7 July 2015

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Deputy First Minister John Swinney visited the Slateford Green Community Centre in Edinburgh ahead of the UK Government’s budget statement.

During the visit, they learned more about Dunedin Canmore’s innovative Digital Skills for All programme, which offers IT training to people to help them into employment. The scheme recently received funding from the Scottish Government’s People and Communities Fund.

Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney meet our CBI Team and the @Cre8teLtd Team #digitalskills #employability pic.twitter.com/jEuMGXcDFy

— Dunedin Canmore (@DunedinCanmore) July 7, 2015

The First Minister was also able to discuss the impact of the UK Government’s austerity agenda on ordinary people in Scotland. Ahead of the visit, the Scottish Government published an analysis of how expected changes to the tax credit system would impact on Scotland’s poorest children.

The First Minister said:

“More than 500,000 children in Scotland benefit from tax credits. Two-thirds of the £2 billion expenditure on tax credits in 2013-14 went to low-income working families with children and only 5 per cent to households without children.

“If, as we expect, the UK Government targets tax credits for cuts in tomorrow’s budget, it will hit Scotland’s poorest children and families hard. It is a frightening indication of the potential impact of the expected cuts in tomorrow’s UK budget.”

“We want to support people to get into work and to stay in work and the tax credit system provides important practical help to families on low pay.

“These are people who are in jobs and often working very hard for relatively little pay. It is unfair that their children are the people made to pay for the mistakes of the austerity approach – not to mention economically counter-productive.”