Cash-First Programme: final evaluation report

4. What has been produced as a result of the Programme?

Key findings

The Programme resulted in the development and strengthening of partnerships and support pathways in every area.

A number of resources and tools were produced over the life of the Programme. These were important to facilitate learning across Programme areas, and included tools to support engagement with individuals, and resources to facilitate staff learning.

Partnership development in the early stages of the Programme focussed primarily on wraparound support services. As the Programme progressed, more work was undertaken to develop stronger relationships with holistic support services.

New processes to ensure that services were responsive and person-centred were developed and implemented. These enabled faster access to cash or shopping vouchers for people in need and more tailored holistic and wraparound support. For example:

• The Delivery Partners developed new and more structured approaches to engaging people with lived experience in ways that maximised dignity and respect. Learning from the earlier stage of the Programme shaped approaches.
• The Programme facilitated greater integration of approaches to tackle food insecurity with a “No Wrong Door” approach and wider tackling poverty programmes in some areas.

The Programme facilitated new support pathways and fast-tracked referral processes between new and existing partners in some areas.

The Delivery Partners reported that having pre-existing relationships with local core partners and referral partners was a positive that accelerated progress over the second year of the Programme. This helps to lay the foundation for a sustained change.

This chapter discusses the initiatives and activities that have resulted from the Programme, and that the Programme has facilitated, highlighting in particular how activity evolved over Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the evaluation.

Cash-First initiatives and activities

The Programme facilitated new ways of disseminating information, communicating and building partnerships between partners, stakeholders and people in the target groups. New training resources for partners and stakeholders were also produced.

As the Programme progressed, resources and processes evolved, primarily:

• Pathways and partnerships
• Support for target groups
• Approaches to data and data sharing
• Tools and resources
• Engaging people with lived experience in service design
• Learning resources

These are discussed in more detail below.

New pathways and partnerships

In Stage 1 of the evaluation, there was very strong evidence of new partnerships emerging as result of the implementation of the Programme. Notably, there was a central role in many areas for Citizens Advice Bureaux (CABx) and other money advice services, as key providers of wraparound support.

As Cash-First approaches became more established, the Delivery Partners were able to respond to challenges that were identified through the Programme, or that became more visible as result of Cash-First activity, and deepen relationships with providers of more holistic support.

For example, in Orkney, a Cash-First approach identified a number of cases where people were dealing with a complex set of circumstances. This included substance use and addictions, which were clearly highlighted through the Programme. Although local core partners had been aware of these issues, they gained much more visibility through the Programme. As a result of the Cash-First approach, local core partners quickly realised that there were no direct pathways to appropriate support through the local core partners. The Delivery Partner engaged with the Orkney Alcohol and Drug Partnership (ADP) to explore possible support mechanisms. The ADP had been planning to start a drop-in service and this was an opportunity to explore how this could be delivered as part of the Programme’s holistic support offer. The Delivery Partner reported that the need uncovered by their Programme may have accelerated the development of the drop-in service.

Building on activity in the first year of the Programme, the Aberdeenshire Delivery Partner was able to grow their trusted partner network to meet the needs of their communities, and they also further consolidated the new relationships they had built with Scottish Fire and Rescue and Police Scotland. These were key partners in promoting the Programme and reaching hard-to-reach groups or people who were reported to be less likely to engage with services.

In Glasgow, new collaborations arose as a result of the Fair Food for All Partnership established to advise on the Programme in Glasgow. The Delivery Partner built relationships with community food organisations, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde the Health and Social Care Partnership and Glasgow City Council colleagues. Networking and collaboration was enabled by a wide range of learning, development and engagement events, both online and in person, including regular meetings of the Fair Food for All Partnership, organised by the Delivery Partner.

