More than 40 of Scotland's leading charities, unions and faith groups will call today for an increase in benefit rates to tackle poverty and protect the dignity of claimants.
The Scottish Campaign on Welfare Reform, which represents the likes of Oxfam, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, the STUC, the Child Poverty Action Group and One Parent Families Scotland, is demanding that compassion be placed back at the heart of the country's welfare system.
The coalition, which is launching a new manifesto, says UK benefit cuts and welfare reform changes are leaving too many Scots without adequate means to live their lives in dignity.
Spokesman John Dickie, head of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, said: "Over the last three years we have seen the bedroom tax, real-terms cuts to benefits and tax credits and hopelessly inappropriate sickness and disability assessments. These changes undermine the support that ordinary families rely on, whether they are in or out of work."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article