Bringing Hope, Building Futures: Tackling child poverty delivery plan 2026-2031 – annex 6: Impact of policies on child poverty

Providing aligned skills and employment support for parents and young people

Employment offers a sustainable route out of poverty for many families. We will continue to support parents and young people into sustained employment by investing in employability support through No One Left Behind, and targeted action to strengthen parental employment opportunities in the NHS. We will also strengthen our skills and training provision through targeted provision of suitable training and upskilling opportunities for people experiencing, or at risk of, in-work poverty. These actions are intended to support parents to enter, sustain and progress in employment, contributing to higher and more stable household incomes and a reduction in child poverty.

Actions included

• Total employability support, including parental employability support (continuation) – £90m
• Colleges RISE (Raising Income through Skills and Education) (New) - £9m
• Training Access Fund (New) - £2m
• Parental employment opportunities in NHS Scotland (New) - £4.2m

Total investment in 2026/27 - £105.2m.

Impact of actions committed

Type of impact

Employment support has a direct impact on increasing income from employment by providing support to access employment opportunities. Positive outcomes are contingent on the availability of employment opportunities, reduction of barriers to participation, and supportive external economic conditions.

Skills and training provision has an indirect impact on increasing income from employment, by providing support to access opportunities to improve future employment and progression opportunities. Positive outcomes will be dependent on participants successfully completing opportunities, and external labour market and economic conditions.

Potential size

No One Left Behind Employability Support: Between April 2024 to March 2025 over 8,700 parents started receiving employability support through No One Left Behind. It is currently estimated that up to 69,000 parents could be supported between 2022/23 and 2029/30. Current analysis suggests potentially between 3,500 and 12,000 parents could achieve sustained employment by 2030/31, while potentially between 1,000 and 1,700 parents could improve in-work outcomes.

It is anticipated that investment in parental employability will support 200 NHS Scotland paid work placements for parents at risk of poverty in 2026-27.

Information on the anticipated reach and impact of training support initiatives is not currently available. Previous evaluation evidence from Individual Training Accounts (ITAs) suggested that two fifths of participants surveyed who were working full-time reported that ITAs had helped them find a better paying job, which may offer a guide to potential impacts from Training Access Funds.

Certainty

Estimates of future reach are based on existing budget information, and may change due to fiscal pressures and developing policy approaches. Employment support outcome estimates are ex ante and based on available evidence, such as sustained employment outcomes from Fair Start Scotland.

Outcomes from employment and training support would occur in the years after expenditure, and may take time to translate to sustained improvements in incomes, particularly for training support.

Parents’ abilities to enter, sustain and improve employment outcomes will be strongly influenced by prevailing economic and labour market conditions, and welfare system regulations. Outcomes may be achieved later or at lower rates than currently anticipated.

Training support initiatives are under development. It is not currently possible to estimate their anticipated reach and impact with confidence. The effectiveness of targeting will impact the extent to which they are accessed by parents in poverty.

Outcomes will also be influenced by delivery of complementary policies such as childcare and transport support.

Priority families targeted by the actions

No One Left Behind Employability Support: All parents and carers who are unemployed or on low incomes are eligible to receive place-based Parental Employability Support. Support is tailored to individual parent or family units’ needs and circumstances. Delivery is channelled through existing No One Left Behind infrastructure across the 32 local authorities. NHS Placements will be targeted towards parents and carers who are unemployed or on low incomes, with a key focus on the six priority family groups.

Training support initiatives are under development. It is anticipated these will be targeted at the six priority groups, carers, and those experiencing, or at risk of, in-work poverty.

Tracking progress

No One Left Behind Employability Support: Statistics on parental starts and outcomes associated with No One Left Behind are routinely published through statistical bulletins, based around the Shared Measurement Framework. We are exploring avenues for strengthening outcomes data through data linkage, and developing further evidence through external evaluation activity. Current activity includes a process evaluation of Child Poverty Coordinators, research on experiences of No One Left Behind service users, and an Evaluability Assessment for No One Left Behind to identify appropriate approaches for Scotland-level impact and economic evaluation.

NHS Placements: Outcomes from infrastructure investment on health board employability delivery will be monitored annually via Anchors Workforce metrics. Data for 2026/27 will be available in summer 2028, and an evaluation plan will be developed with Public Health Scotland.

Training support initiatives are currently under development. Approaches to monitoring and evaluation will be developed in due course.