Councillors focused on West Lothian’s shocking child poverty figures in a political blame game at this month’s Executive, as parties position themselves ahead of the coming budget and Scottish elections.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service first revealed West Lothian is in the top ten of highest levels of child poverty in the country. In a list of shame the county’s figure of 24.1% outstrips Edinburgh and neighbour South Lanarkshire.

The SNP said the report ignored the success of the Scottish Government in tackling the issue. Labour said the statistics showed more had fallen into hard times in the last decade.

Councillor Veronica Smith, SNP, said the introduction to the report was “selective and lacked balance”.

Susan Manion, Labour’s depute leader said: “We need to tackle the causes

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