Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund evaluation: final report

3: How effectively have CPAF projects been implemented?

This section evaluates the implementation process of CPAF projects, highlighting common themes, lessons, and barriers. It draws on data from key informants, family participants, and frontline workers across both rounds of funded projects. ‘Key informants’ refers to any individuals participating in the evaluation process who were able to provide detailed insights into the implementation and impacts of CPAF projects. It additionally draws from the end of project reports for Round 1 projects. It answers research questions for Objective 1, as set out in Section One.

Key Points

What facilitates and what acts as a barrier to the implementation of CPAF projects? Implementation was most effective where the basic conditions for delivery were in place. Key facilitators included clear project-level leadership, aligned priorities across services (generally facilitated by robust strategic leadership), trusted partnerships, and practical tools that supported staff confidence. Strong leadership and strategic alignment enabled faster mobilisation, clearer communication, and sustained focus, while gaps in leadership, internal restructuring, and unclear governance often led to delays, disrupted referrals, and fragmented delivery. Barriers also arose from short-term funding cycles, recruitment delays, limited staff capacity, and pressures on staff wellbeing, particularly where projects relied on small teams or single post-holders.

How are the principles of the CPAF contributing to change in local areas? The core CPAF principles—person-centred practice, partnership working, innovation, and evidence-based learning—were visible across projects and actively shaped delivery. Person-centred approaches, including continuity of relationships, flexible support, and respect for lived experience, consistently enabled family engagement. Partnership working strengthened reach and relevance, particularly where councils, third-sector organisations, and NHS boards collaborated effectively. Co-production with families and frontline staff improved service design and acceptability, though it required time, emotional labour, and clear arrangements for support and payment. While these principles contributed to positive shifts in local practice, their consistent application depended on local capacity and infrastructure.

To what extent does the local context affect implementation? Local context strongly influenced all aspects of implementation. Geography, rurality, island settings, staffing shortages, existing service gaps, and the availability of community assets shaped the pace, reach, and feasibility of delivery. In rural and island areas, long travel distances, limited venues, transport constraints, and recruitment challenges slowed implementation and reduced reach. More broadly, gaps in statutory services — such as limited childcare, shortages in additional support needs provision, long waits for NHS services, and complex benefits systems — acted as significant barriers to family engagement, regardless of project quality. Projects that were explicitly tailored to local realities were more likely to progress effectively.

Have CPAF projects been implemented as intended? Overall, CPAF projects were implemented broadly as intended where enabling conditions were present. Projects progressed most effectively when leadership was clear, processes were simple and coordinated, partnerships were trusted, and infrastructure supported delivery. Where these conditions were weaker—due to delayed recruitment, annualised funding, arrears payment models, or limited data-sharing—implementation timelines were compressed, reducing opportunities for learning, adaptation, and sustained engagement. Despite these constraints, most projects maintained fidelity to their core aims, adapting delivery pragmatically in response to local challenges.

How are CPAF projects taking an evidence-based approach to delivering their projects? Evidence-based practice was most visible in projects with strong data systems, reflective practice, and regular opportunities for shared learning. High-quality data enabled more accurate targeting of support and quicker iteration of delivery models. However, data-sharing challenges — including unclear governance, technical inconsistencies, and system incompatibility — acted as barriers in some areas, slowing decision-making and limiting responsiveness. Where staff had access to clear tools, training, and reflective spaces, they were better able to use evidence to adapt practice and respond to emerging needs.

How are CPAF projects innovating across the life of the project? Innovation was evident across the life of CPAF projects, particularly in the development of new tools, partnership models, and approaches to person-centred support. Projects demonstrated adaptability through ongoing learning, reflective check-ins, and iterative changes to delivery in response to family feedback and implementation challenges. Innovation was strongest where staff capacity, leadership permission, and enabling infrastructure supported experimentation. Where these were constrained, innovation was still present but more limited in scope and pace.

Overall findings Taken together, the evaluation finds that effective implementation of CPAF projects depended on trusted relationships, strategic leadership, enabling infrastructure, coordinated processes, and the flexibility to learn and adapt over time. Where these conditions were in place, projects were delivered largely as intended and showed early signs of influencing local practice. Where they were limited, implementation was slower and more fragile, highlighting the importance of system-level supports alongside project-level innovation.

