I live in Scotland’s benefits hotspot – I’m 56 but only worked FOUR years of my life

PROBLEMS which led to a scheme being Scotland’s benefits hotspot will take decades to undo, it has been claimed.

Figures reported in a Channel 4 Disclosure documentary show 44 per cent of people in Easterhouse, Glasgow, are on benefits of some kind — the highest figure in the country.

And the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, published every four years, has revealed much of the area is among the most deprived ten per cent of Scotland.

The measure considers criteria including income, health and crime.

Data shows Easterhouse had the highest number of sickness benefit claimants in the first quarter of 2024, with 32 per cent of working-age people claiming.

Unemployed Eric Sproul, 56, who has a curvature of the spine, estimated he has only worked for around four years since he left school at the age of 16.

But he said he feels more employable now than ever before thanks to volunteering for the last four years at area’s Phoenix Community Centre. 

But Eric wishes he had found the support of the hub around 20 or 30 years ago.

He said: “I’ve now got a lot more communication skills than I did before. First aid training, I’ve done everything here.”

Eric, who is looking for work, added: “I’ve not had an interview for a good while. If I do go to a job interview and they say, ‘What have you been doing since your last job?’ I can say, ‘I am doing this volunteering’.

“I’d rather be working. Before I started in here I couldn’t have told you what day of the week it was.”

Eric told of having an ambition to be an architect at school.

He says there needs to be a change in attitudes, adding: “If I was growing up and I said I wanted to be a lawyer, I guarantee nine out of ten people would say, ‘Don’t be daft, you can’t do that’.

“If you had any ambition at all, it was sort of stood on.”

Glasgow North East councillor Ruairi Kelly says much is being done to improve living conditions and he doesn’t want Easterhouse to be portrayed as a “bastion of poverty” to be pitied.

But the SNP man admitted: “There’s not a switch that can be flicked overnight.

“This is a problem that has been decades in the making and it will take decades of hard work in order to rectify it.”

Councillor Kelly said work had been done over the last 20 years to clear substandard housing.

He hopes that will have a “lasting” impact on health outcomes for generations to come.

Councillor Kelly pointed to the impact of mistakes made when moving people out of Glasgow’s slums and into new housing in Easterhouse in the 1950s.

He said: “Housing was built quickly, there were no local amenities in place and people were essentially cleared to the peripheral estates with very poor transport and access to the wider economy of the city.

“They were not close to the traditional heavy industries so there were no jobs in the area.”

He said this created a “vicious circle” for the situation now.

Councillor Kelly added: “This has had generational impacts, where if parents have not been working they do not have that example of what it means to have steady income and a job.”

But he pointed to the work being done by housing associations and community projects in the area to help improve matters, adding: “There is huge amounts of work being done in terms of improvement of living conditions.”

The councillor said organisations such as the Phoenix, and also the Easterhouse Sports Centre, are providing activities and outlets for people of all ages.

He said: “There is a real pride in the area, which has probably been the victim of under investment for a very long time.”

Richard McShane, who founded the Phoenix in 2007, says it has helped Eric immeasurably.

He added: “If people have not got a purpose they will not get out of their bed.

“Now he’s a totally different guy. He used to sit in the corner and not say anything, but now he talks non-stop. He’s down here just about every morning. He opens up at quarter-to-nine.”

Richard said the community centre offers a variety of activities aimed at helping people “rise up”, including boxing, table tennis, pool and cycling.

He said: “Whatever that percentage of unemployment is, we are biting into that to help people.

“We will be looking for grants for employment in the future because we can now prove that we are changing people’s lives.”

The nearby sports centre has undergone its own phoenix-like recovery in the last year, having been closed and then used as a Covid vaccination hub.

It is now helping prepare people for employment and even has an on-site Job Centre Plus.

There are also plans to transform a kitchen complex, shut for 20 years, into a community cookhouse to train people for work.

And employability programmes with local high schools are running.

Senior community impact manager there, Kevin Martin, said: “It’s getting people to think about work and basically try and support them.

“So it’s trying to support and build people up so that when they’re ready we can create a pathway

“The purpose is, we get young people in from primary one, we work with them through sports, and then as soon as they’re maybe third, fourth year, they come into our employability programmes.

“We train them and it makes them more employable, so if you’ve left school with no qualifications you’ll get the work-based ones, so that you’re ready for a job. You’re more likely to get a chance.”

The benefit figures were revealed in Britain’s Benefits Scandal: Dispatches, hosted by journalist Fraser Nelson.

Last night a Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Scotland’s devolved employability services are working with partners to reduce economic inactivity.

“To help more people into work the Scottish Government is introducing specialist employability support by the summer for disabled people and those with long-term health conditions.”