Child poverty pathfinders in Dundee and Glasgow: phase two evaluation

This independent evaluation reports impacts and learning from the Child Poverty Pathfinders in Dundee and Glasgow, place-based partnerships aimed at system change to tackle child poverty. The evaluation explores engagement, delivery, barriers, impacts and value-for-money insights.


Footnotes

1 Every child, every chance: tackling child poverty delivery plan 2018-2022 (Scottish Government, 2018)

2 Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2022-26 (Scottish Government, 2022)

3 Best Start, Bright Futures - tackling child poverty: progress report 2023 to 2024 (Scottish Government, June 2024)

4 Christie Commission on the future delivery of public services (Christie, 2011)

5 Better off calculations aim to help people on benefits assess how much benefit they are eligible for and how much better off they might be in employment.

6 The Brooksbank centre is an independent charity. In addition to hosting the pathfinder drop-in, it offers debt and benefit advice services at the drop-in. The centre also hosts a community café and offers other services, such as a child safety equipment service for low income households.

7 As the spreadsheet captures data about individuals, it is likely that some of these 1,277 people come from the same households.

8 Note that the monitoring data does not include a field to accurately identify whether or not clients were in employment when they first engaged with the pathfinder. As such, it is not possible to accurately estimate what proportion of the 266 Linlathen and Mid Craigie families fell into this group, although feedback from the operational team is that a majority of them did.

9 Note the monitoring data does not always include sufficient information to accurately identify each of the six TCPDP groups, so in some cases figures are missing or caveated.

10 73,000 large families in Scotland, 12% of families with children (Child poverty in Scotland: priority groups – larger families, NHS Scotland, 2019).

11 Number provided by Operational lead.

12 It was unclear whether these appointments outside Tuesday and Thursday reflected typos in the dates entered, or whether they were appointments with key workers outside normal drop-ins. However, as they are recorded in the ‘drop-in’ tab of the monitoring data spreadsheet, they are counted as drop-in appointments here.

13 Data on contacts outside the drop-in was added retrospectively at the request of the external evaluation team and then captured prospectively from early 2024 onwards. As this involved considerable work reviewing case notes to capture previous contacts, it was agreed that this would only be implemented for Linlathen and Mid Craigie clients. In addition, they do not cover contacts with Social Security Scotland and DWP key workers. Figures included in this chapter on contact are therefore likely to underestimate the amount of contact key workers have had with clients overall.

14 Taken from Dundee Fairer Futures Partnership: Future Direction – Oversight Board Paper November 2024, shared with the evaluation team 21 November 2024.

15 Via one of the routes above – Better Off Calculations, DWP, Social Security Scotland, Welfare Rights

16 Salary costs included in the above table were adjusted in the above table to account for the fact that the DWP key worker works 40% of FTE on the pathfinder and that delivery only started in October 2022 (so 2022/23 costs are an estimate for 6 months of salary costs). Similarly, the row for 2024/25 includes an estimate of salary costs for the first 6 months, covering up to September 2024, since that is the period for which monitoring data included in the final report is based.

17 Scottish Government confirmed in November 2024 that the grant offered to Dundee City Council for 2024/25 was for £320,000. The table includes half this figure, as an estimate of costs to September 2024 only. No further breakdown of the costs covered was available at the time of writing.

18 Note that the table excludes claims for around £30,000 against the Scottish Government grant for Dundee International Women’s Centre and Stobswell Forum, as Stobswell was not a focus for this evaluation.

19 A very large UK-wide longitudinal panel study, which includes measures of relevance to a wide range of social and economic outcomes. Crucially, Understanding Society also measures life satisfaction, meaning the data can be used to establish the impact a difference in a particular outcome makes to overall life satisfaction. This can then be used in conjunction with WELLBY data to estimate the ‘social wellbeing’ value of the change in outcome. The What Works Centre for Wellbeing systematic review highlights that, when measuring life satisfaction on a 0-10 scale, the unemployed report about 0.46 points lower compared to those who are in employment. However, the effects are different for different groups in different contexts (see What Works Wellbeing, 2017).

20 That is, that they hold a full-time living wage job for a full year and that the clients come from areas with low incomes equivalent to Linlathen and Mid Cragie.

21 As cited in the HMT Green Book Supplementary Guidance, The What Works Centre for Wellbeing systematic review highlights that, when measuring life satisfaction on a 0-10 scale, the unemployed report about 0.5 points lower compared to those who are in employment.

22 Based on Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY) values from comparable fuel-related support schemes, such as the Warm Homes Discount Scheme. See Evaluation of the Warm Home Discount Scheme.

23 Targeting Glasgow Helps offer specifically to parents with children attending a number of early years establishments in the city

24 Providing additional holistic support to families with Children under three years old eligible for nursery placement, piloted in Govan, with 168 families supported and 34 provided with a Holistic Needs Assessment.

25 Embedding financial inclusion officers in third sector organisations that offer support to families with disabilities.

26 This used Glasgow Helps to deliver one-off fuel top-offs of £49 to families with children on the Council Tax Reduction register.

27 Including development of pathways into careers in transport and into financial inclusion jobs in the city.

28 The age categories of children included in the data shared with Ipsos are: under 1, 1 up to 5, 5 up to 12, 12 up to 16 and 16 up to 20.

29 Clients had multiple cases opened for them reflecting each area of support need.

30 Each concern that the client faces is categorised by an HSO. Within the main concern or “matter” categories, there are “sub-matters” (e.g. a client might have a case opened with the main matter category being “food”, but there may be various sub-matters related to food such as “affordability of food” or “access to food”, which are logged in Glasgow Helps’ system). HSOs explore the severity of clients’ concerns and work together with them to decide on a score, on a scale of 1 (lowest level of concern) to 10 (highest level of concern) for each main concern that they have (e.g. the score would apply to Food generally as a concern).

31 This is in contrast to key workers Dundee, who were able to use CTR data to target individual families.

32 See GCVS analysis of third sector organisations in Glasgow.

33 Community Planning Partnerships bring together local public services, the third sector, and communities to improve local services and ensure they meet the needs of local people. The LOIP defines the aim and outcomes the CPP agrees to work towards over a given period.

34 Office for Budget Responsibility: Fiscal risks and sustainability – September 2024

Contact

Email: social-justice-analysis@gov.scot

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