Factors Influencing Effective Implementation

The following broad themes emerged consistently across both CPAF rounds, reflecting the practical conditions that supported or constrained implementation across a wide variety of settings, delivery models, and organisational types:

1. Leadership and Strategic Alignment;
2. Delivery Infrastructure and Enabling Assets;
3. Wider Service Barriers Faced by Families;
4. Co-production; and
5. Funding Cycle and Approaches

The following sections examine each of these in turn, drawing out how and where they were enablers or barriers to successful project implementation.

1. Leadership and Strategic Alignment

This section draws out the importance of Local Leadership and Strategic Alignment in CPAF projects meeting their goals. This includes an overarching narrative on its importance, before delving into how the presence or absence of local leadership and strategic alignment impacted on trusted partnerships across sectors, and training and reflection tools for staff confidence.

CPAF projects benefited significantly from strong project leadership, existing partnerships, robust service infrastructure, and targeted training programmes. For example:

“The Child Poverty Coordinator is the bridge - employability, advice, early years - that’s where we line up. Without that role we’d slip back into silos.” Key informant

Projects moved fastest and held course where leadership provided a clear mandate and practical orchestration across services from the outset. This included strategic-level leadership with senior sponsorship or buy-in that could help align priorities and unlock barriers. For example, in West Lothian Council’s Round 2 project, senior sponsorship created the “permission structure” to address a recognised weakness (“we don’t make best use of data”) by partnering with the Improvement Service to build an interactive unmet-need dashboard.

In East Renfrewshire Council’s Round 2 project, a complementary form of leadership incorporates elements from both outwith and within the council. Outward-facing convening power is brought by the third sector partner Flexibility Works, paired with inward reform through the Council putting itself through flexible-working accreditation. This “walk the walk” stance builds credibility with employers supported through the project, and aligns employability messaging so parents could be coached to request flexibility with confidence.

More broadly, projects that have been embedded in corporate priorities (e.g., Children’s Services Plans or Local Outcomes Improvement Plans) have been better able to mobilise partners and sustain focus when timelines slipped. Where leadership has been unclear or fallen away, there have often been project delays and a loss of direction:

“I think, honestly, the lack of referrals at the moment. … There was a lot of shuffling about [our service]… didn’t know there was reshuffling going on… It wasn’t until a few months later we found out that people had moved on, someone had retired, someone had left… and [our service] kind of slipped through [the cracks].” Key informant

Projects with strategic involvement of NHS boards have benefitted from access to a wider range of ways to access service users and deliver support. At the same time, these projects have also often encountered more hurdles with regards to the length of time it takes to initiate new programs of work, due to the complex nature of how systems and teams are run.

Trusted partnerships across sectors

Related to the leadership qualities already discussed, where partnership has been treated as essential project infrastructure, rather than an add-on, projects have better translated intent into delivery:

“The relationship between the third sector organisations and families seems to be really strong and that model of that approach and that informality and that accessibility is something that [name of partner] have brought to the project that I don't think we could have matched through the council or through our NHS colleagues.… That's the key layer.” Key informant

Key Informants also spoke of the strong internal relationships they had, and their commitment to cross-departmental working. These were generally facilitated by individuals or teams who have a strong passion for their work in addressing and alleviating the causes of child poverty.

For example, Inverclyde Council’s Round 1 project built upon a growing partnership between the Council and Home Start, to extend Home Start’s provision and offer them a direct link to an Income Maximisation specialist. Similarly, the multiple projects across CPAF that have involved local Citizens Adviser Services or alternative providers offering income maximisation support, have built upon often long-standing and well-regarded partnerships.

Where local authorities and/or third sector partners were working with health boards on their project, there were often clear strategic alignments between project goals and the work of each institution. However, the relationships were generally newer and had not solidified over years as was the case with many council and third sector relationships. On some projects, implementation was also impeded by the different ways of working between these institutions or internal reorganisation. For example, in NHS Grampian and Aberdeenshire Council’s Round 2 project, a successful co-production process took place between partners and parents with lived experience of regular hospital visits with their children. Yet, implementation of the tests of change identified was slower than some parties expected and met with more resistance by the NHS, as it required a new way of thinking about resolving issues that did not have a clear mandate with any one individual or department.

