Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund evaluation: final report

Executive Summary

Background

The Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund (CPAF) was launched by the Scottish Government in 2023 to help local authorities and health boards test new approaches to reducing child poverty. The Fund supports small-scale projects that:

• generate new evidence on effective interventions;
• adapt successful models from elsewhere; and
• improve local service delivery through partnership, data use and co-production.

This final report brings together findings from Round 1 (2023–25) and mid-point evidence from Round 2 (2024–26).

Methodology

The evaluation used a primarily qualitative approach, including complex systems analysis to understand the dynamics that underpin successful project delivery and wider systems change. Evidence was drawn from:

• desk-based analysis of project documents and monitoring reports;
• 47 interviews with council, NHS and third-sector professionals;
• 57 parents and carers across 8 focus groups and individual interviews;
• structured check-ins with Round 2 project teams.

Data collection took place near project completion for Round 1 and at the Round 2 mid-point. Ethical procedures included informed consent, anonymisation of all feedback, and flexible participation methods.

Limitations include small samples, recruitment through project partners, limited data availability on impacts for Round 2 projects, and challenges comparing diverse project types. However, triangulation (bringing together of findings) across participants, documents and fieldwork ensured robust findings.

Findings

Across both rounds, CPAF projects clustered around three interrelated areas of focus:

• Income maximisation, seeking to increase take-up of financial entitlements and stabilise household income;
• Improved use of data, aiming to identify unmet need earlier and reduce fragmentation across services; and
• Capacity-building, strengthening frontline practice, partnership working and the role of lived experience in service design.

While projects varied in scale, geography and delivery model, they shared a common goal of making support more accessible, proactive and person-centred for families experiencing poverty, particularly priority family groups.

Below is a summary of how the evaluation findings of projects, when taken together, answer the three core research questions.

How effectively have CPAF projects been implemented?

Most projects were implemented effectively when basic enabling conditions were in place. These included clear leadership, aligned priorities, accessible infrastructure, and strong partnerships.

Key facilitators of effective implementation included:

• Clear project-level and strategic leadership, providing direction, permission and alignment across services;
• Trusted partnerships, particularly with third-sector organisations embedded in communities. Where most effective, these partnerships were being built upon rather than started from scratch;
• Practical tools and training that increased staff confidence to discuss poverty, share data and support families holistically; and
• Accessible delivery infrastructure, particularly using existing community venues and building outreach-based models that reach families where they are already at (e.g. a charity-based support group).

Key barriers included:

• Short-term funding cycles that delayed recruitment, compressed delivery timelines and made it harder to attract and retain key staff;
• Data-sharing constraints, including legal ambiguity, technical incompatibility between systems used by different organisations or internal departments, and lack of confidence from staff in terms of what is legally-sound to do with specific data;
• Wider service gaps in childcare, health, education and social care that limited what projects could achieve; and
• Challenges linked to rurality and island contexts, including staffing, transport and lack of community spaces.

Overall, CPAF projects were implemented as intended, but delivery timelines were often shorter than planned due to structural constraints. For example, when recruitment of a key staff member did not take place until midway through a project.

What impacts have CPAF projects had on families and services?

Where projects engaged directly with families, the evaluation found clear evidence of positive impacts:

• Improved financial outcomes, with many households becoming significantly better off through targeted income-maximisation and successful benefit appeals;
• Earlier and easier access to support, as services were embedded in trusted, familiar settings such as schools, health services and community hubs;
• Reduced stigma, isolation and anxiety, particularly where families accessed support through relational, non-judgemental approaches; and
• Increased confidence and agency, especially where families were involved in co-design, peer research or group-based activity.

While direct transitions into employment through CPAF projects were not reported, improvements in wellbeing, stability and confidence were widely seen as necessary foundations for longer-term change.

CPAF projects strengthened local practice by:

• Increasing confidence and capability to discuss income, hardship and stigma with families who may be experiencing difficult situations;
• Introducing new tools, dashboards and referral processes that reduced duplication and improved targeting. For example, by clearly showing areas in a local authority where benefit take-up is lower than may be expected;
• Normalising partnership working across councils, NHS boards and third-sector organisations; and
• Embedding lived experience panels into service design, testing and refinement.

Learning and reflection became part of everyday practice in areas where projects created regular feedback loops between frontline staff, analysts and decision-makers.

At a system level, CPAF contributed to early but meaningful shifts, including:

• Movement from reactive to more proactive identification of need;
• Greater coordination across services supporting families;
• Increased use of co-production and lived-experience input in service design and feedback; and
• Early signs of cultural change towards prevention, relational practice and continuous learning.

However, these impacts were uneven and most evident where projects were able to align data, relationships and leadership. Some projects were in areas early on the journey of systems-change, while others were taking place in areas that had already developed a wider culture of transformation.

To what extent have CPAF projects contributed to systems change and sustainability?

The evaluation shows that CPAF projects contribute to systems change not through isolated interventions, but by strengthening a set of interdependent system capacities.

Four core capacities emerged through fieldwork as critical to sustaining progress on child poverty:

1. Joined-up leadership and coordination, enabling shared purpose, aligned decision-making and reduced duplication;

2. Ongoing dialogue with families and frontline practice, ensuring services remain grounded in lived experience and real-time intelligence;

3. Trusted, continuous support in communities, providing relational stability, surfacing hidden need and enabling engagement over time; and

4. Shared intelligence that enables action, allowing services to identify need earlier, learn collectively and act coherently.

Where these capacities reinforced one another, CPAF projects were more likely to embed change into routine practice. Where one or more were weak, impacts were more fragile and at risk of fading once funding ended.

The evaluation identifies several conditions necessary to lock in and extend CPAF impacts:

• Multi-year funding to protect relational roles and local intelligence;
• Clear national guidance on lawful data-sharing to reduce uncertainty and local workarounds;
• Better alignment of and wider useability of data and referral systems;
• Resourced and embedded co-production structures; and
• Mechanisms for national sharing of tools, training and learning developed through CPAF.

Conclusion

CPAF has demonstrated that meaningful progress on child poverty depends not only on what services deliver, but on how local systems are structured to coordinate, learn and adapt over time. The Fund has enabled local areas to test innovative, evidence-based approaches that improve financial security for families, strengthen frontline practice and support more coherent local systems.

The learning generated through CPAF provides a strong foundation for future policy and investment, highlighting the importance of sustained relational capacity, shared intelligence, and genuine partnership with families in tackling child poverty at scale.