Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund (CPAF): evaluation - interim report

Chapter 1: Introduction & Research Approach

This report outlines interim findings from the Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund (CPAF), based on fieldwork conducted by A Place in Childhood (APiC) in early 2025. It primarily evaluates the implementation and outcomes of Round 1 CPAF projects, with initial insights developing from Round 2 projects included where relevant. The report provides an overview of current learning to support future decisions around the fund and broader child poverty initiatives. More detailed insights, including final evaluation data, will be available in future reports for both Round 1 and Round 2.

What is CPAF?

The Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund (CPAF) is a Scottish Government-led funding initiative designed for local authorities and health boards. Launched in 2023, CPAF offers time-limited funding to local areas to pilot and implement innovative projects aimed at reducing child poverty. The fund’s primary goal is to encourage or accelerate innovation by providing opportunity to rigorously test and assess new ways of working or delivering a service, so that successes and challenges can be shared and learned from.

The objective of CPAF is to "enhance an area’s approach to tackling child poverty through innovative and evidence-based policy action." It supports small-scale projects that aim to generate evidence around a known issue, adapt successful approaches from other areas, or redesign services to have a greater impact on child poverty.

Given the complex nature of the causes and effects of child poverty, the Scottish Government acknowledges that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, CPAF encourages local communities to innovate by trying new approaches, applying methods that are new to the local area or thematic issue, or evaluating and developing evidence on activities that have been tried but not yet assessed for impact.

A key component of CPAF is continuous monitoring, with evaluation support provided to aid the effective collation and sharing of findings across Scotland. The aim is to help refine strategies and improve the delivery of services aimed at tackling child poverty.

How does CPAF support Scottish Government priorities?

CPAF is aligned with the Scottish Government’s Best Start, Bright Futures plan, which aims to deliver child poverty reduction through innovative and evidence-based policy. CPAF contributes to this strategy by:

• Encouraging innovation and testing new approaches to child poverty reduction.
• Promoting evidence-based service design and delivery.
• Strengthening local and national data capabilities to target support more effectively.
• Supporting alignment with other key funding streams, such as Cash First, Pathfinders, and the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund.

Through the Verity House Agreement, the Scottish Government and local authorities are committed to using data and evidence to drive policy decisions. By testing new, place-based, partnership-driven innovations, CPAF plays a role in advancing these broader goals.

Additionally, in July of 2024, The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was incorporated into Scots law. The UNCRC Incorporation Act represents a landmark step in strengthening the protection of children’s rights in Scotland. The Act requires all public authorities—including local authorities and service providers—to act in a way that is compatible with the UNCRC. The Act reinforces key rights of the child under the UNCRC that directly relate to poverty and well-being, including the right to an adequate standard of living (Article 27), the right to health (Article 24), the right to education (Article 28), and the right to be heard and taken seriously in decisions affecting them (Article 12). CPAF supports improved understanding of how to deliver on these rights through local innovation to tackle child poverty.

CPAF Project Requirements

CPAF was open to applications from local authorities and health boards, with a maximum funding of £80,000 for a project duration of up to 16 months for Round 1 and 18 months for Round 2. The Scottish Government received 29 applications for Round 1, awarding funding to nine projects. For Round 2, it received 29 applications and awarded funding to 12 projects.

Projects were expected to address one or more of the following:

• One or more of the three key drivers of child poverty (income from employment, cost of living, income from social security).
• One or more of the six priority family groups at greatest risk of poverty (lone-parent families, minority ethnic families, families with a disabled member, families with a mother aged 25 or under, families with a baby, and families with three or more children).
• Involve people with lived experience of poverty in project design and implementation.
• Strengthen collaboration with local partners.
• Generate evidence through evaluation to contribute to local and national learning.
• Innovate to improve service delivery and impact on child poverty.
• Explore the scalability and sustainability of the intervention, if successful.

The funded projects are varied in terms of their timescales, objectives, target populations, and approaches. A summary of all projects is available in Annex A and B of this report.

Research Approach

Objectives

The research sought to assess CPAF’s effectiveness in enhancing local approaches to tackling child poverty and explore whether successful models might be replicated or embedded in other areas. The Scottish Government defined three core evaluation objectives:

1. Process Evaluation – How effectively have CPAF projects been implemented?

2. Impact Evaluation – What impact have CPAF projects had on families and services?

3. System Change Evaluation – To what extent have CPAF projects influenced local service delivery and strategy?

Below are the research questions for each of these objectives.

