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

Chapter 3: CPAF Project Impacts and Systems Change

This chapter sets out the impacts of CPAF projects so far, as well as the enablers for sustaining progress in tackling child poverty. It answers research questions for Objectives 2 and 3, as set out in Chapter One.

It predominantly reflects data gathered from Key Informant Interviews and Family Participant and Frontline Worker Focus Groups. Some data is further gathered from Monitoring & Evaluation reports that have been completed by CPAF Round 1 recipients. In one case, the end of project report was also available to APiC for analysis. There is no analysis that pertains to CPAF Round 2 projects in this chapter, as it is too early in their implementation to draw out any findings on impacts and systems change. A summary of Key Points from this chapter are outlined below.

Key Points

• Early quantitative evidence is that CPAF projects focused on income maximisation were able to significantly enhance income stability for families they worked with. Meanwhile, qualitative evidence we collected suggests improvements in social integration, and overall wellbeing for project recipients. All priority family groups were reached, though not all projects targeted every group.
• For income maximisation projects, a holistic, proactive approach integrating financial, emotional, and practical support proved most effective.
• Data-driven targeting improved support accuracy, but faced persistent data-sharing barriers.
• Projects successfully engaged families in meaningful co-production, although clearer financial and emotional support mechanisms for participants would enhance sustainability.
• CPAF’s principles are effectively being put into practice to drive cultural and systemic change, promoting more collaborative, preventative approaches within local services.
• There are clear signs emerging of sustainability and scalability within some local contexts. However, it is too early to make concrete findings, and many remain dependent on resolving short-term funding cycles and embedding learning into mainstream services.

Impact on Families Experiencing Poverty

CPAF Round 1 projects successfully engaged all priority groups, with some adopting an inclusive approach encompassing all or any, and others taking a more specific focus. Annex A shows the Priority Family Groups reached for each Round 1 project. The findings below also mirror earlier findings from Scottish Government research on Engaging with families living in low-income households through system change, place-based initiatives, which includes some earlier evidence on the impact of CPAF Round 1 projects.

Income Maximisation and Financial Stability

Early quantitative evidence for CPAF Round 1 projects suggests they substantially improved financial outcomes for families they worked with, through proactive targeting, simplified benefit applications, and integrated welfare rights services. Key Informants told us that Aberdeen’s Low Income Family Tracker enabled early intervention, improving uptake of Free School Meals and Discretionary Housing Payments. Meanwhile, Inverclyde integrated welfare rights support into trusted community spaces, significantly boosting family financial stability. This is evidenced by their project reporting, with further details included in Annex A.

Key Informants described substantial economic improvement for some families:

‘You know, we had one household, it was referred to as rent arrears. And one of them had a health benefit, one didn't, but we got one of them the health benefit. And then basically they were £900 per month better off. They went from being in a problem debt to having no debt’ Key informant

‘The data is showing us the unmet need—we’re identifying people at risk who wouldn’t have sought help otherwise.’ Key Informant

Another Key informant noted how CPAF is supporting them towards a vision of easier uptake for all:

‘The ultimate vision is a system where residents don’t have to apply separately for each benefit—they just provide their information once, and all entitlements are calculated automatically.’ Key Informant

Vitally, some Family Participants commented on how transformative the financial impact had been for them:

‘I had housing issues, and I was talking to [name of staff member] about it and she was able to get in touch with people about trying to get moved, and then I had issues with my sons daily [component of Child Disability Payment] and [name of staff member] put me in touch with them and that sorted them all out for me…. it turned out that I was getting the wrong amount for him for months.’ Family Participant

‘They helped me for a lot of problem for my benefit and my house and my—they help me for a lot. Very good group here. Yeah, very happy.’ Family Participant

Social Integration and Family Wellbeing

CPAF Round 1 projects also positively impacted families’ social integration and overall wellbeing. Projects such as Edinburgh’s Chill ‘n’ Chat and Inverclyde’s work with Home Start created environments where families could foster social connections and build supportive relationships, significantly reducing feelings of isolation. Family Participants described multiple beneficial outcomes arising from these connections, as illustrated in their feedback below:

‘It was great to have a wee support network as I don't have any family close by or anything. So it's great to come and meet everybody and just make friends and not be alone so much’. Family Participant