Stakeholders in Glasgow recognised the strength of networks that the Programme had successfully developed, and that these had a positive impact on “No Wrong Door” approaches in the City. One stakeholder reported:

Momentum has increased and the Delivery Partner is led and works collaboratively. Food banks in the city are now engaging with [the] Cash-First [project] and they are also engaging with No Wrong Door and segue into wider tackling poverty. (Local stakeholder)

New support for target groups

The Programme provided an opportunity for the Delivery Partners to design and test innovative ways of working with a range of target groups, working closely with a range of partners, via targeted communications or focussed engagement with hard-to-reach groups, as detailed in Chapter 3. This often built on existing relationships and the extensive knowledge and understanding of local need that existed within the Delivery Partners and local core partners.

The Delivery Partners also demonstrated a willingness to adapt support based on Programme learning and responding to the data that Cash-First approaches generated.

For example, using findings from a report commissioned as part of the Programme, the Delivery Partner in Glasgow delivered a test of change in Year 2 in two areas of identified high need. This was carried out with two community organisations in two wards of Glasgow which reported high levels of food insecurity. The test of change provided shopping vouchers for use in supermarkets, alongside the offer of advice and other wraparound and holistic support. Findings from this test of change are included in this evaluation report and detailed in Appendix B.

Engaging people with lived experience was also an important factor in determining how support could and should be modified, and opportunities to do this were more frequent and better established as the Programme matured into Stage 2. The North Lanarkshire Delivery Partner reported that service users and providers said that a barrier to accessing a benefits check and support to apply for a crisis grant was the delay between applying and receiving the grant. Funding from the Programme allowed Welfare Rights staff to provide an interim payment to be made on the same day for these individuals, addressing immediate need and overcoming an identified barrier.

New approaches to data and data sharing

As detailed in Chapter 3, the Delivery Partners experienced a number of data challenges, both in obtaining data about food bank use, and with the ability to share data between service providers and partners. Responses to this reflected the different models and approaches implemented by each Delivery Partner.

For example, in Aberdeen City, learning from the early stages of the Programme confirmed there was a need for robust and reliable data on food insecurity. It was clear that data was fragmented, with gaps and no consistent approach to collection across the city. This presented issues for the Delivery Partner in designing the early stages of the Programme and meant that data became a key focus for them.

The Delivery Partner regularly attended Food Poverty Action Aberdeen to build connections and share practice, experience and knowledge. The Delivery Partner reported that the Programme in Aberdeen City enabled them to demonstrate the value of collecting standardised data, in the form of referrals to Cash-First services, to partners and colleagues involved in Food Poverty Action Aberdeen. This meant that partners in Aberdeen City recognised that, by standardising data, food banks across the City would be able to understand the level of need within the City per capita, instead of the existing measure based on weight of food parcels. The Food Poverty Action Aberdeen Plan for 2025 committed to measuring levels of food poverty in the City, with an associated action to “Establish a common approach to collecting and sharing data on emergency food provision across Food Poverty Action Aberdeen.”

From the outset of the Programme’s implementation, the Orkney Delivery Partner aspired to develop a shared Management Information System (MIS) for partners that would facilitate data sharing and knowledge transfer between them and put control of personal data in individuals’ hands. The aim of this was to empower individuals, so they only had to tell their story once, and could move smoothly between organisations, with minimal barriers. The Delivery Partner tested an approach to this early on in Year 1 of the Programme and continued to develop this throughout the Programme.

The introduction of a shared MIS with local core partners in Orkney needed robust data sharing protocols to ensure that once input to the system, individuals’ relevant information would be accessible by all relevant partners. This was a lengthy process to set up, requiring a suitable technical solution as well as agreement on protocols that complied with GDPR and placed the individual at the centre of the process. The Delivery Partner reported that good progress was made on this approach and they developed a shared system for data sharing between local core partners that was in place and being tested in July 2024. However, although implemented, this system was not fully fit for purpose, both in terms of data sharing beyond the local core partners in Orkney and also for facilitation of the support pathway. Alternatives to this were still being explored at the end of the Programme.

New tools and resources

Implementing the Programme locally resulted in the development of new tools and resources. These were designed to support local delivery and meet local need. They also supported staff to enhance service delivery or to increase their skills and knowledge. In many cases the new tools and resources that were developed were made available to the Delivery Partners through the peer network that was supported by the Learning Partner.