Objective 1: Process Evaluation

1. What facilitates and what acts as a barrier to the implementation of CPAF projects?

2. How are the principles of the CPAF contributing to change in local areas?

3. To what extent does the local context affect implementation?

4. Have CPAF projects been implemented as intended?

5. How are CPAF projects taking an evidence-based approach to delivering their projects?

6. How are CPAF projects innovating across the life of the project?

Objective 2: Impact Evaluation:

1. To what extent has CPAF funding enabled local areas to enhance their approach to tackling child poverty?

2. To what extent are local areas embedding learnings into service delivery?

3. To what extent are local areas engaging with those with lived experience of poverty in the design and delivery of projects?

4. To what extent have CPAF projects had an impact on outcomes for families living in poverty? What are these impacts?

5. How sustainable/scalable are the projects, and their outcomes, beyond the funding period?

6. Who are the beneficiaries? Are there groups that benefit less or more from CPAF projects? Are priority family groups reached?

Objective 3: System Change Evaluation:

1. How are CPAF projects contributing to system change within services in local areas?

2. How and to what extent are public and partner organisations working in partnership across CPAF?

3. How do grant recipients and local partners view working in partnership? What are the successes, challenges, and unintended consequences (positive or negative)?

4. How and to what extent are the values, cultures, and behaviours of those who design and deliver services changing?

5. How effective has collaboration been between and across CPAF projects, e.g. across each round of CPAF?

Methods and Rationale

The overall research methodology combines qualitative and quantitative methods to ensure a comprehensive and efficient evaluation, aligned with the objectives set by the Scottish Government. At this stage, the insights for CPAF Round 1 projects are almost entirely based on qualitative research, with more quantitative insights expected in May 2025 upon submission of final project reports. For CPAF Round 2 projects, which are at an early implementation stage, fieldwork so far has been limited to initial discussions on project plans. Due to the diverse nature of projects supported by CPAF, it is not yet clear how much scope there will be for robust quantitative comparisons between projects in the final overarching report.

Data Collection for Round 1

The data collection for Round 1 projects included:

• Desk-based analysis – Reviewed key documents produced by project partners and the Scottish Government, including meeting minutes, progress reports, monitoring and evaluation reports, and other relevant project documents where available. This helped to build an understanding of project activities, challenges, and successes. However, the detail provided varied across projects due to flexibility around progress reporting requirements.
• Key informant interviews – Conducted 18 depth interviews involving 21 professionals across all nine projects. Participants included project managers, frontline workers, and senior managers from councils, NHS boards, and third-sector organisations.
• Focus groups – Conducted four focus groups with 38 parents involved in CPAF projects and one focus group with five frontline workers. Parent focus groups covered four projects where there had been significant direct involvement of families in design or delivery. Participants were selected based on their attendance at groups, or through being offered the opportunity via project leads. For example, three focus groups took part within pre-existing scheduled meetups as part of project delivery. In another focus group, parents were strategically involved in the project as paid members of staff. These discussions provided valuable perspectives on implementation, challenges, and outcomes.
• Family Interviews: Where it was not possible to arrange a family focus group, 1:1 or 1:2 interviews were arranged instead. Three further parents were involved via interviews across two projects where parents with lived experience were a core part of project delivery. This opportunity was advertised to project recipients via project leads. A further three parents submitted written answers to questions via a frontline worker.
• Tailored approach – A comprehensive topic guide was developed and adapted for each interview and focus group to reflect the specific context and objectives of the project. This flexibility ensured that data collection was relevant to the unique focus of each project.

Adaptations Made During the Process

The diverse nature of CPAF projects required tailored approaches to data collection:

• Engaging families – While some projects did not directly engage families experiencing poverty, where they had, APiC made efforts to involve them directly in the evaluation to understand the on-the-ground impact.
• Blurred roles – In some cases, the line between worker and family participant was blurred. For example, Midlothian Council’s project recruited a team of lived experience researchers who contributed to data collection alongside receiving project support.
• Practical constraints – Data collection was adapted to account for timing, language barriers, and the presence of children during focus groups. For example:
  • Focus groups were limited to 45 minutes to 1 hour where possible.
  • Parents were encouraged to speak or attend to their children freely during sessions.
  • Plain language was used, and participants whose first language was not English were supported informally by other group members to ensure they could contribute.
• Flexible formats – Where it was impractical for participants to join a focus group, 1:1 or 1:2 interviews were arranged via videocall or phone. In one case, rural isolation and health issues limited participation, so three approaches were taken:
  • Individual telephone interviews were conducted where possible.
  • Three families submitted written responses to questions via frontline workers.
  • We held a focus group with the frontline workers.
• Responding to high turnout – In one instance, 13 families attended a parents’ group despite a target of eight focus group participants. The initial aim of this session was to speak through the process of each family becoming involved and their journey through the service. However, the session was adapted to ensure everyone’s views were captured, by reducing the number of questions asked to just those focused on impact. This meant it was easier to make sure everyone was able to have their say on what had worked well or less well for them, regardless of when they had joined the project. This helped create a safe, familiar environment for participants who were new to research and ensured no bias selection process had to take place around who would be involved.

