Bringing Hope, Building Futures: Tackling child poverty delivery plan 2026-2031 – annex 3: Evaluation strategy (2026 update)

4. Summary of learnings and improvements

Data and evidence have shown us that:

• Inequalities, including gender inequality, need to be considered across all policies that tackle child poverty. Gender competence needs to be embedded across all elements of policy making from design, implementation and evaluation.
• Intersecting inequalities can make the journey out of poverty much harder for families. An improved understanding of experiences of poverty and policy impacts is required to ensure that policies are reaching those most in need.
• Understanding the impact of policies is important, but considering the scale is essential to better grasp the stretching path ahead to reach the targets.
• Data collection through traditional surveys is becoming more challenging. Data linkage, and improved use of administrative data, will become imperative in the near future.
• A clearer understanding of how current action supports longer term aims is needed, as many policies support families in ways that only become visible over time.
• Supporting low-income families requires a package of support across multiple policy areas. A better understanding of how policies support (or undermine) each other is needed; then, in turn, working together to ensure that different forms of support and initiatives are more effectively integrated and work together seamlessly from the perspective of low-income families.
• Poverty rates change differently across groups (as shown by decomposition analysis). For example, we see drops amongst some groups and increases amongst others. Exploring these nuances will help to identify which groups require additional support.

With this in mind, the following improvements are planned:

• A review of the evaluation framework to align with the new benefits management strategy and ultimate improve the impact data collated. This will include an extension to the evaluation framework to add focused guides on a) assessing systems change; b) monitoring health and wellbeing impacts; and c) undertaking value for money evaluations.
• A newly formed cross-government analytical working group to strengthen the existing analytical basis and ensure we have the data and analysis required from across government to inform decisions, understand the impact of actions and provide assurance on progress towards the statutory 2030 targets.
• An updated understanding of intra-household resource distribution, specifically how poverty experiences differ amongst household members, with a clear focus on protected characteristics and priority family groups.
• An interconnected assessment of impact across key policy areas; that is, understanding whether and how impact is pursued and achieved across policies, for example between transport and employability.
• Exploration of how to assess and monitor the preventative potential of policies indirectly supporting the child poverty mission.
• A focus on outcomes for low income families. Starting with a renewed focus on expanding our evidence base on priority families. In-depth focus reports have been published, providing a rounded picture of key barriers, and ‘what works’ thinking. However, there is a need for better consideration of policy impacts amongst priority family groups. For example: are our policies maximising their reach among priority families? What are the impacts achieved, or not achieved, for them?
• A continued exploration of how health and wellbeing outcomes contribute to, or intersect with, pathways out of poverty.
• Collaboration with UK Government to understand the impacts of the UK-wide child poverty strategy and opportunities for joint working.
• Improved linkage of administrative and survey data. This will be done for the target statistics, through close collaboration with the Department for Work and Pensions. But we also need to improve approaches to assessing impact in policy evaluations, by piloting the use of linked administrative data to measure longer-term outcomes.
• Alignment of analytical evidence on child poverty impacts with the Budget process and Programme for Government – so that the cross-portfolio impact on child poverty is fully embedded.
• Continued development and refinement of quantitative impact modelling to support understanding of the scale of impact required and the interplay of different policy decisions, as well as continuous exploration of how poverty rates change across different groups.