Communication, promotion and engagement routes implemented and adapted in the early stages of delivery in Aberdeen City and described in the “Service User Journeys” case study meant they made good progress with engaging and supporting their target cohort of young men. Due to many complex challenges this cohort presented, the Delivery Partner developed a bespoke risk matrix for potential service users. This helped them to assess the type of support, including wraparound support, that could be provided and how this would be accessed and delivered. It was an integral part of the referral and assessment process, which was as follows:

1. (where relevant) Local referral partners identified someone that may be eligible for the Programme and then refer onto one of the Delivery Partner trusted partners.

2. Trusted partners completed a Cash-First referral form with potential Cash-First recipients. The referral form included a standard set of questions to capture all the necessary detail.

3. The lead Delivery Partner (ACVO) reviewed the information received in the referral and assessed whether the individual was eligible for a Cash-First support.

• If not eligible, the individual was contacted and signposted to appropriate support from elsewhere.
• If eligible the details of support provided was passed to the panel of trusted partners.

4. The panel, including ACVO, met to discuss the referral, analysing the standard question responses against the risk matrix. The risk matrix is illustrated at figure 4.1.

5. A decision on what support was offered to the recipient was made based on this analysis.

Figure 4.1 Aberdeen City Cash-First Project Risk Management Matrix

Table categorising risk levels into low, medium and high risk. The levels of risk are described as follows:

Low Risk

• Individual is engaging with more than one support service, either statutory or third sector.
• They are in a stable situation whereby they have skills to budget and manage cash payments.
• Low risk regarding impact on recovery and current addictions (drug, alcohol and gambling).
• Can receive Cash First through cash payments, vouchers and direct payments.

Medium Risk

• Individual is engaging with, or has started to engage with, one support service, either statutory or third sector.
• They are starting to show small indications of stability and are gaining the skills to budget and manage money.
• Medium risk regarding impact on recovery and current addictions (drug, alcohol and gambling).
• Can receive Cash First through vouchers and direct payments with the support of an allocated worker.

High Risk

• Individual is not engaging with support services other than for crisis support, either statutory or third sector.
• They have chaotic lifestyles and would not be able to budget or manage money well at this stage.
• High risk regarding impact on recovery and current addictions (drug, alcohol and gambling).
• Can receive Cash First through direct payments with the support of an allocated worker.

The risk matrix facilitated conversations between individuals and trusted partners, and informed decision making. If an applicant was eligible for Cash-First support, the information on their referral form was discussed by a panel of trusted partners. This determined what types of support would be most appropriate for the individual, based on an assessment of the various types of risk identified in the matrix. This approach proved effective at delivering person-centred services. However, it relied on staff being appropriately briefed in how to apply the matrix, the involvement of a number of partners, and detailed discussion with, and knowledge of individual circumstances. This required significant time and resource, in addition to what was required to brief partners on eligibility for the project as way to manage the referral pipeline.

New approaches to engaging people with lived experience in service design

Chapter 3 detailed the various methods the Delivery Partners used to engage people with lived experience. In many cases, this resulted in new structures and ways of working that have the potential to become embedded and support longer-term engagement. Examples are discussed below.

The Fife Delivery Partner reported that the Programme was closely aligned with wider activity taking place in Fife. The Delivery Partner worked closely with the Fife Poverty Alliance as a means to engage people with lived experience, build networks and join up support. This helped ensure a sustained focus on food insecurity as a key challenge.

