Bringing Hope, Building Futures: Tackling child poverty delivery plan 2026-2031 – annex 7: Equalities Impact Assessment (EQIA)

Recommendations and Conclusion

The EQIA has shown that the strategic themes, areas of intervention and individual actions set out in the plan will be positive across many protected characteristics, in particular age, disability, pregnancy and maternity, race and sex. The actions are grounded in evidence of who is most at risk of child poverty, and the six priority family types at the centre of focus through the plan are strongly correlated to protected characteristics.

For certain characteristics, higher levels of poverty persist. Therefore, the targeted action for the priority family groups and wider action to reduce poverty through impacting on the drivers of child poverty, will be beneficial to these protected characteristics in particular, resulting in a strong potential for the plan to contribute to reducing discrimination and enhancing equality of opportunity. Whilst the plan has limited focus on fostering better relations between people of protected characteristics, the focus throughout the plan on addressing stigma and discrimination should, if implemented successfully, support this objective.

For other characteristics, we have more limited data. We have found no evidence of negative consequences at this time, though in line with best practice we will keep this under review as part of the monitoring of this EQIA.

Some actions included in the plan are still in an early phase. As these proposals develop, they will require their own EQIA to ensure that the specific barriers for each protected characteristic are fully considered. Once these actions are implemented, we will gain a better understanding of the difference each will make in reducing discrimination and enhancing opportunity.

The plan sets out an approach to assessing the impact through evaluating individual policies and monitoring drivers and targets. Wherever possible, this impact assessment should include impacts by protected characteristic. This type of analysis will be important in making progress to further understand and address the specific barriers faced by people with certain protected characteristics.

Summary of recommendations:

• For some interventions set out in the delivery plan, evidence on the intended or actual impact for people with protected characteristics is limited. This EQIA recommends that, as part of overall monitoring and governance for the delivery plan, focus continues to be placed on gathering, analysing and using this data to inform policy and programme modification, and future policy design and delivery.
• Recognising the limitations of quantitative data, particularly given the relatively small population of people in poverty with certain protected characteristics, this EQIA recommends maintaining and further strengthening collection and use of qualitative data, particularly the experience of people with protected characteristics living on a low income.
• Individual EQIAs of policies and actions should be carried out as early as possible to inform the delivery of new commitments within the plan.