For data-focused projects where there had been no direct involvement of families, the research relied solely on interviews with Key Informants and existing monitoring and evaluation reports (where available), to avoid redundancy and maximise value.

Ethical Considerations

Ethical considerations were central to the research process:

• All researchers were experienced in working with vulnerable populations, including adults and children.
• Focus groups were conducted in a sensitive and inclusive manner, using clear and straightforward language to support all participants to feel comfortable.
• All participating parents received a £20 supermarket voucher to thank them for the contribution. APiC organisers checked with relevant partners beforehand to select a supermarket of most value to participants.
• Participants were informed that taking part would have no bearing on the support they received from the project.
• Recruitment relied on local authorities and third-sector partners, which may have led to a sample bias towards those with positive experiences. To mitigate this, participants were encouraged to give honest feedback and reassured that all input was valuable for improving services.
• Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and data was handled confidentially to protect participant identities. No quotes have been used within the context of specific projects, to remove potential for any individuals to be identifiable.
• A Privacy Notice was agreed between APiC and the Scottish Government at the outset, clarifying how data would be stored and used. A link to the notice was included in the consent form APiC provided to participants. No raw data was transferred between APiC and the Scottish Government.

Limitations of the Research

While the research methodology was designed to capture a comprehensive picture, several limitations remain:

• Sample bias – Recruitment through project partners may have led to a bias towards participants with positive experiences.
• Small samples - Due to the scale of the projects, and time and resources available, the people involved had to be picked purposively. Had the research been larger in scale, other methods such as snowballing may also have been used.
• Accessibility challenges – Some families facing rural isolation or health barriers found it harder to engage. In such cases, flexible methods (e.g. telephone interviews) were used to ensure participation. Language barriers also made it harder for some families to communicate their thoughts.
• Comparability challenges – Though the CPAF projects share deeper common themes, the diversity of funded projects and contexts has made direct comparative analysis between qualitatively different initiatives difficult.

Evaluation Support Meetings for Round 2

For Round 2, the research team held structured meetings with project leads to understand project goals and support the establishment of evaluation frameworks. Mid-point data collection for Round 2 projects will take place in summer 2025, with a full evaluation report that includes this and more detail on Round 1 expected in March 2026. For this reason, the report features limited insights on Round 2 projects. A full overview of these projects is available in Annex B.

Findings from Urban Foresight’s evaluation support for Round 1 CPAF projects identified key factors for effective evaluation support, including a collaborative approach, flexible support structures, responsiveness to diverse project needs, and mechanisms for peer learning. We are applying these learnings by adopting a highly collaborative approach from the start of Round 2, initiating semi-structured co-creation meetings to tailor evaluation frameworks specific to each project's context and goals. This approach integrates evaluation into existing project activities, avoiding additional burdens and promoting ownership among teams. Flexibility underpins our evaluation support, allowing projects autonomy over engagement frequency and style. We are also encouraging projects to adapt their evaluation strategies mid-process based on emergent insights to maintain relevance and utility.

Recognising the diverse needs of project teams, we are adjusting our support based on varying evaluation capacities. Experienced teams receive assistance refining existing frameworks, while teams with limited evaluation capacity receive foundational, practical guidance. To foster peer learning, we are planning 2-3 optional webinars across the life of the projects, beginning with a session on co-design—a topic highlighted as of interest by many project leads. This approach supports the broader aim of establishing a collaborative community of practice among Round 2 projects, aligning with wider Scottish Government objectives.

This Report

This report is structured to give answers to the research objectives and questions that have emerged so far through fieldwork with CPAF Round 1 projects:

• Chapter two focuses on the Implementation Process for projects.
• Chapter three focuses on Project Impacts and Systems Change.
• Chapter four concludes the report and offers key insights that may feed next steps for CPAF projects and other related Scottish Government and local strategies to tackle child poverty.