The Fife Poverty Alliance, working with people with lived experience of poverty, are currently coproducing a Dignity Charter. As reported in the Fife Local Child Poverty Action report 2025: “This will be used to support food insecurity work going forward and [also] the work to provide early holistic support and reduce the offering of one-off transactional support.” One stakeholder described the Dignity Charter as follows:

It’s about embedding lived experience in service design and delivery - understanding people’s needs first. The Charter aims to define values that make support accessible and ensure organisations deliver them. (Local stakeholder)

In developing the Dignity Charter, the Poverty Alliance engaged 85 people including those who had been supported by the Programme in Fife. Engagement highlighted that the key areas of interest and concern for people were dignity, respect, flexibility, and relationship-building with organisations, staff and volunteers. The Poverty Alliance reported that very simple actions, such as using people’s names, and demonstrating active listening, were important and could have a positive impact on people. Engaging and listening to those with lived experience means that anti-poverty solutions can be designed by people experiencing poverty, and the Delivery Partner is now working with the Poverty Alliance with the aim of embedding the charter in Fife Council.

The Orkney Delivery Partner had initially reported that engaging people with lived experience was difficult due to fear of both stigma and lack of confidentiality. However, as detailed in Chapter 3, as the Programme progressed, the Delivery Partner reported a growing opportunity and willingness among people to come together to share thinking and experiences. Consequently, the Delivery Partner developed processes to enable service users to consent to group work or interviews. This self-selection gave the Delivery Partner confidence that people would engage with these sessions. This was a clear change to earlier approaches, and was a result of the activity, engagement and trust facilitated by the Orkney Programme.

The Orkney Delivery Partner also recognised the close relationship in Orkney of food and fuel insecurity and had aligned Cash-First interventions for both of these. A number of workshops to inform the local fuel poverty strategy had taken place and provided an approach to engagement. Anonymised views were included in a public strategy document, which could then be reviewed by people who had given their time. This meant that individuals could see how their experiences and views were valued and reflected in decision making, encouraging further participation and combating “consultation fatigue.” Heriot-Watt University and The University of the Highlands and Islands provided additional capacity to facilitate focus groups and stakeholder interviews to obtain the views of people with lived experience of food and fuel poverty. This work, at the time of writing, is ongoing.

In 2025, the Glasgow Delivery Partner commissioned a piece of work to engage the Lived Experience panel set up by Glasgow Community Food Network (GCFN), to explore their experiences of accessing help to tackle food insecurity. This resulted in the production of an electronic magazine: “How might Cash-First approaches be implemented in Community Food Initiatives?” which explored insights around dignity and choice, space and privacy, stigma, impacts on feelings, and how organisations work together. It offered “reimagined alternatives” to the current norms and suggestions on how these could be achieved. Sample pages from the electronic magazine are illustrated in Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2: Glasgow Delivery Partner ‘How might Cash-First approaches be implemented in Community Food Initiatives?’ electronic magazine

Image shows an e-zine (or electronic magazine) cover showing two pages.

The first page contains the contents:

• Who We Are
• About This Zine
• How To Use This Zine
• Our Key Insights & Re-imagined Alternatives
• Our Proposals on How
• Final Reflections

The second page is titled “Who we are” and reads:

We are a group of seven people based in Glasgow who believe in the right to healthy, nutritious food.

We believe everyone is entitled to this, no matter who they are, where they’re from, or what their circumstances may be.

We have all accessed a variety of community food initiatives and are also food activists in different ways.

In the spirit of solidarity, we’ve come together to share our expertise to promote equity, food dignity, and advocate for a cash-first approach.

The electronic magazine was promoted through the GCFN and Glasgow Delivery Partner networks and communications channels, and was used to amplify the voices of people with lived experience among service providers.

New learning resources

A range of learning resources were produced and evolved over the course of the Programme to share good practice, raise awareness and inform staff and stakeholders about Cash-First approaches and food insecurity more generally. These supported the Delivery Partner’s engagement and communication activity over the lifetime of the Programme and were important tools in raising awareness of the Programme and Cash-First approaches among the Delivery Partner’s staff as well as providers of wraparound and holistic support.

The Edinburgh Delivery Partner developed a presentation to share learning and experience from their first year of the Programme with the Edinburgh Poverty Network. The aim was to raise awareness of what the Programme was delivering and what it sought to address. It included key learning the Delivery Partner had identified from the first year of their Programme and served to support ongoing conversations around food insecurity in the City.

