Scottish Spending Review 2026

Chapter 6 Social Justice

The Social Justice portfolio drives the Government’s top priority to Eradicate Child Poverty and to reduce inequality to improve outcomes for individuals and communities across Scotland.

We will promote equality, tackle discrimination, foster inclusion, and respect, protect and fulfil human rights, embedding them across public services to deliver better outcomes for all Scotland’s people.

We will publish our third Tackling Child Poverty Plan by the end of March 2026 and continue to drive forward our impact on child poverty. We will significantly increase our Tackling Child Poverty Fund with over £185 million to be invested over the Spending Review period to further accelerate action on child poverty. The Delivery Plan will also include further information on a new annual £50 million package of Whole Family Support to build on the investment and delivery already in place.

The best and most sustainable way to keep children out of poverty is to ensure their parents have access to high-quality, stable and fulfilling employment. With families at the centre of our approach, the Whole Family Support package will support parents into sustainable employment. With final details to be confirmed in the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, measures to be funded include: a dedicated fund of £20 million for Third Sector partners to deliver the support that people need in their communities to get into and stay in work; and, through the RISE initiative (Raising Income through Skills and Education), giving colleges access to a projected £8 million of funding to deliver new or expanded initiatives to help adult learners get the skills and qualifications needed to secure new employment opportunities.

We will continue to support local innovative work to test place-based support for families through our Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund, the Fairer Futures Partnerships and the Social Innovation Partnership. We will continue to invest in third sector organisations to test, scale and evaluate innovative approaches to tackling poverty and inequality, and catalyse wider public service reform.

We will continue to invest in the people of Scotland through Social Security. Supporting low-income families, older people and unpaid carers, and enabling disabled people to live full and independent lives. We will continue to deliver 17 devolved benefits, five of which are unique to Scotland, to eligible clients, accurately and on time. We will reduce poverty and inequality through a range of benefits including our package of Winter Heating Payments and Scottish Child Payment.

In 2026-27, we will also begin work to introduce an additional payment for children under 1 who are eligible for the Scottish Child Payment which will be paid in 2027-28. This will bring the total Scottish Child Payment amount to £40 a week for children under 1, with the Scottish Fiscal Commission estimating that around 12,000 children will receive this increased support once in place.

We will continue to fund free to access debt, welfare and income maximisation advice services including our Advice in Accessible Settings Fund.

In addition to the Equality and Human Rights Fund, we will support the Disability Equality Plan, the Anti-Racism Observatory for Scotland and the Delivering Equally Safe Fund for organisations addressing violence against women and girls and supporting victims/survivors.

The portfolio’s work tackling inequalities and discrimination can help to improve economic productivity from a more diverse workforce, reduce poverty and the need for benefits, and make public services more accessible for all.

We continue to progress our commitments in the Fiscal Sustainability Delivery Plan to pursue initiatives which increase Social Security Scotland’s ability to tackle fraud and error where it does occur; invest in critical digital services and platforms; drive operational delivery improvement and consider wider improvements to the way we manage reviews of clients’ awards.