Bringing Hope, Building Futures: Tackling child poverty delivery plan 2026-2031 – annex 8: Children's Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment (CRWIA)

1. Brief Summary

Type of proposal:

Decision of a strategic nature relating to the rights and wellbeing of children.

Name the proposal, and describe its overall aims and intended purpose.

Title of policy:

Bringing Hope, Building Futures: Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2026-2031.

Summary of aims and desired outcomes of policy:

The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 (“the Act”) sets in statute ambitious targets to significantly reduce rates of child poverty in Scotland by 2030.

The final tackling child poverty delivery plan under the Act covers the period 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2031 and aims to:

• Set out a strategic framework to drive continued progress in delivering on the national mission to eradicate child poverty and meet the four statutory child poverty targets - relative, absolute and persistent poverty and combined low income and material deprivation - set out in the Act.
• Outline specific action to be delivered in 2026-27 which will drive continued progress against the targets.
• Build on evidence of the drivers of poverty reduction to drive progress on four key themes: increasing earned incomes; reducing the costs of living; maximising incomes from social security; and supporting children and families to thrive.

It builds on action taken over the life of the first two plans:

• Every child, every chance: tackling child poverty delivery plan 2018-2022
• Best Start, Bright Futures: tackling child poverty delivery plan 2022 to 2026

As set out in Section 9 of the Act, the delivery plan must set out:

a) the measures that the Scottish Ministers propose to take during the period of the plan for the purpose of meeting the child poverty targets,

b) an assessment of the contribution the proposed measures are expected to make to meeting the child poverty targets,

c) an explanation of how that assessment has been arrived at, and

d) an assessment of the financial resources required to fund the proposed measures.