Training, reflection, and tools for staff confidence

Delivery quality improved where teams funded by CPAF have invested in equipping staff and built reflective “feedback loops” that help enable project progression as a matter of course. This is often complex in multi-faceted teams with multiple services and projects running simultaneously. However, key ways these have been built include scheduled updates at partnership meetings that often address wider projects around poverty or children’s services and training developed to ensure effective rollout of newly developed tools.

“We’re building new muscles. The weekly reflection cadence and taking the [outcomes] back to the Experts by Experience panel has made us more confident about changing course fast… That’s the point — you only get confident by trying, hearing it, and fixing it together.” Key informant

For example, West Lothian Council’s Round 2 project has embedded reflection by wiring frontline feedback straight back to analysts, so model thresholds, target zones and engagement methods can be adapted iteratively in real time. Key informants emphasised this as everyday problem-solving rather than a one-off exercise. In Perth and Kinross’s Round 1 project, effective training through the Support and Connect programme empowered frontline staff to overcome initial hesitancy in having discussions around family income and wellbeing. It provided them with practical tools for sensitive conversations, delivered through collaboration with the Citizens Advice Bureau as a trusted local partner.

2. Delivery Infrastructure and Enabling Assets

Delivery infrastructure and enabling assets shaped what was possible in each CPAF project. This could relate to the data or knowledge available; digital tools and access available; and physical infrastructure such as buildings and transport. This section looks at these different types of infrastructure and enabling assets and how their existence or lack thereof was an enabler or barrier to project implementation.

The intent of many CPAF projects was to make a sustained improvement to the infrastructure capacity to support their own and future projects. For example:

“We can go to areas we know are not reaching families far from a [name of charity] office. Being there weekly changes what people bring you — it’s food, fuel, form-filling, everything — because they don’t have to do the mile-and-a-half uphill.” Key informant

Co-locating with other services has brought multiple CPAF projects benefits, such as communicated by this key informant:

“So we're in the Hub [at name of location] and there's a community room attached to that which is where they do the food bank twice a week. And they also do bake sales and bingo and those kinds of different community events. So where we're based has been good and kind of let us get that kind of soft start we've had with people asking who we are and what we're doing there as well.” Key informant

For example, South Ayrshire Council’s Round 2 project has established a base at a local primary school. This is enabling them to carry out the in-depth participatory research required with families to accelerate trust and contribute to a meaningful parental wellbeing tool.

Knowledge and Data as an Enabler

Local knowledge and existing evidence shaped what projects created or worked on, and how they were delivered. For example, City of Edinburgh Council’s Round 2 Project worked with the End Poverty Edinburgh panel (via the Poverty Alliance) which surfaced stigma as a key access barrier. The team translated that insight into a practical asset by co-producing short training animations with two reference groups — people with lived experience and frontline staff — so tone, language and scenarios matched real encounters. Meanwhile, Aberdeen City Council’s and NHS Grampian and Aberdeenshire Council’s Round 2 Projects both began from evidence of unmet need among specific priority families. They made co-production the first step — mapping pain points with participants — then moved into time-boxed tests of change to trial adjustments before wider roll-out.

With regard to data-focused projects, Aberdeen City Council’s Round 1 Project and West Lothian Council’s Round 2 Project used data tools that enabled targeted income-maximisation. Insights triggered campaigns, mailshots and on-site outreach; frontline feedback then informed quick adjustments to who was contacted, where presence was scheduled and what offers were made. In West Lothian, a frontline Council outreach officer worked in continuous dialogue with the Improvement Service developer of the new dashboard, undertaking weekly data updates, field checks, and refinements to ensure accurate and reliable data zones and maps

Data Discrepancies, Sharing, and Interoperability as a Barrier

At the same time, implementation of data-focused projects was impeded at times as projects faced legal ambiguity, technical inconsistency, and a “confidence gap” that slowed or diluted data-led work:

“Our weak points are the operational systems and permissions to actually use the insight in real time.” Key informant

“There’s a lot of stuff that says GDPR — sometimes it’s a red herring. What we’re doing is lawful. It’s about confidence.” Key informant

For example, West Lothian Council’s Round 2 project spent months validating existing datasets such as CACI, where they found over 460 discrepancies between postcodes held in the data and those held on the council’s systems. This was time consuming, and led to significant doubts in the utility of the dataset overall. After carefully assessing privacy risks in compiling data, the team also made the decision to focus on pre-established data zones rather than postcodes. However, for similar reasons, the DWP supresses data sharing in sparsely-populated areas where there are fewer than 5 cases. This led to some discrepancies in the data that the Council had to base decisions on, creating a need to explore if other council-held data would enable identification of more rural areas where targeted support for families is also needed.

