Danny McCafferty, a former leader of West Dunbartonshire Council, has been fighting poverty in the area for 30 years and now heads up the WDCF.

But, responding to a new government strategy to help tackle child poverty, Mr McCafferty says he hasn’t seen too much positive change during his time in politics and as a volunteer.

He told the Reporter: “I don’t think the problem of poverty is showing any improvement recently.

“This area has always been an area of high deprivation and poverty.

“I can’t see that there’s been much difference over the last 30 years and this area always comes very high in terms of poverty stats.” New figures from the gGovernment suggest that 80,000 children from working families are living below the breadline — but Danny argues ‘poverty is poverty,’ and shouldn’t be broken down into such categories.

“You need to assess poverty as a whole,” he added. “If a child is in poverty, then the parents and the family will be in poverty too.” The figures released last week suggested ‘relative poverty,’ where household income is less than 60 per cent of the average, could be attributed to couples with two children living on below £20,500 a year.

Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon announced she was to unveil plans to help hard-pressed families, aiming to address the causes of poverty early and make sure children from low income backgrounds are not denied opportunities.

She said: “It is shocking there are children in Scotland still living in poverty. We want to be a modern, dynamic country - and that is simply not possible while some in our society are trapped in poverty.

“We know there have been improvements to the number of people who are living in poverty in recent years - we also know that this progress is under threat from the changes to the welfare system.” But all too often Danny has heard such promises, saying he wants to see political and territorial differences put to the side for the common good. He told us: “Poverty can’t be dealt with on a local level, there isn’t one single reason that causes poverty.

“There’s a whole host of reasons and it’s something that needs to be tackled from a health point of view, or welfare, education, housing. On whatever level we have applied it at, there’s never been a combined, concerted effort from all the big players.

“The symptoms are dealt with, but the cause has never been addressed. I find it extraordinarily frustrating.

We know if we change values and attitude, and systems, then we can make a difference, but we don’t have a single, concerted aim.

“We need to grow beyond tribalism and get a consensus to solve this problem. We should never disagree on the welfare of the people of Scotland.” Meanwhile, the Scottish Government confirmed an additional £2.5 million funding for four poverty charities, providing £900,000 to MacMillan, £750,000 to the Child Poverty Action Group, £424,000 to One Parent Families Scotland and £433,000 to the Poverty Alliance over the next two years.

The funding will be used to provide advice to people dealing with welfare reforms, give advice on managing debts and household budgets as well as encouraging employers to adopt the Scottish Living Wage and engaging communities in tackling poverty.