‘So having that support from somebody who is in a similar situation, the same amount of kids too. So just have been able to come in and just be open and say ‘I'm having a pure crap day’, and being able to get emotional. Naebody's like ‘what are you doing?’’ Family Participant

Family Participants noted that there had been multiple positive impacts on their health and wellbeing:

‘I’m coming to the community centre and all the ladies are speaking English. Yeah, so that’s a big reason I’m coming to my centre. My English very, very much better.’ Family Participant

‘So many people coming from different countries, and they're feeling isolated because they can't go there because there's no one from my country there that's going to understand me. Know what I mean? And this is why we need more funding for these community centres.’ Family Participant

‘They come in the community centre and like play with other boys. So my middle son is really happy about the community centre, and he is very excited to come here.’ Family Participant

Several families highlighted how access to food within CPAF projects themselves and wider community settings helps to reduce financial strain and build social connections that are essential:

‘I feel that some families that come here can't afford to give them a meal, so they depend on the school meal. And if they didn't have community centres that were doing pantries, then there's going to be families struggling.’ Family Participant

‘I feel like it's a safe place to come and obviously like there's food. So sometimes if you're struggling to get food at home, then you can always get food here and then meet new people and build relationships with them.’ Family Participant

The ability to share a meal in a communal setting helps to foster a sense of belonging and provides an important safety net for families facing food insecurity. Families reported that community pantries and meal programmes have become essential for many struggling with the rising cost of living.

Value of Link Worker Models

Both Key Informants and Family Participants highlighted the value of a link worker model, where a single point of contact helps families coordinate support and navigate multiple services:

‘There's so much you need to coordinate and it's just so overwhelming. And I think too much information coming at once, too many services involved. And if we could go in and just kind of coordinate it a little bit and be that buffer… once you start unpacking stuff, you find more and more. You know one support can take up, you know, your whole day coordinating with so many different services at a time.’ Key Informant

‘Sometimes it's a lot easier than having to try and speak to a partner, a brother, a sister, whereas I steer away for 10 minutes — walk the dug — you can just talk… It's easier to talk to somebody you don't really know. Yeah, rather than try to talk to somebody you love.’ Key Informant

The presence of a trusted point of contact reduces the burden on families and increases the likelihood that they will engage with support services. This can be especially important when navigating emotionally-charged issues or managing complex entitlements.

Families described how difficult it is to make phone calls and access information while managing the daily demands of caring for children, particularly when the situation also involves large families or people with disabilities:

‘So she went and she phoned them for me. I was just like, this [benefit] has changed and it must be what it is. But she was able to make those phone calls because I couldn't phone them. I wouldnae be able to. See if I could do a live chat that would be fine. But I'm not able to do [phone calls]. So it was great. And she phoned me to find out if I've got the backdated payment I was meant to get and if there was anything else that I needed her help for. And says to me if there's anything that comes up in the future just to drop her a message and she'll be happy to help us.’ Family Participant

The ability to delegate tasks like making phone calls or handling administrative processes can make a significant difference to families under pressure. Many participants described feeling too overwhelmed, confused, or dejected to handle tasks like these independently.

Impact on Local Service Capacity

Key Informant interviews and focus groups for CPAF Round 1 showed that projects have positively influenced local service capacity, primarily through enhanced skills training, improved data sharing, and strengthened multi-agency collaboration. Projects such as Perth and Kinross’ Support and Connect programme equipped frontline staff with greater confidence and practical tools to address sensitive poverty-related issues effectively. Similarly, North Ayrshire’s tests of change for a Single Shared Assessment model demonstrate the strong potential to streamline administrative processes and cooperation and enable staff to provide a more joined-up, person-centred and proactive response to family needs.

CPAF Round 1 initiatives have also improved understanding of local poverty dynamics, enabling services to better identify and respond to previously unmet needs. Aberdeen’s use of predictive analytics through the Low Income Family Tracker exemplifies how data-driven approaches can significantly enhance targeted service provision, ensuring more efficient and timely support. Across projects, strengthened partnerships between local authorities, third-sector organisations, and other stakeholders have facilitated knowledge exchange, built trust, and enhanced overall responsiveness, demonstrating CPAF’s considerable impact on enhancing local service delivery capacity.