Local Context: Both Enabler and Barrier

The local context sets the ceiling for pace and reach of individual projects. Local contexts were therefore critical in shaping project design and implementation. Many projects were set up with the intent of navigating some of these challenges, for which they were at least somewhat successful. However, the complexity of some barriers and the level of control project partners had in alleviating them meant that many still impeded the level of project success project leads were anticipating. For example, geographic challenges prominently affected rural and island regions. Recruitment and staffing were notably more challenging in rural areas such as Moray and South Lanarkshire, impacting service availability and capacity. Additionally, there is more limited representation from national charities that often support struggling families in more rural parts of the country.

Related to this, the value of community spaces was emphasised strongly by families we spoke to receiving support through projects. They expressed frustration regarding closures of community facilities and libraries, significantly limiting accessible social spaces and exacerbating social isolation:

“The government needs to step up and start funding the community centres more. Yeah. I mean, that's now half of them shut down because they're not getting funded enough and the kids have got nowhere to go” Family participant

This made the meet-up elements of some CPAF projects even more important. For example, some families described how the lack of accessible and affordable social spaces has increased feelings of isolation and loneliness in their communities.

In rural areas, a lack of accessible central meeting points meant that projects which may have incorporated family meetups otherwise could not. Regional disparities further compounded these issues, highlighting inequalities in service provision across Scotland, forcing some families to travel extensively or bear costs for services otherwise freely available in other areas:

“If we lived in Glasgow, we'd be able to access baby groups… meetups, we'd be close by therapy. We have to travel to Glasgow for physio… because we live here we have to fund ourselves.” Family participant

Scottish Borders Council’s Round 2 project underscores that a welcoming venue is a strategy, not a backdrop. Weekly presence in food pantries, early-years centres and halls normalised conversations about income and finances, and when a school reception process deterred parents from accessing support, the team shifted to a community centre with mixed traffic and multiple entrances to reduce a sense of stigma in accessing support.

3. Wider Service Barriers Faced by Families

Gaps in statutory service provision proved a barrier to effective implementation of many CPAF projects. At the same time, these gaps were a key motivation behind many CPAF projects, which seek to instigate / support systems-level change or mitigate issues that cannot be fully overcome at the local level. This section explores how the CPAF evaluation fieldwork showed how these gaps manifest in local areas and can impede project delivery, as well as how the ways of working that CPAF projects developed supported new routes to overcome gaps to emerge. It examines:

• Education and Childcare
• Health and social services;
• Navigating complex benefits and financial supports; and
• Person-centred practice as an enabler

Education and Childcare

Some CPAF projects were initially looking to provide employment support to parents, however, through better understanding the barriers faced by recipients of their projects realised that there are significant barriers to do so for families where a child is disabled:

“So even if the parents wanted to work, they can't. Yeah, because there's this reliance from the education system that the parent will always be available.” Key informant

Families described ongoing inequalities in education provision between disabled and non-disabled children. This acts as a barrier to effective poverty alleviation, as it makes the prospects of employment for parents difficult.

Families further highlighted the inadequate provision of educational support for children with additional support needs, especially following funding cuts:

“This time last year, my child had a one-on-one [Pupil Support Assistant (PSA)]. He was in mainstream class four days a week. And since the cuts, he's got one teacher to two children. He's never getting into his mainstream class because they have no staff.” Family participant

CPAF projects have highlighted these particularly significant barriers facing households where a family member is disabled. Inconsistent provision for these families is a key contributor to poverty, and the core barrier to providing effective income maximisation services to parents:

“You know, my daughter who is primary 3 is not disabled, if she had experienced the kind of education, for example, that [name of disabled child] experiences, you wouldn't stand for it. You know, the phone calls pick up your child… a lot of mainstream parents won't stand for that because they've got this right to work and I need to work and I can't pick up my child. However, we don't have a choice and the council relies on us giving up our jobs… the amount of money we save the council is unbelievable and we just have to do it.” Family participant

Parents’ ability to engage with work or services was also constrained in some areas by access to affordable early years childcare availability. Some of these barriers are being unpicked by CPAF projects. For example, Aberdeen City Council’s Round 2 project has been coproducing a service for employability support for young parents which has repeatedly foregrounded childcare gaps and employer inflexibility as the fundamental pinch-point, shaping recruitment, timetabling and participation incentives.

