world" there had been a "deterioration" in the last seven to 10 years.

"You've got ask what has been happening in Scottish education," Mr Brown said.

"Clearly the changes in Scottish education have not raised the standards and we've got to do more."

Mr Brown said that Scotland stood to receive £200 million from the tax on bankers' bonuses that Labour plans to introduce, and added: "That money should be used for a programme to tackle youth unemployment, to help rebuild the opportunities that are available in our colleges, to make sure that skills education is properly available and vocational training, to add to the apprenticeships, to make possible a transformation of the opportunities available for people both at school and as they leave school."

He continued: "I do believe that our national ambition would always be to be one of the educational capitals of the world.

"I do believe with the university traditions we have we could be the top educational power in Europe, but we have got to make that a national ambition."