Engaging Families and Communities in Design and Delivery

Depth of Lived Experience Engagement

CPAF Round 1 projects effectively involved families in project design and delivery. Midlothian trained community researchers, which is directly informing local policy. At the same time, it built their capacities, skills and confidence. Moray Council’s interaction with the Moray ASN Parent Carer Action Group enabled families to influence services actively, and supported the council to better understand what good support would look like. Meanwhile, Edinburgh's Chill ‘n’ Chat and Home Start Inverclyde tailored activities directly around participant feedback, ensuring responsiveness to local needs. Another key example is that Midlothian Council’s Peer Researcher model led to the insight that engaging families living in poverty is more effective when framed around the cost-of-living crisis and ‘getting by,’ as the term ‘poverty’ can feel stigmatising and alienating. While CPAF projects successfully engaged families and communities, participants also identified areas where further improvement could enhance and sustain meaningful engagement

Effective Support

Although coproduction and deep engagement with lived experience contributors was universally valued by Key Informants and Family Participants and improved the quality and relevance of the projects, supporting them was not without its challenges. For example, several participants reflected upon how staff and contributors with lived experience were often undervalued and underpaid, despite making vital contributions to projects:

‘It wasn't fair on him and he was very committed and wanted to make it work. But, you know, people need to be valued for the time they're putting in. Yeah. And paid accordingly.’ Key Informant

Another Key informant talked about how the instability in some contributor’s lives could bring additional challenges to the engagement:

‘Because they were living in that kind of lived experience of it, they were bringing the reality on a daily basis to the project. So, you know, how do we support them? Mental health issues became kind of a key challenge.’ Key Informant

Other participants described how greater financial and emotional support is often needed to sustain participation:

‘And people hearing, yeah, really distressing stories, you know, as a volunteer having to listen to that and process that as well.’ Key Informant

The emotional weight of supporting others, particularly when working with vulnerable groups, can be overwhelming for volunteers. Without adequate supervision and support, there is a risk of emotional exhaustion and disengagement.

Some participants emphasised that clearer guidelines on financial compensation and recognition would help motivate ongoing involvement:

‘It wasn't clear what people would be getting compensated for to some degree. And then even what the limits of the budget we had.’ Family Participant

Uncertainty around payment and compensation can create confusion and mistrust, and discourage participation. Clear communications regarding financial arrangements at the start of a project would help manage expectations and promote participant engagement, trust and satisfaction.

Insufficient Project Funding and Resource

Family participants also raised concerns about projects being underfunded more generally, with concern that staff might be using personal resources to fill the gaps:

‘They do need to be funded more, I feel, because I've noticed that half of it comes out of their pocket [project staff] as well as what they get for the fund. And it's not fair because they're not getting much of a wage… But they're doing it for us, the people and the kids, you know what I mean?’ Family Participant

Underfunding places pressure on both staff and volunteers, who often feel compelled to continue despite limited financial compensation. Some projects in this situation realised they would need more time/resource to engage properly with families to meet their needs and/or work in person-centred way. Reliance on goodwill is unsustainable over time and exposes those involved to increased risk of burnout. For example:

‘A couple of people felt like "I put in all these hours and actually I would have been better off working".’ Key Informant

Some projects could have benefited from asking for more funding for staff time or participant incentives at the outset. However, as many projects (particularly those working directly with families) evolved their design across the course of funding, this was not easy to determine at the application stage.

Working at the Pace of Families

Key Informants stressed the importance of flexibility when working with family groups, recognising that families have complex lives and varying levels of capacity to engage:

‘I think we have to realise we have to go at their pace. Yeah. And not where, you know, we've got this money for 12 months and we need to achieve everything in 12 months. It's you're trying to work with people to help them realise what their potential is and how they can do it, but without them feeling as though they're being pushed into a corner.’ Key Informant

Effective capacity-building requires adapting to the pace and readiness of participants rather than imposing rigid timelines or targets. This approach helps to build trust and ensure that the support provided is meaningful and sustainable.