With regard school-age children, Stirling Council’s Round 2 project has also been looking at supporting families where children struggle to attend school. They have been finding that the lack of statutory service that is able to offer the wider support many families need is a significant impediment to supporting school attendance. While the CPAF project offers this service for a specified group, the level of need has been found to far exceed what one family support worker can provide consistently.

Health and social services

Inadequate access to NHS services also leaves some families without essential therapy and health support, forcing them to navigate a fragmented system. In addition, Self-Directed Support (SDS) is designed to give families control over the care they receive, but some parents found it too complex and inflexible to meet their needs:

“I've had a year of no respite because there's no space for [my child]. My social worker left last week. I don't have a new one, and before she left, she advised me to go down the [Personal Assistant] route. It wouldn't work for my child. He's very anxious. He wouldn't let anyone in the house. But I'm left with nothing.” Family participant

Parents expressed frustration with SDS being presented as a ‘solution’ without the flexibility to meet the specific needs of their children. When SDS failed, families were often left with no other options. Families described feeling trapped in a bureaucratic loop, with healthcare, social work, and SDS services all denying responsibility for essential care.

A key informant also described the challenges faced by a family with three disabled children after being relocated due to poor living conditions:

“They got top-of-the-range equipment for their son that they need for him to stand, for him to walk, for him to sit. He's got a specialised pram, he's got a specialised bath seat, he's got a standing thing. That's all kind of to try and help him, train him. The house needs to have wheelchair access. The house they're currently in doesn't have wheelchair access so they can't get their son there. And because they've now switched councils and I mean they're on like the borderline; they have been told that they need to give their equipment back because it's [the old] council's equipment. The [new council] don't have the equipment that they need, they don't have budgets for the equipment that they need, so they couldn't buy that.” Key informant

This case highlights how poor coordination between councils and underfunding of services can leave families without essential equipment and support. The CPAF project involved in this example was seeking support for this family, but struggling to find a satisfactory resolution.

Families also reported feeling judged or stigmatised when accessing social work services, which made them reluctant to seek help. The fear of being perceived as ‘bad parents’ or ‘incompetent’ prevented some from accessing vital support. Parents also described how the wider impact was often overlooked:

“Our first introduction to social work was really bad. I had no wages coming in. Various other things were happening despite the fact I was working full time. Health just collapsed and I quit. Yeah - on the doctor's orders. And like, we were, we had no food, no money. The benefits told us, oh, he's earned too much. But I got paid 60 quid…. So I had no money for six weeks at all. They wouldn't even let me claim benefits. It was brutal. … and we phone up asking for help and next thing you know, there's a social worker sitting in front of us doing a full investigation that lasted for nine months… later, they're like, oh, you are competent. Oh, that's quite offensive, but OK.” Family participant

Instead of receiving support, families described how social work interventions often resulted in feelings of mistrust, humiliation, and added to their existing stress. CPAF projects supporting families needed to toe a fine line in ensuring the appropriate services were involved in the care of a family, while appreciating that negative past experiences and lack of support can, reasonably, affect the willingness of individuals to engage. Indeed, some frontline workers reported a hesitation in reaching out for support for families in specific circumstances when they were aware that the help on offer may not meet the family’s immediate needs.

Navigating complex benefits and financial systems

Complex and poorly integrated public sector systems create significant barriers for both families and service providers. Families described feeling overwhelmed and unsupported when trying to navigate these systems, particularly around benefits, housing, and social care. As one family participant explained, it can become very easy to feel like there is no genuine support available when systems are designed primarily to minimise costs rather than meet people’s needs:

“Like the Job Centre, their primary goal is just to save money…. The NHS, their primary goal is to treat the most severe. But like I was identified as a child as very severe. I had very intensive treatment till I became an adult. Yeah. And my mum made me homeless and all my support disappeared and all my treatment went with it… And like the homeless system, for example, I never got any other support. They just watched me sort of manage to feed myself and no starve and said that's sufficient. But a couple months later I was evicted… It's like all these services are supposed to actually like sort the problems out and they don't. Or maybe they try to but they can't because of the way they engage.” Family participant

Meanwhile, key informants noted the difficulty in understanding the systems even as a member of staff:

“You're given training on these things. Families are given nothing. They're just expected to understand it.” Key informant

Key informants also described the moral challenges they face when working within systems that fail to meet families’ needs:

“It does get tricky at times that you're hearing stories and you know that it's like morally not correct, but you're an employee of the council and you can understand how the process doesn't match the need.” Key informant

“There was genuine concern from frontline workers across services about compassion fatigue — and that they could also be living in poverty.” Key informant

Service providers acknowledged the tension between their professional roles and the moral responsibility they felt toward families. This could impede how effective they felt their CPAF project was in tackling poverty, as compared to how they wish to be able to help.

