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Highland Council established the independent Highland Poverty and Equality Commission in 2025 with a view to identifying causes, consequences and solutions to poverty – much of which is hidden and undocumented within the region’s diverse communities.

As part of a year-long evidence gathering process running to June 2026, the commission has now moved to recruit ‘an experience panel’ of people from across Highland with current or previous lived experience of living on a low income.

It is now looking to select 20 people to take part in workshops about how to improve support for people who are living with financial insecurity in the Highlands of Scotland.

Those who take part in the four workshops will each receive £265.

The panel’s views will help to improve early intervention and develop approaches to support people that are targeted, effective and responsive to local needs.

In addition to its two independent co-chairs – Maggie Cunningham and Jim McCormick - the Commission Board is made up of five elected Highland councillors and five members from public sector partner organisations, third sector and community representatives.

Delivered by Involve, the UK public participation charity, the experience panel will deliberate on the five areas which are guiding the commission’s work.

The themes being explored by the Commission are:

• Access
• Housing
• Fair work
• Early years and education
• Financial security

Evidence sessions on each of these themes have taken place in different communities in the Highlands – in Fort William, Kyleakin, Evanton and Golspie with outreach visits to Kinlochleven, Portree, Alness and Lairg.

Further events are due to take place in Wick (this Friday, 27 March) and Inverness (Friday 24 April).

Sounding Board sessions on these themes, as well as the cross-cutting theme of improving ways of working across public services, have taken place through hybrid sessions enabling wider engagement of regional stakeholders.

The experience panel will hear the voices of people with direct experience of poverty, to challenge assumptions, generate ideas and ensure that any calls for action are realistic, responsive and effective.

Funding was set aside in the council’s budget in 2025 to set up the commission, and a further £500,000 is included in the latest budget for 2026-27 to implement the commission’s calls to action, when they are published in June this year.

The commission’s interim report, published in December, found that access to transport, digital connectivity and essential services remains a critical challenge across the Highlands.

The report said that geographic remoteness and dispersed populations can create barriers to inclusion and compound the effect of poverty on individuals and families.

Some key principles centred around solutions that would: 

• Bring services to people as far as possible, rather than people needing to go to services.
• Put the diverse needs of people first, rather than systems or organisations.
• Scale up and spread projects and programmes that work and make a positive difference. 
• Collectively work together across public, private and voluntary sectors to deliver the greatest impact including greater sharing of resources, assets and power.

A snapshot of the commission’s work to date has identified some challenges, including:

• In-work poverty – it is estimated that 70 per cent of Highland children in poverty live in working households.
• Low wages and seasonality of earnings – particularly in hospitality, agriculture and fish processing.
• A high cost of living – Transport, food and heating costs significantly exceed national averages.
• Fuel poverty - In Highland 33 per cent of households are in fuel poverty, compared to the Scottish average of 24 per cent with 22 per cent being in extreme fuel poverty, nearly double the national average.
• Social housing tenants are disproportionately affected, especially in off-gas grid areas where heating options are more expensive.
• Lack of affordable and accessible homes is deeply intertwined with poverty, creating a cycle that limits opportunities.
• As of 31 March 2025, there were 8,767 people on the Highland Housing Register, 476 households living in temporary accommodation as of the end of June 2025 and in 2024/25, there were 1,270 homeless presentations.
• Lack of affordable, high-quality childcare is further restricting children’s early development and parents’ ability to work.

Commissioners are also looking to explore the opportunities that lie in:

• Economic diversification and locking in long-term gains from new development opportunities for Highland as a whole.
• Reduced stigma by framing support as community based e.g. through outreach hubs, community food larders.
• Strengthened action plans on affordable and accessible housing.
• Recognition that high quality teaching and inclusive practice remain crucial to attainment and future pathways, while also taking further action to reduce the costs of the school day.
• Encouraging young people’s aspirations through genuine access to high quality opportunities, while at the same time enhancing the curriculum to align with local economic needs through vocational pathways to fill skill shortages.
• Alternative operating models to embed public sector roles alongside third sector organisations to enhance frontline delivery and end the ‘pillar to post’ experiences of too many citizens.
• Employer led and community transport solutions and the council’s own bus service to extend access to childcare, after school and travel to work opportunities.
• Expansion of in-work training and mentorship programmes.

Jim McCormick said: “Having been asked to improve and accelerate our collective approach to tackling poverty in Highland, our focus has been on what works and what makes a difference: the ‘bright spots’ already evident across the region.

“It is those with lived experience of poverty in the Highlands who are best placed to tell us about the factors that will make the biggest difference and why. Their views will be critical to our final calls to action which we expect will lead to lasting and positive change for the region.”

Maggie Cunningham added: “Throughout this year-long process we have been committed to engaging and listening to communities across the Highlands. The commission’s purpose is to give people the opportunity to document their experiences and set out the changes that would help improve early intervention and develop joined up approaches to supporting people and tackling the poverty and inequality which affects so many lives.”

Notes to editors

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Find out more on the Involve website here.      

People

Paul Hirmis (Senior Project Officer) and Louise MacAllister (Head of Impact) at Involve will design and deliver the Experience Panel. Paul is an experienced project manager, facilitator and social researcher; focused on inclusion, community building, and conflict transformation. Louise led Involve’s work with the Scottish Government on the Minimum Income Guarantee Experts by Experience Panel and the New Economics Foundation deliberative workshops on conditionality in welfare.

Jim McCormick is chief executive of The Robertson Trust, an independent grant-making charity which funds, supports and influences solutions to poverty and trauma across Scotland. He joined the Trust in 2020.

Previously he was associate director Scotland with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2017-20), ran an independent research consultancy and was director of the Scottish Council Foundation think-tank.

He is a member of the Living Wage Commission. He was previously chair of the independent Disability and Carers Benefits Advisory Group reporting to the Scottish Social Security Minister (until 2023), chair of the Edinburgh Poverty Commission (2018-20) and a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) until 2020, which scrutinises the Department for Work and Pensions’ GB regulations.

In 2018 he was a travelling Churchill Fellow looking at the impact of mentoring programmes for children and young people facing disadvantage in the USA, Canada and New Zealand.

Co-chair of the Commission, Maggie Cunningham, worked at a senior level in the BBC for over 20 years including roles as head of Radio Scotland and joint head of programmes and services, Scotland. She is currently chair of An Comunn Gàidhealach,which runs the Royal National Mòd.

Since 2009, she has worked as a leadership and executive coach. She served six years as a content board member of Ofcom until October 2024 and chaired the board of MG Alba for six years from 2012. She chairs Kyle and Lochalsh Community Development Trust and was an independent member of the Edinburgh Festivals Forum for eight years. She was a founding board member of Sistema Scotland until 2019 and is a director of Highland Tourism Community Interest Company (CIC).

The interim findings of The Poverty and Equality Commission and a list of all the organisations that have contributed to the process can be found here: https://engagehighland.co.uk/background-information