Cross-Cutting Impacts and Outcomes

The following section outlines a number of common impacts and outcomes observed across the Round 1 CPAF-funded projects. While individual projects varied in scope, setting, and delivery model, a set of consistent themes emerged through the evaluation. These cross-cutting outcomes reflect some of systemic benefits and effects beginning to take shape, highlighting areas of success as well as potential opportunities for further development and strategic focus:

• Increased Benefit Uptake: Proactive targeting and simplified processes expanded access to financial support.
• Reduced Administrative Burden: Integrated referral systems streamlined interactions for both families and staff.
• Improved Confidence and Wellbeing: Holistic services boosted resilience and empowerment among families and frontline workers.
• Expanding Referral Networks: Training frontline workers broadened the scope and effectiveness of referral pathways.
• Enhanced Understanding and Decision-Making: Projects generated crucial insights into local needs and effective interventions.
• Strengthened Partnerships: Collaboration between local authorities, third-sector, and private partners improved service delivery quality and trust.

Overall, CPAF Round 1 projects have demonstrated significant positive impacts and achievement across financial, social, and systemic dimensions, and have suggested key areas needing continued strategic reform or refinement, which are addressed in the following section on Driving Systems Change.

Sustainability and Replicability of Interventions

Local areas show a strong commitment to embedding CPAF learnings into future service delivery. For example, Aberdeen City Council explicitly plans to continue using the Low Income Family Tracker platform insights to shape broader strategic planning and policy beyond financial support, aiming for long-term system changes across departments. This includes the platform having a role in their CPAF Round 2 project. Inverclyde Council also intends to sustain the integrated Home Start model, with Home Start also looking to replicate this successful practice in Renfrewshire. Meanwhile, key aspects of Edinburgh and Inverclyde’s projects are continuing for at least another year as internal monies have been earmarked to support them. Conversely, projects like Moray and Perth & Kinross have highlighted significant challenges around embedding practices sustainably, primarily due to unstable short-term funding cycles, a limited landscape of local third sector partners to work with, and staffing constraints, which limit longer-term service integration and scalability. Nevertheless, Perth & Kinross view the new components enabled by CPAF funding as essential to their local strategy, and therefore intend to progress the project under alternative funding routes. Moray are also looking at ways to continue by ensuring the project intent remains part of the staff remit, and that the momentum of their achievements thus far is not lost.

Many local authorities are also actively discussing internally and externally how project insights—such as simplified consent mechanisms, the barriers facing certain types of families, the solutions to them, and proactive outreach strategies—can influence future decisions, indicating a widespread intention to embed and scale effective practices. For example, Midlothian Council is looking at integrating findings from their CPAF work across Community Planning, and South Lanarkshire Council is looking at how elements of the support provided through their project with third sector partner COVEY can influence their planning for reducing poverty going forward.

Participants stressed the importance of embedding the knowledge and insights gained from their projects into future service design and delivery:

‘In terms of when the funding comes to an end, sure the project activity will finish, but the knowledge, the understanding and the learning from that, we want to be able to articulate that and how we go forward in terms of our day-to-day business of supporting children and families.’ Key Informant

The ambition to carry forward learning into mainstream service delivery reflects the success of CPAF in supporting new models of working. This was echoed across multiple projects, with teams exploring how to sustain and build on the progress made. Some have seen CPAF projects as aligning with broader ongoing service reform already underway, such as those initiatives by Social Security Scotland, and within their local authority, towards improving the service user experience. Others have seen them as a starting point for that journey - aiming at tackling child poverty more effectively at the local level.

At the same time, many CPAF projects reporting that their sustainability has been constrained by short-term funding, recruitment and procurement challenges. Some funding recipients felt that this had had a significant impact on their ability to make the progress required within the allotted time frame to reach a point where learning could be embedded. This is particularly with regard how long it can take to put out an Invitation to Tender, gather and assess responses after funding agreements have been put in place. Alternatively, it can be navigating appropriate contracts for partners awarded work outwith a full procurement process. Regarding recruitment, similar delays can apply with getting adverts pulled together, circulated, and interviews held. In some cases, the short-term nature of contracts can also decrease interest, or mean that employees may leave for more secure employment before the end of their contracted period of work

Driving Systems Change

CPAF Round 1 projects have made important contributions which can inform potentially significant strategic system-level changes. Though each is small in scale, these include promoting integrated, proactive, more efficient approaches and collaboration, and challenging traditional service silos. By driving cultural shifts, enhancing inter-departmental collaboration, and fostering innovative working practices, CPAF projects are helping to reshape local authority practices and behaviours in ways which can endure and evolve.

