1 in 4 children in Glenrothes are living in poverty.

Children are classed as in poverty if they live in families in receipt of out of work benefits or in receipt of in-work tax credits where their reported income is less than 60 per cent of median income – before housing costs.

Here's Lindsay Roy's take on it.  He says "it almost pales into insignificance in the light of the revelation that in Buckhaven, Methil and the Wemyss Villages it is as high as 40%". It doesn't really though, does it?

Here's Tricia Marwick's take. "I will continue to press the case for Government action on child poverty."

So, faced with the fact that a quarter of the kids in his constituency are living in poverty, Lindsay Roy asked this question in parliament:

"To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what recent discussions he has had with (a) Ministers in the Scottish Government and (b) ministerial colleagues on measures to reduce levels of child poverty in Scotland."

He got this reply from 

David Mundell (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Scotland; Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, Conservative)

"The Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Moore, and I are in contact with Ministers in the Scottish Government and Ministers in the UK Government on a range of issues which are relevant to reducing levels of child poverty in Scotland, as are our officials."

Source

Nice to see some real concrete planning being done by our elected representatives.

Had a lot of search traffic coming to this site looking for facebay Glenrothes, so I set one up, and then realised there's already one on there! d'oh! Anyway - if you're looking for it - it's over here: Facebay Glenrothes

There's a labour market report that Fife Council produces on a monthly basis and which contains a brief overview of the number of people claiming job seekers allowance.  On the same page you can download that from, there's a link to the website of the office for national statistics, where there are, unsurprisingly, many, many more statistics.

Anyway - I was watching the news a couple of nights ago and they were talking about how the recovery from the recession is still fragile and so I started wondering if I could find some stats on Glenrothes - in particular some unemployment figures, so I asked Graeme Ferguson who creates the monthly reports to send me over the last year's worth, which he kindly did, I trended them, and then went off to the office for national statistics for more.

So, here are a bunch of charts based on the data I eventually extracted from the ONS files.  All of them are based on data from January 2008 to July 2011.  There's a link to the raw data at the bottom of this article.

Job seeker's allowance claimants in Glenrothes.

The percentage of the population claiming Job Seeker's Allowance

Of course, as anyone who's ever claimed Job Seeker's Allowance knows, it stops after 6 months (I was told that after 6 months in mid-recession - thanks job centre!) So you really need to look at the unemployment rate to get a proper understanding of what's going on.

Unemployment rate in Glenrothes vs National Average

Big jump around Feb-May 2010, c.5% which equates to roughly 2000 people! - haven't had the chance to investigate the cause yet, but I'll see if I can find out.

Here's a chart comparing the percentage of the population claiming job seeker's allowance with the unemployment rate.

This does the same, but includes the national averages.

And this is based on the 'job availability' statistic (there was data missing).

Also potentially of interest is this chart showing people who are 'economically inactive' which is defined as "People who are neither in employment nor unemployed. This includes those who want a job but have not been seeking work in the last four weeks, those who want a job and are seeking work but not available to start work, and those who do not want a job."

I haven't had a chance to link the figures to real world events yet, but will try to update this page when I get the chance/time.  Overall, the figures paint a picture of Glenrothes regularly sitting at a couple of percent above the national average percentage of the population claiming job seeker's allowance, and with a historically relatively high unemployment rate that appears to have recently dropped to the point where it's almost in line with the rising national average.  That unemployment drop ties in with the rise in the job availability, but it'll need a bit more work to tie that to an actual event. Maybe they're supermarket jobs?  Please leave a comment if you can offer any insight.

Here's a link to a google spreadsheet with the raw statistics if you'd like a look.

This PDF contains definitions of the terminology they use.

If you suffer from Hypermobility Syndrome/Ehlers-Danlos syndrome or you wish just to find out more information about it, please come along and meet others that suffer from this at our regular meetings.

Anyone will be most welcome.

We meet at 12-2 staff club (the low building to the left of Hayfield house) Victoria hospital, Dunnikier Road, Kirkcaldy on the last Saturday of every month.

Please contact me on twitter or facebook, or simply email me on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Mobile number 07842530225

I have a reflexologist (Myra) that will be coming along, and for a small donation she will give your feet a massage and hopefully that will help with some of the pain for hms/eds sufferers.

Please come along and meet other people that suffer from this, all ages are welcome.

Submitted by: Moira Pillans