In 2022-23, there were an estimated 240,000 children in poverty. The underlying trend appears to show little change.
In June 2024, the Scottish Government published its annual report on progress towards meeting the statutory targets to reduce child poverty to 18% by 2023-24 and 10% by 2030. The Poverty and Inequality Commission recognised that, although good work was being done, the targets are likely to be missed, saying:
“it is unlikely that the interim targets will be met. Furthermore, without immediate and significant action, the Scottish Government will not meet the 2030 targets.”
108 Policies
An ‘at a glance summary’ in the report describes progress on 108 policies – some are very specific to tackling child poverty (e.g. school clothing grant), while others are much broader (e.g. Affordable Housing Supply Programme). Others have only a very indirect link, (e.g. Adult Disability Payment). Some are fairly new (e.g. Scottish Child Payment), others are of long standing (e.g. STV children’s appeal). There is a mix of pilots, strategies, reviews, project funding and actual cash transfers to low-income families.
To bring some structure to this, the summary notes whether policies are expected to impact on:
- employment
- life chances
- housing costs
- other costs
- social security
This is a slightly different list to the ‘three drivers of child poverty’ used in the measurement framework which are:
- income from employment
- cost of living
- income from social security and benefits in-kind
The report doesn’t map policies to the measurement framework so the following summarises how the policies are categorised according to the first list of five areas of impact. The chart below shows the number of policies listed in the report as impacting on each of the five areas, as well as the progress achieved so far. It illustrates that, of the 108 policies reported on, most activity is aimed at ‘improving life-chances’ which is long term and difficult to measure. (Policies are counted once for each policy area they impact).
Progress
It is notable that some key areas, such as expanding childcare provision, are still in the early stages of development. There are 60 policies marked as complete or ‘delivered at scale’ in 2023-24 compared to 40 in last year’s report. These newly completed policies include:
- relatively small-scale funding commitments such as Community bus fund (£25 million over five years), Free Bikes Partnership (£0.9 million), Welfare Advice and Health Partnerships (£1.6 million), Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund (£0.3 million)
- publishing guidance, reviews or reports – For example, guidance on Discretionary Housing Payments, Fair Fares Review, Demand Responsive Transport Review, Plan for ending the need for food banks.
Larger scale policies delivered included:
- concessionary fares for young people
- successor to warmer homes Scotland
- public sector grant recipients to pay at least the real living wage.
Most of these larger scale policies are not exclusively targeted on child poverty. For example, free bus travel is available to all young people, not just those on a low income.
The first chart indicated the range of activity but the impact of individual policies will vary. Some, such as Scottish Child Payment, have a clear, fairly immediate, large-scale, measurable impact but others, such as play park renewal, have a less immediate or measurable impact.
£1,380 million spending on low-income families with children
One way to think about scale is to consider the amount of spending allocated and the modelled impact of policies.
In addition to reporting on progress on Best Start Bright Futures, the report identifies spending of £1,380 million on low-income families with children across 38 policies. Only eighteen of these policies are also included in the 108 policies reported on as part of Best Start Bright Futures. These 18 policies account of around £1,000 million of spending. The remainder are mostly social security and existing employability support.
While the chart above showed that, in terms of numbers of policies, activity is focused on aiming to improve life chances, the next chart shows how the greatest area of identified spending and modelled impact is on social security.
The chart below shows how the £1,380 million can be categorised according to the five policy areas identified in Best Start Bright Futures (employment, life-chances, housing costs, other costs and social security). Where a policy impacts on more than one area, spending is apportioned equally between them.
£870 million on policies keeping 100,000 children out of poverty
The Scottish Government has modelled the impact of 13 of these 38 policies estimating that they are keeping 100,000 children out of poverty in 2024-25. These modelled policies are:
- certain social security payments – Scottish Child Payment, Best Start Foods, Best Start Grant, Carer’s Allowance, Carer’s Allowance Supplement, DHPs for benefit cap mitigation
- reducing other costs by providing free school meals, school clothing grants, Discretionary Housing Payments, Council Tax Reduction
- employability programmes – No-one Left Behind, Fair Start Scotland and Parental Employability Support Fund.
The largest single area of spending is the Scottish Child Payment at £427 million – which is around half of the spending for the ‘policy package’ modelled. Scottish Child Payment also contributes more than half the impact on poverty, keeping around 60,000 children out of poverty in 2024-25, according to the Scottish Government’s modelling.
£509 million on other policies: mainly housing and education
That leaves 25 policies where spending is identified, with combined spend of £509 million on children in low-income families. The impact of these policies is not modelled. Two thirds of the spend is on just two policies:
- Attainment Scotland Fund £186.51 million
- Affordable homes £156.41 million.
The Attainment Scotland Fund was launched in 2015 and ‘refreshed’ in 2022. It aims to reduce the attainment gap in school education. As such its impact on child poverty will be very long term through potentially improving life-chances and future employment.
The Affordable Housing Supply Programme could reduce housing costs and improve life chances. The report identifies that £156 million out of a total £710 million spending in 2023-24 was targeted on low-income households with children. It describes how:
“Between April and December 2023, an estimated 2,015 households with children were helped into affordable housing through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme.”
The budget for affordable homes was cut in 2024-25 by £163 million, which is the second year in a row the budget has been reduced. Stakeholders expect the target of 110,000 affordable homes by 2032 to be missed.
Other policies in Best Start Bright Futures
As mentioned, the £1,380 million identified spending on low-income families with children includes only 18 of 108 the policies in the ‘at a glance summary of progress’. Spending on a further 12 of these 108 policies is mentioned in the main report – totalling £375 million. Almost all of this (£300 million) is on concessionary fares which is not targeted on low-income families.
Conclusion
The progress report lists a very large amount of activity across a wide range of policy areas, but in terms of large-scale spending on policies with clear impact on child poverty, we come back to social security – particularly the Scottish Child Payment. Affordable Housing and the Attainment Scotland Fund are also a big part of the £1,380 million identified spending, although their impact on reducing child poverty is not easy to model. However, most of the 108 policies reported on are not included in either the tables on spending nor the modelling of impact.
Camilla Kidner, SPICe research.