Person-centred practice as enabler

Regarding the complexities and systems gaps explored above, skilled person-centred practice has proved a key factor in the success of CPAF projects with a public-facing element. Several projects in both CPAF rounds have benefited directly from employing staff with relevant lived experience. These are often perceived by families as more credible, more respectful, and easier to trust when it comes to receiving support from third parties. For example, this has been a main focus in both the South Ayrshire Council and East Lothian Council’s Round 2 projects.

The building of strong relationships with families was a core facilitating factor for both income maximisation and capacity-building projects. For example:

“There's so much you need to coordinate and it's just so overwhelming… Once you start unpacking stuff, you find more and more. You know one support can take up your whole day coordinating with so many different services at a time.” Key informant

“So she went and she phoned them for me… I’m not able to [do phone calls]… 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.” – Family participant

This generally took the form of sustained engagement, within community or home settings, and with familiar staff or volunteers. For example, a family focus group participant noted:

“You know that you can talk about anything in here, naebody judges you for anything. And you can phone [name of staff members] and they don't judge either. And I wouldn't have got through the past like two years without being able to build that relationship — that's the key to it. It's the relationship we have.” Family participant

For example, Aberdeen City Council’s Round 2 project involved a 12-week process of codesign with young parents. To ensure it would work for all, facilitators adapted formats around children’s presence and sensory needs, ensured participants received consistent incentives, and built in activities to enhance peer ties. This approach produced exceptional retention (21 parents completing virtually all sessions) and led to candid testimony on a wide range of issues that stand in the way of employment for participants.

Whole-family wellbeing approaches were also a core enabler in several projects. South Lanarkshire Council’s Round 1 Project provided intensive, home-based, personalised support for households including a disabled family member —combining needs assessment with direct links to income maximisation and capacity-building. Stirling Council’s Round 2 Project supports families where a child struggles to attend school, using a non-judgemental, “what can I do for you?” approach to flex support across any family member as needs shift. Together, these models show how sustained relationships and flexible roles turn complex needs into coordinated action.

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, and their broader communities, rather than imposing rigid timelines or targets. This approach helps to build trust and ensure that the support provided is meaningful and sustainable.

4. Co-production

Co-production is an approach whereby facilitators support a community of people to engage in meaningful discussion around improving a system or service. This section looks at how co-production was an enabler of effective implementation, but also the barriers that can stand in the way.

Several CPAF projects took this approach from the outset with their partners (organisations and families). This strengthened trust and improved the integrity of the results:

“We took very much the approach that it would be jointly done at co-production between those with lived experience and our services… Right from the very start, the training, every aspect of the project has very much been developed in co-production, co-production between ourselves and the council, co-production between ourselves and the people that have been recruited and supported the project. And there's been a lot of kind of organic development.” Key informant

"We're on a roll here due to the co-production. 'Ah buts' are neutralised because we can argue the outputs were designed by frontline workers and priority parents. Co-production legitimises the tool. Without the co-production it would have been a lot more challenging to persuade other stakeholders to accept and adopt the approach.” Key informant

Co-production ensured that services were tailored and responsive to local needs and that families and front-line organisations felt genuinely involved and heard, building local buy-in and motivation. As such, this collaborative approach enabled more credible, adaptive and sustainable service delivery. For example:

“It’s good that there's actually been a representative from the NHS [who] has actually, you know, taken the time to be so involved in actively listening to, you know, our lived experiences… it shows that it is being taken seriously. You know, we're not just a wee panel having a chat about… how awful those experiences were.” Family participant

Key informants highlighted the value of third-sector partners in building relationships and delivering services that local authorities and NHS partners might struggle to replicate:

”Because it’s [name of charity], people will approach you differently than the Council. The trust is already there in the [name of community setting], so the conversation can start where people are.” Key informant

Third-sector partners’ deep understanding of local communities enabled them to adapt projects over time based on changing needs and insights. This led to some projects changing engagement targets and outcome measures, to ensure that services remained realistic and effective, even when initial assumptions about need turned out to be inaccurate.

