THERE is a general election manifesto commitment to transform the Scotland Office – under the Secretary of State for Scotland, Ian Murray MP – into a spending department in Scotland.

While implementation of that proposal is underway, there is a process to go through to achieve this. There has been much speculation in the media around this.

Contrary to some reports, it is understood that the Scotland Office spending budget has yet to be determined – reports of £150 million per annum appear to be conjecture from past structural fund allocation.

Last week, in a personal capacity, money adviser Alan McIntosh and I wrote to Ian Murray MP to make the case for a small portion of future funds to be allocated to the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) and ringfenced for a specific purpose: anti-poverty initiatives and reducing child poverty.

As Alan McIntosh explains: “We would urge Ian Murray to consider ring-fencing some of the funds that he will have to allow the UK Government to become direct funders of local advice agencies in Scotland, to help tackle issues like problem debt, the managed migration of Universal Credit that is being rolled out and the homelessness crisis.

“There is a need for the UK Government to have this direct relationship with local Scottish advice agencies, after the Scottish Government in recent years have used other funding that was devolved to them from the UK Government to move away from funding local advice agencies, to support national agencies, many of which don’t even provide advice to Scots”.

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In recent years, due to austerity, the cost-of-living crisis and Covid-19, the financial resilience of many Scottish households has been significantly eroded.

What we’re now witnessing is even the slightest economic income shock in many of the lives of families is having a devastating effect and many households are now living on incomes which are no longer sufficient to meet essential expenditure.

What many of these households would benefit from is the provision of good local advice, both legal and in relation to money and welfare rights.

Sadly, many of Scotland’s advice agencies have also had their financial resilience eroded to such an extent that some can no longer meet the demands they are facing, or even provide clients with face-to-face interviews without lengthy waiting times.

In some cases, agencies have had to make the difficult decision to close their doors for periods and stop taking on new clients.

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The Improvement Service’s latest “Advice Insights” report for 2022/23, revealed that for the £28.6m Scottish local authorities invested in advice services (both council and voluntary advice agencies), there were over £330m in verified financial gains for those helped.

That’s a return on investment of £11.53 for every pound spent by local authorities.

Many local advice agencies and community law centres are struggling to meet the demand they currently face.

If ringfenced investment was provided for community legal advice and money and welfare rights advice services, this could help facilitate life-changing interventions.

The prospect of the Scotland Office becoming a spending department in Scotland is a much-needed opportunity for new approaches to reducing child poverty.

It could also facilitate and help commission innovative solutions in local communities for additional welfare support.