Aberdeen City Council’s introduction of the Low Income Family Tracker platform exemplifies this shift, fostering a new proactive service delivery culture that seeks to anticipate and prevent financial crises rather than respond reactively. This platform has driven changes in how different council departments collaborate, encouraging more holistic and coordinated interventions. North Ayrshire Council’s exploration of a Single Shared Assessment has resulted in an enduring focus on their customer service function, and consent mechanisms as the hub and catalyst for broader system integration and inter-departmental collaboration. Customer services proved a natural nexus for joined-up, person-centred, frontline support and referral processes through a shared client management system. Meanwhile, mechanisms enabling clients to give consent for their data to be shared across multiple siloed services emerged as a key legal barrier to, or catalyst for, effective proactive referral processes. The model has the potential to significantly streamline referrals, and improve administrative efficiency and service cohesion, if key barriers can be overcome Those identified include fragmented systems, and the difficulty this presents to establishing a consent mechanism which overlays and connects all, as well as licencing and legislation controls on data-sharing.

CPAF is also driving cultural shifts within organisations. This is clearly seen in the Perth & Kinross project, where frontline workers within schools, the council and NHS have become more confident and proactive in discussing poverty, thereby embedding new behaviours and values within public services. Inverclyde Council’s integration of welfare rights advice within existing community-based family supports is also significantly altering traditional perceptions and delivery models, demonstrating a new systemic approach to income maximisation that effectively reduces stigma.

There are clear instances where CPAF is helping to catalyse meaningful changes in the values, cultures, and behaviours of those involved in designing and delivering the services involved, shifting them toward more empathetic, proactive, and collaborative approaches. For instance, Aberdeen City Council is shifting organisational culture towards proactive rather than reactive responses, spearheading a more preventative mindset among frontline staff and service managers. This is also supported by wider initiatives, such as their work funded by the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund.

In Perth & Kinross, frontline staff were initially hesitant to discuss financial matters, but following training, show confidence initiating poverty-related conversations. This cultural shift reflects a deeper systemic change in how services approach sensitive issues like financial hardship and domestic abuse: one underpinned by a principle of shared responsibility for enabling person-centred support whenever need is suspected.

Additionally, CPAF is encouraging organisations to value lived experience more explicitly. This was evident in Midlothian, where community researchers’ insights are informing local strategies, specifically contributing to community planning, thus altering service delivery behaviours and decision-making frameworks. Overall, CPAF has encouraged individuals within public services and their partners to embrace cultural humility, collaborative openness, and innovation more fully, positively changing organisational behaviours and norms. While these wider systems changes are contingent on continued action in line with project intentions and service reform, there are promising signs for sustainability for at least some CPAF projects at this stage.

Enhancing Data Sharing

Some CPAF Round 1 projects have demonstrated that taking a more flexible, data-driven approach can improve financial outcomes and strengthen understanding of local needs. For example, Aberdeen City Council was able to award Discretionary Housing Payments to support families struggling with rent arrears, as well as reach out to people who may be entitled to benefits they are not claiming, One project also reported that the new evidence they were gathering suggests that only half of the parents requiring poverty-related support fall within the priority family groups. This was an unexpected finding which suggests something may have changed within the local area and population that they need to investigate further. By improving data-sharing and removing internal silos, councils could better identify gaps and improve the targeting of support.

Shared referral systems have also improved the coordination and continuity of care, helping to maintain stronger relationships with service users. Including a named person can have similar benefits to the Link Worker Model, as referred to previously:

‘With that shared referral system, you actually get that named person on the other end of it... When it is someone who has enhanced needs, you can continue that relationship and try and work together to get them support.’ Key Informant

However, barriers related to GDPR compliance and technical incompatibility between systems remain a challenge:

‘Instead of going through another agonising, pulling-teeth process of giving them access to just one small partial view, why not just share the CRMs full stop and see if any problems arise?’ Key Informant

Aligning data systems and establishing or clarifying data-sharing permissions could significantly reduce inefficiencies and strengthen the delivery of coordinated support. Allowing frontline organisations, under data-sharing agreements, to monitor progress or success of services accessed via referrals on their systems could radically improve understanding of intervention impacts, ripple effects and systems change.