Figure 4.3: Excerpt of Edinburgh Delivery Partner presentation given to Edinburgh Poverty Network March 2025

Image titled “What we’ve learnt so far” with six statements arranged around the title with arrows towards the following:

• People need money support and support beyond money.
• Help to address the immediate crisis and follow-up support from a key person are what people value most.
• Flexibility is key to helping people engage in follow-up support.
• Integrating services increases engagement and access.
• Curious and quality conversations help address the hidden drivers of poverty.
• Lots of learning we didn’t expect and lots still to learn.

At the time of writing, the City of Edinburgh Council is developing an interactive ‘Cash-First Cash Story’ resource to share both internally within organisations, and externally, to share the learning, promote best practice and inform policy going forward.

It was reported in the interim evaluation that the Glasgow Delivery Partner had developed a range of training resources for staff across the City. They continued to develop this into the second year of the Programme. Further training developed included a session on the “Community Guiders Training” model. This model was co-produced by community organisations across Dundee to improve awareness of Cash-First approaches to support anti-poverty work in communities.

The Glasgow Delivery Partner also delivered information and a training session on using ALISS: A Local Information System for Scotland to support partners and stakeholders. The Delivery Partner reported there had been a growing awareness amongst organisations of ALISS. The Delivery Partner actively encouraged its use as a shared resource that could collate a range of information, and so strengthen knowledge and links between organisations.

The Glasgow Delivery Partner ensured the ongoing hosting and availability of these training and learning resources but reported that developing new resources was not possible due to the lack of dedicated resource.

Figure 4.4: Events delivered in 2025 by Glasgow Centre for Population Health, including Cash-First delivery related events

Image is a screenshot of a website showing tiles for different events and resources. The following tiles appear:

Healthy, Sustainable Food in Glasgow's Universities and Colleges

• Date: 11 Nov 2025
• Format: Zoom webinar

NHSGGC Healthy Weight Support Across the Life Course

• Date: 23 Sep 2025
• Via Zoom webinar

What is Community Guiders Training and how can it be used?

• Date: 11 Sep 2025
• Via Zoom webinar

Glasgow Helps, and NHS GGC's Crisis Support in Hospitals

• Date: 2 Sep 2025
• Format: Via Zoom webinar

Cash First Training and Awareness Raising for Community Organisations

• Date: 27 Jun 2025
• Location: Glasgow

Housing and Health in Glasgow: A Journey Through Film

• Date: 19 Mar 2025
• Location: Glasgow

Unlocking Local Resources in Glasgow: A Guide to ALISS

• No additional details provided

Overview of Programme changes

The interim evaluation identified a number of strengths in the approaches taken by the Delivery Partners which underpinned the progress made by projects and created strong foundations on which to build and develop Programme delivery in Year 2. Particular strengths in the approaches taken in Year 1 were identified as:

• Enabling new partnerships;
• Supporting future skills development through training and training resources;
• Laying the foundations to secure stakeholder buy-in and strengthen collaboration;
• Addressing barrier removal with flexible approaches to design and delivery; and
• Building in sustainability through alignment with key partners such as CABx, upskilling service users.

The interim evaluation identified a number of limitations of the Programme. These were:

• A requirement for engaging people with lived experience;
• A greater focus on barrier reduction;
• Ways of sustaining engagement of service users were potentially creating barriers;
• The wraparound support offer was building but needed further development and participation from wider stakeholder organisations;
• Further work was needed to improve referral and data sharing systems and processes; and
• Staff resource and capacity was a key factor that impacted their ability to deliver services and engage in development opportunities.

It is clear from the evaluation that strengths identified in Year 1 continued to develop and deepen into Year 2 of the Programme, and the foundations that were laid in Year 1 supported and strengthened Year 2 activities and outputs.

