By Lewis Ryder-Jones
What kind of Scotland would you like to live in?
Most of us would probably say a country in which everyone has enough money to live on, where everyone has the same rights and freedom of opportunity, where our enviable natural environment is safeguarded for generations to come and where we play a positive role in achieving a more equal world.
Scottish Ministers would likely say the same, having long talked about their intention to create a ‘wellbeing economy’ which prioritises the needs of people and the planet, now and in the future.
So why hasn’t it happened? Why haven’t foodbanks been consigned to the dustbin of history? Why does child poverty remain stubbornly high? Why is wealth inequality growing? Why do the Scottish Government’s climate advisers say that our targets to reduce emissions are ‘in danger of becoming meaningless’ because we’ve missed them so often?
Part of the answer lies in closer examination of the Scottish Government’s own plan for the country, captured in Scotland’s National Performance Framework. This consists of 11 ‘National Outcomes’; the goals which together describe the country Ministers are trying to create, including: health, poverty, the environment, and education.
Progress towards each Outcome is measured by a number of indicators, and should, in theory, drive decision-making on policy and spending. But most people haven’t even heard of them, and scrutiny of progress is weak.
That’s why the Scottish Government’s newly announced review of the National Outcomes is a golden opportunity to ensure they are not only understood and fit for purpose, but also that mechanisms to drive their delivery are significantly strengthened.
Crucially, now is also the time to fill in the gaps, including a glaring omission: care and carers are virtually invisible. This reinforces the invisibility many of Scotland’s carers themselves feel.Max Green, who has been a young carer since she was five, looking after close family members, made a recent plea to politicians, saying: “So many young carers feel so isolated. Young carers need to have visibility, they need to be heard. To be seen.”
Despite the Herculean efforts of carers like Max, and the organisations that represent them to have their voices heard, investment and support is too slow and too shallow. And that’s true regardless of whether it relates to children or adults, whether for someone who is elderly, has a serious illness or a disability, or whether that care is provided on a paid or an unpaid basis.
It’s clear that despite all we learned during the pandemic, care still isn’t being adequately valued. Instead, unpaid care continues to be dismissed as something that happens privately in our homes, while paid care is still considered low-skilled work. Both are disregarded as an activity of little or no social and economic value.
This undervaluation is a long-term consequence of deeply rooted gender inequalities and social norms that too often deem care work to be low skilled, ‘women’s work’.
The result is shameful. Paid carers earning so little they are driven through the doors of foodbanks. Unpaid carers, pushed to the brink, wondering how they will afford to keep their loved ones warm. Parents, locked out of work and trapped in poverty thanks to eye watering childcare costs.
Given the potential of the National Outcomes to drive change, the omission of care cannot continue: not when it is so foundational to our society and economy.
While we’re asking ourselves what sort of Scotland we want to live in, the new First Minister must ask themselves what sort of Scotland they want to lead. They must seize the chance to build and deliver A Scotland That Cares.
Support the campaign. Visit www.ascotlandthatcares.org and take action to show our political leaders that #ScotlandCares