Despite the benefits, data-sharing is currently limited by legal and technical barriers. Participants noted that the lack of clarity around how data-sharing in Scotland can take place is preventing more effective coordination:

‘There should be a legal basis for us to be able to process someone’s information to maximise their entitlements. That is not in place in Scotland.’ Key Informant

‘The more we integrate, the better we can target support. It’s about getting upstream.’ Key Informant

Aberdeen City Council’s use of the Low Income Family Tracker system, alongside Policy in Practice, demonstrates how local authorities can combine internal data with data held by other bodies such as the DWP. Understanding the technical procedures behind this enables local authorities to navigate the appropriate level of data sharing for specific needs, what legal gateways are appropriate for different tasks, and where risks should and should not be taken. For example, Aberdeen’s work operated under the legal basis of Public Task, and a range of legal gateways were used for specified tasks. An example is using the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 as the legal gateway to unlock data sharing with regard to children who are entitled to free school meals. This then enabled them to see families who were not claiming this entitlement, and to support those who could register to do so. Fundamentally, Local Authorities are the Data Controllers for the information they hold, and there are pathways to negotiate specific uses for improving income maximisation services. However, there is limited understanding and confidence in how to do this effectively. Greater national guidance could clarify this and help to unlock this potential.

At the level of service user applications for support, Key Informants identified consent as a key enabler for more effective data-sharing and service delivery. Families and key informants noted that financial inclusion services are not well integrated with other public services, leading to repeated requests for the same information and inconsistent support:

‘Really, you’ve got them with their hands tied behind their back. They can only do one part… Give them access to the information they need to do the full assessment without relying on the customer to go back and forth.’ Key Informant

Other evidence suggests that a key underlying barrier to integration is the technical infrastructure, with different public departments and services running separate customer relationship management systems under different licencing arrangements. This again highlights the strategic interest in overlay mechanisms like consent and / or referral systems (e.g. the FORT system used by the Citizens Advice Bureau) which may have the potential to enable local, even national, integration without overly disrupting existing systems. Better communication and data-sharing between services would materially reduce the administrative burden on families and improve the efficiency and cohesion of support delivery.

Encouraging Cross-Project Learning

Collaboration between and across CPAF projects, including from Round 1 to Round 2, has been effective. Scottish Government actively enabled cross project learning for CPAF Round 1 participants:

‘The meeting up as well of the other services, you know, the other people that got funded, we can talk about, you know, did this work, did this not this. Even though the projects are very different, you're still trying to talk to people and change stuff and just get that slightly different angle.’ Key Informant

This collaborative environment encouraged projects to explore different approaches and adapt based on the successes and challenges faced by other teams. The exchange of ideas increased the confidence of some Key Informants.

Although collaborations have been beneficial, formal structures for cross-project learning and sharing experiences are still evolving. While partnerships have enabled effective localised project enhancements, structured inter-project learning networks, such as webinars and peer-learning sessions in Round 2, would have further potential to strengthen collective impacts. APiC’s work with Round 2 projects so far shows strong, sometimes specific, interest in learning more about CPAF Round 1 projects and what learnings they may be able to take forward.

Impact of the Funding Cycle

The intention of CPAF is to provide short-term funding to enable the trial and testing of new innovations in service delivery. The goal is that project successes might then be sustained by recipients via other sources of internal local funding and/or key learnings be integrated in other ways. A key improvement suggested by participants was to introduce longer-term framework funding and partnership agreements, which would create greater stability and allow projects to evolve more sustainably:

‘This is actually deeply embedded in the culture of the civil service and it’s mitigating for failure rather than success. Let’s just change it. Let’s go for framework partnership agreements over longer periods of time.’ Key Informant

Longer-term funding would provide the stability needed to build stronger partnerships, scale successful models within local areas, and make deeper, more sustainable improvements in service delivery. They would also allow for a truer picture and understanding of project impacts, ripple effects, and overarching systems change when it comes to evaluation, given the time projects take to mobilise and take effect:

‘you need time to see the real-world effects—what changes immediately, what sticks, and what emerges later. Too often, evaluations happen too soon, before we can actually see the long-term shifts.’ Key Informant

In some areas, local authorities are able to find ways to sustain services developed through CPAF within existing funding structures. However, in others there is insufficient internal resource available to ensure innovations can continue.