Universal basic services: Building financial security in Scotland

Article

Financial security – or the lack of it – remains a significant challenge for families across Scotland. For many, the Covid-19 pandemic loaded greater pressure onto already strained finances.

Now, as we look towards a looming energy cost crisis and rising food prices, there is an acute need to help families manage in the face of rising living costs.

In this paper, we identify the largest costs facing families below a living income, set out the current policy approach for each of these areas, and discuss the potential for a universal basic services approach across new areas to bring more people closer to a living income. These include care, transport, information, food and utilities.

Related items

  1. Change you can board: Delivering better, greener buses

    The bus services bill is an opportunity to ensure reform really means thriving, green 21st century local bus networks in England.

  2. Harry Quilter-Pinner on BBC Radio 4 Today discussing political donations

  3. A sign for a polling station next to a block of flats

    Modernising elections: How to get voters back

    Elections are the defining feature of modern democracy. They are the process by which we express a desired future en masse. It is the mass dimension that matters most; it is the mass dimension that is receding.