Scottish Child Payment: FOI release

Information requested

Please could you provide the following information pertaining to the Scottish Child Payment:

1. How is the fiscal amount of Child Payment calculated to ensure it achieves the objectives of the policy?
2. How many children are in receipt of the Child Payment in 2023?
3. The First Minister has stated that 90.000 children have been 'lifted out of poverty' by the payment. How is this figure calculated? What data is available to ascertain this figure is accurate, how frequently is that data gathered, and what mechanisms are in place to gather this data consistently?
4. How is a child 'lifted out of poverty' defined? Please provide the criteria deployed that defines 'in' and 'out' of poverty to achieve the figure of 90,000.
5. What data gathering exercises are performed to ensure children 'out of poverty' remain so while in receipt of the Child Payment?
6. How are the outcomes of being 'out of poverty' for the child monitored? i.e. educational, health, dietary or lifestyle improvements.
7. How are any potential fraudulent claims or those no longer entitled to the payment controlled?

Response

1. How is the fiscal amount of Child Payment calculated to ensure it achieves the objectives of the policy?

The initial rate of Scottish Child Payment of £10 per week per eligible child aged under 6 was set in February 2021 and was driven by the objective of the policy to reduce relative child poverty after housing costs by 3 percentage points. During the development of Scottish Child Payment, a range of different income supplement options were analysed. The details of this analysis can be found in Income supplement: analysis of options - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

To increase the impact of Scottish Child Payment on child poverty, the payment was increased to £20 in April 2022 and to £25 in November 2022, when up-rating was also brought forward, and eligibility was extended from eligible children aged under 6 to eligible children aged under 16. Latest Scottish Government modelling published on February 28th and available here: Child poverty cumulative impact assessment: update - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) projects Scotland’s relative child poverty rate will be 6 percentage points lower than it would have been without Scottish Child Payment in 2024-25, meaning it will keep 60,000 children out of relative poverty that year.

The Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 places a statutory duty on the Scottish Government to up-rate Scottish Child Payment each year, to ensure the amount paid to clients is adjusted for inflation. Previous increases to Scottish Child Payment to £20 and £25 were in excess of inflation and in April 2024 it will be increased by a further 6.7% to £26.70, in line with the September 2023 CPI. An assessment of the various metrics available to Scottish Ministers to up-rate devolved social security assistance can be found here: Up-rating devolved Social Security assistance: multi criteria decision analysis - January 2024 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

2. How many children are in receipt of the Child Payment in 2023?

 The information you have requested is available from Social Security Scotland in the following publication: Social Security Scotland - Scottish Child Payment: high level statistics to 31 December 2023. As of 31 December 2023, 327,650 children were receiving Scottish Child Payment. 

3. The First Minister has stated that 90.000 children have been 'lifted out of poverty' by the payment. How is this figure calculated? What data is available to ascertain this figure is accurate, how frequently is that data gathered, and what mechanisms are in place to gather this data consistently?

 As above, latest Scottish Government modelling published on 28 February 2024 and available here: Child poverty cumulative impact assessment: update - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) projects in 2024-25, Scottish Child Payment will keep 60,000 children out of relative poverty in Scotland and Scottish Government policies overall will keep 100,000 children out of relative poverty. 

As set out in pages 3 and 10 of Tackling child poverty delivery plan: progress report 2022 to 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot), published in June 2023, the previous estimate of 90,000 children lifted out of poverty relates to the full Scottish Government policy package in 2023-24, including 50,000 children estimated to be lifted out of poverty by Scottish Child Payment specifically. More details of these results can be found in Tackling child poverty delivery plan - annual progress report: annex b - cumulative impact assessment update - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

This 90,000 estimate was calculated using latest published Family Resources Survey data which are national statistics from a robust and widely used annual survey of income produced by the Department for Work and Pensions, and UKMOD, an open-access tax and benefit micro-simulation model. The methodology used to produce this estimate is the same as previous estimates of the child poverty impact of Scottish Government policies, as set out in the Methodology section of Second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2022-2026: Annex 4: Cumulative Impact Assessment (www.gov.scot) and specifically for Scottish Child Payment, the Methodology section in Scottish Child Payment - estimating the effect on child poverty - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

