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

7. Conclusion

As a result of the evidence gathered and analysed against all UNCRC requirements, what is the potential overall impact of this proposal on children’s rights?

Positive.

If you have identified a positive impact on children’s rights, please describe below how the proposal will protect, respect, and fulfil children’s rights in Scotland.

The aim of the plan is to reduce child poverty in Scotland and meet the four statutory child poverty targets set out in the Act. The plan sets out the strategic framework to deliver on these targets and specific actions to be progressed during 2026-27.

The plan builds on the progress of the previous delivery plans and seeks to protect a range of children's rights (UNCRC 4) and to have a positive impact on the wellbeing of children in Scotland. It aims to improve parental access to fair work, reduce costs of living for families, provide greater help via social security, and improve children and families' quality of life.

Through the four key themes set out in the plan - increasing earned incomes, reducing the costs of living, maximising incomes from social security and supporting children and families to thrive - the plan acts in the best interests of children, working to move them out of poverty (UNCRC 3).The plan is guided by feedback from child poverty stakeholders and children and young people themselves (UNCRC 12). It focuses on the six priority families at highest risk of child poverty, working to mitigate the discrimination they often face (UNCRC 2).

The plan aims to increase families’ earned incomes by strengthening parents’ employment opportunities through aligned skills and employability support, working in partnership with employers to support fair work, and expanding the availability and affordability of the key services of childcare and transport (UNCRC 18). It also aims to reduce the costs of living through a wide range of action focused on delivering more social and affordable homes (UNCRC 27), ending child homelessness and making homes cheaper to heat, and tackling public sector debt.

Furthermore, the plan aims to maximise families' income from social security through strengthening social security, maximising take-up of both Scottish and UK Government benefits, and increasing accessibility of money and debt advice so that families and children can have an adequate standard of living (UNCRC 26, 27).

The final key theme of the plan focuses on supporting children and families to thrive, through investing in early child development, ensuring children and young people can reach their full potential, and delivering whole family support. (UNCRC 5, 6, 24). The includes improving young people’s educational journeys, from attainment through to full participation in school life (UNCRC 28) and puts forward policies which support children's opportunities for learning and growth (UNCRC 31).

The plan is aligned with the commitment to 'Keeping The Promise' recognising that reducing poverty levels can influence the rates of children and young people coming in to care (UNCRC 20, 25).

If a negative impact has been identified please describe it below. Is there a risk this could potentially amount to an incompatibility?

N/A – no negative impacts have been identified.

Mitigation Record

Issue or risk identified and relevant UNCRC requirement

N/A

Action Taken/ To Be Taken

N/A

Date action to be taken or was taken

N/A

As a result of the evidence gathered and analysed against all wellbeing indicators, will the proposal contribute to the wellbeing of children and young people in Scotland? (Guidance Section 2.3.2, pages 20-22).

Safe: Yes

Healthy: Yes

Achieving: Yes

Nurtured: Yes

Active: Yes

Respected: Yes

Responsible: Yes

Included: Yes

If yes, please provide an explanation below:

The plan will positively impact across all of the wellbeing indicators, providing a cross-portfolio response and setting out measures to immediately tackle child poverty and pursue preventative action. It will particularly impact on 'Included' as successfully tackling child poverty enables children to fully participate in society. Expanding the availability of flexible and affordable childcare for families will contribute positively to the ‘Safe’ and ‘Nurtured’ indicators. 'Nurtured' and ‘Healthy’ are also positively impacted by the policies which focus on access to warm, affordable homes. The plan's consultation with children and young people, and stakeholders representing their interests, reflects the 'Respected' and ‘Included’ indicators.

How will you communicate to children and young people the impact that the proposal will have on their rights?

Children’s and easy read versions of the plan will be published so that children and young people will have access to the key information that affects them.

Children and young people were key participants in the consultation process for the plan and relationships will be maintained with the stakeholders and partner organisations that helped to facilitate much of this engagement. We remain committed to informing children and young people of the policies affecting them, and also to welcome their feedback as we evaluate the impacts of those policies.