Introduction

In his foreword to 'Social Inclusion: Opening the door to a better Scotland', John Sewel, the Minister for social inclusion in Scotland, says:

"The problems associated with social exclusion are deep-rooted and complex. Complex problems require thoughtful solutions: single-programme approaches are unlikely to be successful. The long-term objective is to develop ways of working which integrate programmes not just within Government, but at all levels of action - right down to local neighbourhoods and communities. This will require agencies and organisations to share information on their programmes, their objectives, and their understanding of what works. As a first step towards this goal the Government is publishing today this report on our programme to promote inclusion in Scotland.

Since coming into office, the Government has set in train a wide-ranging programme of action, encompassing action on education, childcare, housing, employment, health, and crime. As Minister for social inclusion in Scotland, it has been my job to co-ordinate the efforts the Ministerial team in The Scottish Office have made to promote social inclusion, and to ensure that individual programmes make an effective contribution to our long-term, strategic approach.

• the nature and scale of social exclusion in Scotland;
• the aims and principles of Government action to promote social inclusion;
• the 4 key strands of Government action to promote inclusion; and
• the complementary programme of work to be taken forward under the 'social inclusion strategy', which has been developed with the support of the Scottish Social Inclusion Network and is being published separately.

• 31,000 people in Scotland have been unemployed and claiming benefit for more than a year
• 4,000 people aged under 25 have been unemployed and claiming benefit for more than a year
• 4,000 young people leave school every year without any Standard Grades
• 1.2 million people in Scotland, 25% of the population, live in households whose income is less than half the national average
• an estimated 34% of children and 41% of under-5s in Scotland live in such low-income households
• 25% of Scottish houses suffer from dampness and/or condensation

• 11% of babies born to mothers from the most deprived areas in 1996 were of low birth weight, compared to 6% in the most affluent areas
• the unemployment rate in Easterhouse is 12.9% (in Scotland as a whole it is 5.5%)
• more than half of the most deprived districts in Scotland are in Glasgow.

• every child, whatever his or her social or economic background, has the best possible start in life
• there are opportunities to work for all those who are able to do so
• those who are unable to work or are beyond the normal working age have a decent quality of life
• everyone is enabled and encouraged to participate to the maximum of their potential

• to increase participation in the labour market
• to tackle poverty through both national and local action
• to ensure that every child entering primary school is ready to learn and to make best use of their school years
• to reduce, if possible to zero, the number of children who leave school unqualified or ill-equipped to cope with life
• to widen participation in and demand for lifelong learning
• to tackle specific barriers to participation individuals face, including ill health, low self-esteem, homelessness and drug misuse
• to eliminate discrimination and inequality on the grounds of gender, race or disability
• to reduce inequalities in health
• to ensure that decent and affordable housing is available to everyone
• to tackle inequalities between communities by empowering and regenerating deprived communities
• to support and encourage the contribution of business to the well-being of communities
• to promote a culture of active citizenship, in which self-development, participation in community and civic life and caring for our disadvantaged neighbours are key features

• Prevention: as well as helping those who are in difficulties to get back on their feet, there is a need to prevent exclusion arising in the longer-term, primarily by ensuring that today's children and young people enjoy the best possible start in life. This requires a focus on children, young people and families, on the early identification of potential problems and on effective action to tackle them.
• Empowerment: there is a need to enable, encourage and support people to take up new opportunities, and to take control of their own situations. Similarly, there is a need to involve communities in the decisions that affect them, and to support them to take on ever greater responsibility for taking those decisions themselves.
• Inclusiveness: the Government recognises the importance of the contributions that local authorities, other public agencies and the voluntary, community and private sectors have to make, both in developing policies and programmes and in implementing them. The Government is committed to working in partnership with them. The development of the social inclusion strategy through the Scottish Social Inclusion Network has been an example of this commitment being put into practice.
• Integration: social exclusion is made up of a complex set of linked problems. There is a need therefore to ensure that action to promote social inclusion is coherent and comprehensive, when viewed from the perspective of the individual, the family, and the community. This requires agencies to ensure that the action they take is effectively co-ordinated and integrated, and based within a comprehensive policy framework.
• Understanding: Government and others need to be practical and objective in evaluating the success, or otherwise, of previous and current efforts to promote inclusion, and should be prepared to develop new ideas, to challenge assumptions, and to try out new approaches - which should then, of course, be subject to the same rigorous evaluation.