Barriers to Co-production

Though co-production proved very valuable across multiple projects, there were also barriers to carrying it out most effectively identified through the CPAF projects. For example, a 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

Some projects also involved volunteers in facilitating co-production, and noted that the emotional weight of supporting others, particularly when working with vulnerable groups, can be overwhelming. 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 in their projects:

“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. A key learning from CPAF projects in this space is that there needs to be a clear agreement on financial arrangements at the start of the project amongst all key stakeholders on a co-production approach. This includes how the leading organisation will receive money from the Scottish Government, and therefore how and when they can pay local partners, as well as how and when participants or volunteers in co-production will be paid (and when their participation must be voluntary). This would help manage expectations and promote participant engagement, trust and avoid confusion.

5. Funding Cycles and Approach

The funding cycles that CPAF stakeholders operate in had an impact on project implementation. This does not relate purely to CPAF funding itself, but the way that local councils are operating their services often under multiple funding streams; how NHS Boards operate often under a different set of funding approaches to councils; and then third sector partners again often juggle funding streams from a wide range of sources. This section therefore looks at how the approach to CPAF funding enabled project implementation, but also how barriers local teams had not anticipated impeded project delivery timescales. Meanwhile, the wider context of funding has had an impact on the workflow of key stakeholders and how they feel about project delivery windows. The section ends by breaking down how this links with staff continuity and wellbeing.

To begin with, local project stakeholders were clear that the enabling funder relationship of CPAF made a significant difference between stalling and moving ahead on their projects. Teams repeatedly pointed to Scottish Government’s problem-solving stance and willingness to remove blockers:

“Credit to SG for the flexibility — when we realised [we needed to change eligibility criteria] we got the revised version approved very quickly” Key informant.

They were grateful for the focus on innovation and trying out new ways of working that are embedded within the fund. It is also notable that, based on Round 1 project lead feedback, the Scottish Government increased the window for CPAF project delivery in Round 2, taking it from 16 months to 18 months.

With regard the wider context of funding CPAF sits within, across areas teams described how short, annualised funding windows made it harder to deliver the project according to the schedule proposed. They also noted how it had an impact on necessary relationship-building and learning. In particular, procurement and recruitment generally take a long time and resources, which is not something that all project leads had forecast before setting project timelines. They also noted that advertising for short term posts can make it harder to attract good candidates. As one key informant put it:

“We get to the reporting and what we've achieved with it only being one year, that's quite hard as well because just to scope this out and get it set up, you've lost like six months.”

Another admitted the internal pressure to deliver the project according to the proposal within the constraints they’d encountered was palpable:

“There was too much pressure on it… I’ll be honest, it was actually making me feel quite sick about how much pressure was being put on us.”

In practice, these cycles showed up in familiar ways. Scottish Borders Council’s Round 2 Project had to absorb a three-month delay before recruitment cleared and outreach could begin; many other projects reported staff not in post until midway through delivery. The arrears payment model also created cash-flow strain for smaller providers; NHS Tayside and Dads Rock’s Round 2 Project could not fully set up until that risk was reconciled with how a small charity must operate. One key informant described CPAF as part of a wider context of "short term funding for long term problems". However, CPAF funding flexibility around in-year reprofiling of spend was praised for protecting project integrity, and allowing posts to be advertised with more security, helping retain people in the roles that make continuity possible.

In broader terms, some project teams spoke in interviews about how they are juggling contributions from multiple funders to sustain wider programmes of work. These are then layered on duplicated reporting, dragging time and attention away from groundwork and reflective improvement. Several project leads also noted that the Round 2 “mid-point” fieldwork landed too early to be truly mid-way once mobilisation delays were factored in.

Staffing, continuity, and wellbeing

Many CPAF projects have depended on small teams or single roles. These individuals have been pivotal in project success, with many key informants noting that successful recruitment processes have been key. At the same time, some projects have experienced the loss of key enabling staff partway through project implementation. In some cases this has led to minor disruption, but in others it has led to periods of inactivity or confusion.

