Comment: Iain Duncan Smith

Last year, I spent a morning attending a funeral in an east end cemetery just off Glasgow's London Road. A young man's life had been cut short by heroin addiction.

We attempted to console Janis Dobbie from the Gallowgate, the heartbroken mother. She had lost another son to drug abuse just five years earlier. I think you realise the impact of social breakdown only when you are confronted by its victims.

Of course, there is much to be heartened by in Glasgow, with encouraging signs of economic renewal and physical regeneration. Glasgow's service sector is booming, much of the worst housing has been replaced and the city will stage the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Yet for Glasgow to flourish, urgent action is needed to tackle the epidemic of addictions and other key problems. Breakthrough Glasgow, published today by the Centre for Social Justice, sets out the scale of the challenge. It is the latest in a series of reports on deprivation in our major cities, including Manchester and Birmingham.

Strong families underpin a healthy society, so the weakening of families in Glasgow is a real concern.

Most single parents do a great job, but the evidence shows that children raised by both their biological parents generally do much better in life. It is worrying that, by 2016, half of all Glasgow's households with children will be headed by a lone parent, making it more difficult to improve the city's dismal record on education.

There is a strong link between educational failure and worklessness. Although 40,000 jobs have been created since 2003, almost 30% of Glasgow's working-age adults remain jobless.

Proportionally more people claim Incapacity Benefit in Glasgow than in any other major British city - the rate is 69% higher than Birmingham's. Such widespread dependency compromises the physical and mental health of the many benefit recipients. In Calton, where around 60% of adults are out of work, male life expectancy is just 54.

Glasgow continues to suffer horrific epidemics of addiction. In 2003, male deaths from liver cirrhosis exceeded the maximum national figure in western Europe. Alcohol-related deaths are predicted to double in the next 20 years.

Although many of the city's estimated 15,000 problem drug users want help to get clean and stay clean, there is virtually no provision for abstinence-based rehabilitation of the sort Maxie Richards provides in her own home in Bearsden. Instead, thousands are left semi-comatose on methadone for years.

Drugs are strongly linked to crime. More than 170 gangs have been identified in the Glasgow region. This is the same number as in London, a vastly bigger city, and is driving high rates of serious violent crime.

A "Glasgow effect" has been identified: "An excess of mortality beyond that which can be explained by the current indices of deprivation." Glaswegians remain significantly less healthy than citizens of comparable English cities such as Liverpool. Public services are £1500 per head better funded in Scotland than England.

As Glasgow's secondary schools receive 25% more than English schools, lack of government spending cannot be the reason for the worse outcomes.

At Celtic Park today, the Centre for Social Justice will host more than 100 grassroots charities.

We will be learning from their successes in turning lives around and hearing their views on what needs to change in Glasgow.

I have seen these groups' work at first hand, from young people being given alternatives to gang violence by charity Fare in Easterhouse, to Includem's rehabilitation of young offenders.

These groups are shining examples of Glasgow's welfare society, that vast army which delivers care beyond the state and who, for love of family, neighbour and community, shoulder a massive burden of care.

Recent research shows that two-thirds of Glasgow's residents feel that neighbours look out for each other in their local area and can be trusted.

This compassion leads some to care for elderly relatives, others to raise money for local good causes, and prompts others still to start community projects.

For 60 years, we have relied on a massive growth in the welfare state to compensate for the weakness of civil society. We badly need an effective welfare state, but even more we need to renew our welfare society.

By helping people do more to help themselves, more generous support could be given to those who will always depend heavily on others.

Six years ago, Jim Doherty, of Gallowgate Family Support Group, told me: "We have already lost our children's generation to drugs; we're now fighting to save our grandchildren." Jim embodies the robust values and active compassion of Glasgow's welfare society, and his words have stayed with me.

Reversing the scourge of drug addiction is just one of several key battles Glasgow faces. The battles can certainly be won, but only if politicians at the City Chambers, Holyrood and Westminster make strengthening the welfare society central to their efforts to combat poverty.