• Promoting opportunities: action to increase the opportunities available to people to take part in work, in learning, and in society more generally;
• Tackling barriers to inclusion: action to break down the barriers which currently prevent people from participating fully in society; and action to tackle the specific problems of exclusion particular groups face;
• Promoting inclusion among children and young people: action to provide children with the best possible start in life, to identify difficulties at an early stage and address them effectively, to raise levels of school attendance and educational attainment, and to support families;
• Building stronger communities: action to support local communities through constructive partnership working and devolving effective decision making to local level, and to support local people in taking responsibility for their own communities.

• Under the New Deal for 18-24 year olds, young people who have been unemployed for 6 months or more are offered intensive help, advice and support to find work and to improve their employability through work experience, education and training. By the end of 1998, the New Deal had helped over 5,900 young people in Scotland find jobs with employers
• The New Deal for the Long-Term Unemployed offers people over 25 and unemployed for more than 2 years opportunities for full-time education and training.
• Through the New Futures Fund, the Government is investing £10m over 3 years in projects to provide intensive additional support for those who face the greatest difficulties in preparing themselves for work
• Employment Zone status for Glasgow will offer people aged over 25 who have been unemployed for 18 months or more flexible opportunities to help them into sustainable employment
• The Government is widening access to higher education by introducing incentives for part-time students on low incomes, including fee waivers and - from Autumn 2000 - loans of up to £500
• The Scottish University for Industry will break down barriers to learning by connecting those who want to learn with advice on how to do so, and by using new technology to make learning more accessible
• The Government has committed over £100m additional funding to the Further Education sector over the next 3 years to support an extra 40,000 student places
• The £1.5m Millennium Volunteers programme will encourage and enable young people to become active citizens

• The introduction of the National Minimum Wage across the UK from April 1999 will benefit an estimated 157,000 people in Scotland by removing the worst excesses of low pay.
• The Working Families Tax Credit will tackle child and family poverty by guaranteeing every working family an income of at least £190 a week, helping some 4,000 families in Scotland.
• From April 1999 the standard rate of Child Benefit will experience its largest ever rise, up by £2.95 per week for the oldest child to a total of £14.40 per week. This will be worth around £60m a year to families in Scotland.
• The New Deal for Lone Parents, backed by £191m in Great Britain over the life of this Parliament, provides all lone parents on Income Support with the help they need to take up employment and remain in it.
• The Government has committed an extra £91m in Scotland over the next 3 years to help provide quality, affordable childcare, allowing many more parents, particularly those in areas of disadvantage, to get a job or take up training.
• From April 1999, every pensioner is guaranteed a minimum income of £75 a week (£116.60 for couples), three times the increase under the usual rules.
• The White Paper 'Towards a Healthier Scotland' set out a strategy for tackling health inequalities, with a 3 level approach based on improving life circumstances, encouraging healthy lifestyles and addressing key problems like coronary heart disease and cancer
• The Government has launched an £8m plan to discourage smoking and help low-income smokers quit
• The Government has committed £30m over 5 years to the Rough Sleepers Initiative, to support projects to help those sleeping rough
• The enhanced drugs strategy, to be published shortly, will help Scots choose healthy lifestyles free from the harm of drug misuse