Building on these foundations, there is evidence in Year 2 of:

• Increased buy-in from many local partners and stakeholders to the Programme, demonstrated by the evolution of perceptions of Cash-First approaches amongst partners and stakeholders;
• New support pathways being developed;
• Greater integration of approaches to tackle food insecurity with a “No Wrong Door” approach and wider tackling poverty programmes;
• The Delivery Partners further tailoring support and activity to specific target groups;
• The Delivery Partners engaging people with lived experience in new and more structured ways in Year 2. In some Delivery Partner areas, this developed significantly from Year 1.
• Continued development of staff skills and knowledge, for example, increased use of wider resources such as ALISS to embed knowledge and awareness of wraparound and holistic support.

However, a number of challenges and limitations remained, as follows:

• Due to data and systems limitations, some of the Delivery Partners reported ongoing difficulties in monitoring service user engagement accurately, and evidencing the benefits to service users of accessing a Cash-First emergency payment and wraparound support
• It was also difficult for different Delivery Partners to identify what outcomes were achieved as a result of the Programme, to quantify any reduction in repeat requests for support, and to track unique individuals; and
• As reported in Chapter 3, the Delivery Partners recognised a tension between the need to deliver to meet immediate need and the need to develop robust systems and processes that could deliver sustained change. It is clear that developing new processes, tools and resources not only required significant resource but also limited how much capacity and resource the Delivery Partners had to deliver.

Notably, the Glasgow Delivery Partner demonstrated progress in a number of areas, including staff training and knowledge, engaging people with lived experience, and wider service and policy area integration. It is, of course, not the only Delivery Partner to do so; but it is significant that for the majority of the Programme, the Glasgow Delivery Partner was focussed solely on systems change with no direct delivery planned.

Embedding learning

The range of outputs, resources and processes developed during the Programme enhanced delivery and supported individual and organisational learning as the Programme progressed. The Delivery Partners took a range of approaches to capturing and embedding this learning, ensuring the benefits could be carried forward into future activity. In almost all cases, this involved working with key partners, such as the Poverty Alliance, the local authority, Health and Social Care Partnerships, emergency food providers, or others, to ensure learning was retained and disseminated through information sharing, training, and promotion across the range of networks in which these partners participated.

Increased integration of approaches to tackle food insecurity with “No Wrong Door” and other tackling poverty programmes is a positive sign that learning, new activity and approaches to addressing food insecurity have the potential to be sustained beyond the lifetime of the Programme. For example:

• In Glasgow, there was a continuation of the Fair Food for All Partnership that was developed to support and oversee the Programme, to take forward ongoing and future plans to address food insecurity; and the online repository for training resources and information that includes Cash-First resources remains openly available. These training and information materials have the potential to support continued knowledge and understanding, and build learning to inform future approaches to addressing food insecurity and the use of food banks, beyond the Programme.
• There is a renewed commitment in Fife to obtaining standardised data from across the area, and the Programme was instrumental in highlighting the benefits of this approach.
• Edinburgh reported plans to leverage the CPP and other local structures to embed and disseminate learning.
• North Lanarkshire reported that, as they already operated a successful Cash-First approach, learning from the Programme was limited for them. However, it had highlighted a cohort of single men, often with complex issues, where more support was needed, and they intended to take forward this learning into future planning.

Having flexibility of service design was integral to engaging people with lived experience, and this helped to facilitate approaches to engagement that reflected local needs and characteristics. There is clear evidence of a commitment to continue to develop this way of working.

The Delivery Partners also sought to obtain a detailed understanding of the impacts of the Programme locally through their own evaluation activity. This included quantifying where possible the financial impact and identifying indirect beneficiaries of Cash-First support (for example, children). This ensured the Delivery Partners could articulate clearly what impacts the Programme had based on their specific delivery model and use this knowledge to shape future local planning.

As well as completing a local evaluation, the Aberdeenshire Delivery Partner developed a database of information to mitigate against staff changes and ensure learning and activity was captured and could be disseminated more widely.

The Orkney Delivery Partner took a similar approach, with the Chair of the Joint Working Group recording their experience and learning. This was supplemented by Cash-First support guidance that they had previously produced for partners.