4. How is a child 'lifted out of poverty' defined? Please provide the criteria deployed that defines 'in' and 'out' of poverty to achieve the figure of 90,000

 As set out in the methodology sections referenced above, a child is considered to be lifted out of poverty by a policy or package or policies if the modelling suggests the household would not be below the poverty line with the policy in place, but would be below the poverty line if the policy was not in place. Poverty is defined either as relative poverty (household income below 60% of current UK median household income) or absolute poverty (household income below 60% of the 2010/11 UK median, uprated by inflation). The figure of 90,000 relates to the estimated change in relative poverty. The latest child poverty statistics for Scotland can be found here: Child poverty summary (data.gov.scot). 

5. What data gathering exercises are performed to ensure children 'out of poverty' remain so while in receipt of the Child Payment?

As set out above, Scottish Government estimates of the poverty impact of Scottish Child Payment is modelled using Family Resources Survey data and UKMOD, an open-access tax-benefit microsimulation model. Official statistics are also routinely published for Scottish Child Payment by Social Security Scotland and are available at Social Security Scotland - Statistics but current data does not capture the poverty status of individual Scottish Child Payment clients. This means it is not possible to determine which individual children move in and out of poverty as a result of receiving Scottish Child Payment but UKMOD can estimate Scottish Child Payment’s poverty impact on an aggregate basis.

6. How are the outcomes of being 'out of poverty' for the child monitored? i.e. educational, health, dietary or lifestyle improvements

Scottish Child Payment forms part of a wider policy package intending to support the national mission of tackling child poverty, as set out in Best Start, Bright Futures, the second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan. The Plan is supported by a comprehensive evaluation strategy, which includes regular monitoring of progress around the three main drivers of poverty; income from employment, income from social security and cost of living. It also includes a summary assessment of how individual policies, including the Scottish Child Payment, are contributing towards the  child poverty mission. The latest progress report includes the most recent update: Tackling child poverty delivery plan - progress report 2022-23: annex a - measurement framework - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

The Scottish Government explores the impact of Scottish Child Payment through a comprehensive policy evaluation programme, set out in the published evaluation strategy: Devolved benefits: evaluating the policy impact - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). The first evaluation included a qualitative programme of research with recipients to assess the short-term impact of the benefit. Specifically, it explored whether payments had led to increased child related spend, improved household finances, and improved health and wellbeing. The evaluation report was published on 29 July 2022 and can be found here: Supporting documents - Scottish Child Payment: interim evaluation - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

The next evaluation, due to be published in Summer 2025, will assess the medium-term impact of the benefit on families and children including whether it has led to improvement in outcomes for individuals. Outcomes are detailed in the Scottish Child Payment logic model, and include: children are able to participate in social and educational opportunities; reduced incidence of debt; improved health and wellbeing; and reduced incidence of material deprivation.

In addition to evaluation research, Social Security Scotland administer a Five Family Payments (FFP) Client Survey completed by recent applicants. It asks respondents, the vast majority of whom have applied for Scottish Child Payment, whether the payments have helped them to buy healthy food and milk for their children, and helped their children to participate in social or educational opportunities. Four FFP Client Survey reports have been published since December 2022. The most recent report was published in November 2023 and is available here: Social Security Scotland - Client Survey: Five Family Payments (April 2023 - July 2023).

7. How are any potential fraudulent claims or those no longer entitled to the payment controlled?

Social Security Scotland has a Counter Fraud service in place, which investigates allegations of fraud where necessary and proportionate to do so. Social Security Scotland also receive notification from our clients and other government departments when a client’s circumstances has changed, which may impact eligibility. The necessary checks are completed as a result of these notifications and action taken, if and when appropriate.

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