• Of the extra £91m the Government will invest in childcare in Scotland over the next 3 years, £42m will be used to develop new family centres, providing a range of services for children up to 3 years and their families
• The Government's pledge of securing a part-time quality pre-school place for every child in their pre-school year has been all but achieved; additional funding of £138m over 3 years will allow the extension of this programme to all 3-year-olds by 2002
• The Early Intervention Programme is supporting a range of projects to help children at the earliest stages of primary school who have difficulty in the basic skills of literacy and numeracy
• New Community Schools will bring together a team of professionals to provide integrated support to children and families, supported by £26m of Government investment
• The Government is investing £27m over 3 years, in addition to £23m available through the Lottery New Opportunities Fund, to increase access to out-of-school-hours learning activities or study support
• £23m has been made available under the Excellence Fund for Schools to assist local authorities develop strategies to reduce exclusions from school. This is in addition to the £3m available through the Alternatives to Exclusion Grant Scheme which is allowing authorities to pilot innovative alternatives to exclusion.
• An extra £8.1m is being invested by the Government and through the Lottery Sports Fund over the next 3 years in developing youth sport, including sport in schools.

• new Social Inclusion Partnerships will encourage joint working to tackle social exclusion in some of the most deprived communities in Scotland. New Partnerships, backed by £48m over 3 years, will be announced in early March, as part of a total programme worth £200m over 3 years
• Among the new Social Inclusion Partnerships will be innovative schemes to promote inclusion in deprived communities and among specific vulnerable groups
• £45m was allocated to New Housing Partnerships in 1997/98-98/99; a further £278m is being made available over the following 3 years to promote community ownership of housing and to attract private finance into improving the fabric of the social rented housing stock
• The Government's Community Safety Strategy 'Safer Communities Through Partnerships - A Strategy for Action' provides a blueprint for local authorities to take the lead in forming local partnerships involving the police and other public, business or voluntary bodies
• Supported by £10m of investment, the Working for Communities programme is bringing together service providers and excluded communities in order to deliver local services which meet local needs and priorities
• The £3m Listening to Communities programme is looking at ways to increase the influence of excluded communities in decisions that affect their lives, and to identify new ways of testing community needs and opinions
• The Government is helping local authorities develop and take forward Local Transport Strategies, aimed at providing accessible, integrated and affordable local transport services
• In rural areas, the Government is supporting public and community transport services and independent petrol stations through a 3-year, £13.5m package of support
• Rural development strategies will identify problems of social exclusion in rural areas, and identify ways of responding to them
• Through the Initiative at the Edge, agencies and local people are working together to provide a strengthened, integrated approach to tackling the uncertainties facing remote and fragile rural communities.

• Action Teams (including Network members and others, and directed by the Network) will, by 30 September 1999, prepare recommendations on:
• Excluded young people: what more can be done in relation to excluded young people, with a particular emphasis on 16 - 21 year olds; the particular exclusion faced by young people not in education, employment or training; the experience of care leavers; young homeless people; young drug misusers; young disabled people; plugging gaps in service provision; developing preventive approaches
• Inclusive communities: devolving decision-making to community level; widening community participation in decision-making processes; building community capacity; resourcing communities; developing the concept of 'active citizenship' through participation in voluntary and community activity, community and further education, sport and the arts; broadening participation to include young people and marginalised groups
• Impact of local anti-poverty action: assessing the effectiveness and sustainability of local anti-poverty action including food co-operatives, credit unions, local exchange and trading schemes and fuel poverty initiatives; action to ensure correct entitlements to benefits are met; the potential contribution of labour market initiatives; contribution of the social economy
• A further Action Team will, by 1 July 1999, prepare a draft 'Evaluation Framework' for assessing the success of action to promote social inclusion. After consultation on this draft, a final Evaluation Framework will be published alongside the 'Inclusion Plan', described below.
• A further Action Team, called 'Making it Happen', will consider examples of good practice, and make recommendations about ways of overcoming professional, organisational, and cultural barriers to promoting social inclusion. The team will report by 30 September 1999.
• The Network will, by 31 December 1999, prepare a joint statement of continuing and further action: an 'Inclusion Plan'. The aims of this process will be to ensure integration of action at both a national and local level, by identifying and addressing conflicts and gaps between programmes, and to build into programmes new action taking forward the recommendations of the priority reports.