Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund evaluation: final report

1: Introduction & Research Approach

This report outlines the findings from the Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund (CPAF) evaluation, based on fieldwork conducted by A Place in Childhood (APiC) in early 2025, at the end of Round 1 funded projects, and in Summer 2025, midway through Round 2 projects. It also draws on the end of project reports for Round 1 funded projects. It draws together findings from across the two rounds with regard to implementation, outcomes, and sustainability. As part of this it explores and represents a systems approach to child poverty reduction.

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 opportunities 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, Fairer Futures Partnerships, 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 presented in section 2.

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. However, it should be noted that most findings are qualitative, and due to the diverse nature of projects, there is no rationale to compare quantitative findings between projects. Where these are available, they have been used to assess the impact of interventions, and will be presented where relevant throughout this report.

As part of the methodology, the evaluation uses complex systems mapping to understand how different factors interact to shape outcomes over time, rather than treating issues as simple cause-and-effect problems. It builds upon work already conducted on systems change in this area by Scottish Government. This approach recognises that policy delivery operates within dynamic systems made up of people, processes, resources, and incentives that influence one another in reinforcing or constraining ways.

Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) are used as a practical tool within this method to visually map these relationships, showing how actions can create feedback loops that either strengthen positive change or unintentionally undermine it. By making these interactions visible, complex systems mapping helps policymakers and practitioners identify leverage points for intervention, anticipate unintended consequences, and better understand why some approaches are more sustainable or scalable than others within real-world conditions. In this evaluation, CLDs have been created based on the data collected.

Data Collection

Data were collected for Round 1 projects at the start of 2025 (towards the end of their project cycle), and for Round 2 projects in the Summer of 2025 (at the midpoint of their project cycle). Research Instruments can be found in Annex E.

The data collection for both included:

• Desk-based analysis – Reviewed key documents produced by project partners and the Scottish Government, including meeting minutes, progress reports, monitoring and evaluation reports, final project reports for Round 1 projects, 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 – Participants included project managers, frontline workers, and senior managers from councils, NHS boards, and third-sector organisations. We conducted the following:
  • Round 1: 18 depth interviews involving 21 professionals across all nine projects.
  • Round 2: 29 depth interviews with 33 professionals across all 12 projects.
• Key informant Focus Group – In one Round 1 project, due to the highly collaborative nature of the project, a 2.5 hour focus group / workshop was held with five project team members, across the two organisations involved. This enabled the untangling of the complexity of the project, as well as serving a supportive evaluation role for the team as a shared mid-point reflective exercise.
• Focus groups – These consisted of either family participants of projects, or frontline workers. The following were conducted for each round:
  • Round 1: four focus groups with 38 parents involved in CPAF projects and in one project one focus group was held 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.
  • Round 2: two focus groups with 10 parents involved in codesigning elements of their CPAF project. Participants were selected based on their involvement and willingness to speak with an APiC researcher.
• Family Interviews – Where it was not possible to arrange a family focus group, 1:1 or 1:2 interviews were arranged instead. The following were conducted for each round:
  • Round 1: Three 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.
  • Round 2: Six parents were involved via interviews across two projects. All parents were in receipt of support from a CPAF project, and were selected based on their willingness to speak about their experiences with an APiC researcher.
• 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. Wherever appropriate, APiC researchers sought to involve the children in discussions.
  • 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 video call 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.

Where a project did not directly involve families, we relied on key-informant interviews and existing monitoring data to understand delivery and early outcomes.

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, or asked participants directly during calls before providing their preferred choice.
• 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 and anonymised.
• 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.
• Limited Quantitative Impact Data – Due to the varied nature of projects and what could be robustly reported within the timeframes of each project, there is limited quantitative data to be strategically analysed on impacts of each project. The data available is primarily qualitative and small in scale.
• 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 also held structured meetings with project leads in early 2025 (prior to any fieldwork arrangements taking place) to understand project goals and support the establishment of evaluation frameworks. Mid-point data collection for Round 2 projects was then conducted by a different member of the APiC team to the person providing this support, to ensure independence.

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 have therefore applied 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 have adjusted 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, APiC also supported the Scottish Government at a CPAF Round 2 project lead meetup in Glasgow in August 2025. We led a workshop on Storytelling and involving people with lived experience in evaluation. This topic was in direct response to shared requests from project leads, and based on feedback it was received positively. APiC will continue to support Round 2 project leads in their evaluation throughout the remainder of the funding period.

Report Structure

This report is structured to give answers to the research objectives and questions that have emerged through fieldwork with CPAF projects and related reports:

• Section two focuses on the core issues CPAF projects are trying to address, and provides project summaries.
• Section three focuses on how effectively CPAF projects have been implemented.
• Section four focuses on the impacts CPAF projects have had
• Section five introduces the idea of capacities for more successful child poverty reduction, and presents these through complex systems analysis, in order to answer questions on systems change, and sustainability of projects.
• Section six offers a conclusion and overall strategic insights.