Some key informants further noted that particular people have become overstretched by the demands of their role. For example, although co-production 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. Though this is an aspect of local project design rather than intent of Scottish Government, several participants reflected upon how staff and contributors with lived experience were often undervalued and underpaid in some CPAF projects. This is despite making vital contributions:

“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

Many project leads also held anxieties that they will lose key staff at critical periods during project delivery due to the short-term nature of the contracts CPAF funding can enable. This can lead to significant loss in service continuity, and increase costs in training and reorientation of project expectations.

Family participants also raised concerns about local 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

Though all projects received the funding requested by them from Scottish Government, general underfunding of services placed pressure on both staff and volunteers, who often felt compelled to continue despite limited financial compensation. Some projects in this situation realised they would need more time/resources to engage properly with families to meet their needs and/or work in a 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.

An additional frontline pressure described by some is how the complexity of cases has grown as statutory services have receded. What might once have been a simple benefits query can now span debt, housing, literacy, and mental health. This deepens the skill and time requirements for staff or volunteer members, and adds strain on already limited project resources:

“It’s not like it used to be – people coming in with their one issue and me saying, oh, I’ll tell you what you need to do. It’s not like that, no. These days things grow arms and legs and the complexities of the cases are a lot more… with the reduction in services, we have to pick up all of that.” Key informant

Influence of CPAF Principles on Local Practice

Evidence shows the core aspects of embedding CPAF principles in delivery:

• Innovation was routine rather than exceptional. For example, in Aberdeen City Council’s Round 1 Project, operationalising the Low Income Family Tracker meant moving from reactive case-finding to proactive “campaigns” that reached households likely to be under-claiming — an approach described earlier in project snapshots and returned to in implementation sections. In West Lothian Council’s Round 2 Project, the unmet-need dashboard was not just the innovation itself, but the way analysts and practitioners met in a weekly rhythm, tuning thresholds and target zones so activity stayed tightly focused and responsive.
• Partnership and collaboration was core to how projects functioned rather than being an afterthought. For example, Perth & Kinross Council’s Round 1 Project with CAB used a shared referral system to help make sure frontline staff could see the impact of their referrals across services and the partnership. Scottish Borders Council’s Round 2 Project coordinated a CAB consortium through a single contract so dispersed communities could be reached with consistency. These arrangements mattered because they clarified who did first contact, who held casework, or who owned the fixes when obstacles appeared; something that traditional approaches had often struggled to integrate.
• Evidence-based learning meant adjusting as they went along. For example, Argyll & Bute Council’s Round 1 Project tested third-party data against local records to avoid mis-targeting, while City of Edinburgh Council’s Round 2 Project co-produced stigma-reduction animations with reference panels, iterating the tone and scripts between sessions so the final asset matched what staff and residents said would work.
• Person-centred practice was perhaps the most visible thread. For example, Inverclyde Council’s Round 1 Project embedded income maximisation within Home-Start’s trusted early-years work so conversations could happen without stigma or hand-offs. Moray Council’s Round 1 project focused on the real (rather than perceived) priorities of local families who have children with additional support needs. Stirling Council’s Round 2 Project approached school non-attendance through whole-family wellbeing — starting with “what can I do for you?” and flexing support across whoever in the household needed it that week.

Where these strands combined, the benefits and perceived cost-efficiencies of a more strategic, integrated approach to tackling child poverty became increasingly clear to stakeholders. For example, North Ayrshire Council’s Round 1 Project simplified consent flows across a variety of forms. This meant one form could be filled out to unlock multiple forms of support, so families no longer had to repeat their story across multiple forms, creating efficiencies for both service users and providers. East Renfrewshire Council’s Round 2 Project focused on aligning employer needs with more flexible working practice that could support more parents experiencing poverty into suitable work. This involved new accreditation and adviser toolkits, integrating demand and supply while promoting a culture of flexible working.

The details of these developments are evident throughout this section and in the project snapshots. The common patterns and their implications for strategic systems thinking and design will provide the focus of Section Five. Emerging themes include the dynamics of joined up leadership and coordination, ongoing dialogue with families and frontline practice, trusted and continuous support in communities, and shared intelligence and rules that enable action.

Summary

Taken together, the two cohorts point to a consistent conclusion: what works to deliver project goals is broadly shared - trusted relationships, simpler routes to support for service users, enabling infrastructure, and iterative learning. These implementation moves start to function as a system of effective implementation. Section 4 now turns to look at the impact of CPAF projects.