Bringing Hope, Building Futures: Tackling child poverty delivery plan 2026-2031 – annex 2: Analysis of consultation and engagement

1. Introduction

Background

The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 marked a pivotal moment in the Scottish Government’s approach to tackling child poverty. It set statutory targets to reduce child poverty by 2030 and mandated delivery plans and progress reports.

While the Scottish Government has made significant strides, challenges remain. A third, and final, Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan has been developed and will be published by the end of March 2026, alongside this report. The third plan will cover the period 2026-2031 and will outline the measures that Scottish Ministers propose to take in meeting the child poverty targets.

The third plan builds upon the strategy and policy identified in the first delivery plan, Every Child, Every Chance and the second delivery plan, Best Start, Bright Futures. Specifically, it draws on the wide range of evidence collected through progress reports, statistics, cumulative impact modelling, systems thinking and international reviews.

To supplement that evidence, the Scottish Government undertook a range of engagement activities, including conducting a call for evidence and a series of engagement events organised alongside partner organisations. The written call for evidence and the engagement events provide the basis of the data collected for this report. The written call for evidence ran between February and April 2025. Stakeholders and organisations or their representatives were proactively targeted to request evidence, data or information on policy options towards reaching the 2030 targets. The call was policy-focused and sought views of different policy directions through nine open-ended questions (see Appendix A). The engagement events were also held throughout this period and included the participation of 19 partner organisations.

This report presents an analysis of responses to the call for evidence and discussion at engagement events, which has been used to inform the third plan.

Respondent profile

In total, 88 written responses to the call for evidence were received. Almost all were submitted directly to the Scottish Government, following a reporting template structured around the nine open-ended questions. None of the questions were mandatory to complete; many responses did not include answers to all questions, instead focusing on a theme or area of relevance to the specific stakeholder. Table 1 shows the breakdown by sector of the 88 respondents to the call for evidence.

The analysis also included summaries of discussion and additional notes collated from engagement events around Scotland, including eight events with people with lived experience of poverty. These included:

• Scottish Government-led workshops with organisations and stakeholders with a specific policy focus, involving representatives from public, private and third sectors.
• Stakeholder-led workshop discussions with their existing networks, stakeholders and partner organisations.
• Stakeholder-led engagement with people with lived experience of poverty and other forms of disadvantage, through stakeholders’ existing networks and forums.
• The Scottish Government commissioned Young Scot to undertake specific engagement activities with children and young people to explore their experiences and the impact of poverty.

While it is essential to collect the views of a range of stakeholders, understanding the experiences and views of children and young people, and their parents and carers, is critical to developing the third Child Poverty Delivery Plan. The experiences of these participants have provided valuable insight and evidence to help shape the Plan. More detail is provided in Chapter 8.

Many, but not all, activities used the call for evidence questions as a framework to hold discussions. Details of the activity are provided in Appendix B, but in summary, the engagement included:

Analysis approach

The Lines Between was commissioned to provide a robust, independent analysis of the call for evidence responses and information collected during the engagement activity. The main purpose of the analysis is to understand the full range of views expressed. This report, therefore, provides a high-level thematic analysis based on the analysis approach outlined below. The research team developed a draft coding framework which identified the key themes in responses to each question. During the coding process, new codes were created if additional themes emerged. Reflecting the number and knowledge of respondents and event attendees, it is not possible to detail every response in this report; some shared lengthy submissions that reflected their specific subject matter expertise.

Many of the documents included in the analysis were received via email or in documents where the content did not align directly with the nine call for evidence questions. These documents, including notes from the engagement activities, were reviewed by the research team, who then exercised judgment about the most relevant place to include this material in the analysis and in this report. The following analysis highlights any additional or unique perspectives evident in these submissions, while also noting instances where the discussion at engagement events aligned with the call for evidence responses.

When reviewing this report, we would ask the reader to consider:

• The self-selecting nature of respondents and attendees means the views expressed in this report do not necessarily represent the views of the entire population, or of those with an interest in the issue.
• Many respondents repeatedly raised the same issues or suggestions at multiple questions, regardless of the specific focus of the question. Given the thematic structure of the report, these views are all included, but analysts exercised judgment about the most relevant place to include each theme to avoid repetition.
• Engagement events did not necessarily cover only the questions posed in the call for evidence. Where additional information or recommendations were noted, this has been included in the most relevant section of the report.
• No illustrative quotes have been included in this report, and no discussion points have been attributed, as it was not possible to collect permission to quote or publish responses from every respondent or event attendee.

Weight of opinion

This report typically presents the themes identified in responses from most to least commonly mentioned. All themes, including views shared by small numbers of respondents, are covered; a view expressed by a very small number of participants is not given less weight than more general comments shared by a majority. Similarly, all responses have an equal weighting. We recognise that this means a response from an individual carries the same weight as a response from an organisation, which may represent many members; however, this approach ensures that all views are presented.

Qualitative analysis of open-ended questions does not permit the quantification of results. However, to assist the reader in interpreting the findings, a framework is used to convey the most to least commonly identified themes in responses to each question:

• Several respondents, 20 or more respondents, a recurring theme.
• Some respondents, between 10 and 20 respondents, another theme.
• A few / a small number, fewer than 10 respondents, a less common theme.
• Two/one respondents; a singular comment or a view identified in two responses.

This framework is used solely to present the prevalence of themes within responses. This does not necessarily represent the importance of a theme, given the subjective nature of attributing importance and the self-selection of respondents.

Report overview

The report is structured around the questions and themes in the call for evidence.

• Chapter 2 presents an analysis of responses to Question 1 and Question 2, which examine whether the proposed themes are the right themes to focus on.
• Chapters 3 to 6 each focus on one of the four proposed themes, presenting an analysis of Question 3, Question 4 and Question 5 in relation to each theme, i.e., what is working well, what could be done differently, or what new approaches could be considered.
• Chapter 7 presents the analysis of responses to Question 6, which considers how the Scottish Government and others can provide integrated and seamless support.
• Chapter 8 provides an overview of the discussion at engagement events, which aimed to understand the lived experience of children and young people and their adult carers.
• Chapter 9 presents an analysis of responses to Question 7, which examines how to best understand the challenges faced by those experiencing child poverty.
• Chapter 10 explores challenges faced by marginalised groups, including the six priority family groups identified by the Scottish Government.