Child Poverty
The latest official child poverty data for Scotland shows that the majority of children living in poverty are in households where someone works.
The latest estimate indicates that 16.4% of children (aged 0-15) living in West Lothian are in a low-income household.This figure is around the same level as the Scottish rate but lower than the UK rate. The general trend in both West Lothian and Scotland has been relatively stable over the last five years other than an increase in 2019/20 and a slight increase in 2022/23.
Ward areas with the highest proportion of children in low-income families are Whitburn and Blackburn (20.8%) and Fauldhouse and the Breich Valley (20.1%).
24.6% of children were living in poverty in West Lothian in 2022/23 (compared to the Scottish national average 24%).
If we compare this to other local authorities in our local authority family group (Local Government Benchmarking Framework), we can see that over an eight year reporting period from 2014/15 to 2022/23, there's been an increase in the proportion of children in poverty across all local authority areas.
| 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scotland | 21.6% | 22.8% | 23.4% | 24.2% | 23.2% | 24.3% | 24.6% | 24.5% | 24.0% | 23.0% |
| Clackmannanshire | 24.2% | 25.5% | 26.0% | 27.3% | 26.1% | 27.3% | 23.9% | 28.3% | 29.2% | 28.5% |
| Fife | 23.6% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 26.0% | 25.5% | 26.4% | 22.1% | 26.1% | 26.6% | 25.0% |
| Dumfries and Galloway | 23.3% | 25.3% | 24.8% | 26.4% | 25.0% | 26.7% | 22.9% | 26.0% | 26.9% | 22.7% |
| Falkirk | 22.7% | 23.2% | 23.5% | 24.3% | 23.8% | 24.8% | 21.5% | 25.3% | 26.2% | 25.1% |
| South Ayrshire | 22.7% | 23.5% | 24.2% | 24.6% | 24.6% | 24.8% | 20.6% | 24.4% | 25.0% | 20.7% |
| West Lothian | 21.3% | 22.1% | 23.0% | 23.8% | 22.9% | 24.6% | 21.1% | 23.9% | 24.6% | 24.1% |
| Renfrewshire | 19.3% | 20.4% | 21.3% | 22.8% | 21.9% | 23.1% | 19.5% | 23.3% | 24.0% | 21.0% |
| South lanarkshire | 21.5% | 22.4% | 22.5% | 23.5% | 22.5% | 23.1% | 19.6% | 22.8% | 23.6% | 19.5% |
Source: UK Gov - DWP/HMRC Local Child Poverty Indicators 2023/24 (calibrated to the national Households Below Average Income (HBAI) statistics)
Looking at all 32 local authorities, only three have seen a small decrease during this period. West Lothian is above the Scottish average, and has increased by 3.3% points since 2015. If we compare reported % rates 2015 to 2023, it's proportionally up by 15.5% (compared to Scotland up by 11.1%).
Figures have remained high both locally and nationally with around one in four children living in poverty.
