Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2026-2031 External Reference Group Minutes 22 April 2025

Attendees and apologies

•  Julie Humphreys, Director, Tackling Child Poverty and Social Justice (Chair)
• Chris Birt, Joseph Rowntree Foundation
• Greg Colgan, Chief Executive Dundee City Council on behalf of SOLACE
• John Dickie, Child Poverty Action Group
• David Reilly, Poverty Alliance
• Lynne O’Brien, Aberlour
• Pui-Kei Wong, CEMVO Scotland
• Rachel McAdams, Public Health Scotland
• Lindsey Millen, National Advisory Council on Women and Girls/Close the Gap
• Satwat Rehman, One Parent Families Scotland
• Matthew Sweeney, COSLA
• Claire Telfer, Save the Children
• Tressa Burke, Glasgow Disability Alliance

Observers

• Stephen Sinclair, Poverty & Inequality Commission

Secretariat

• Officials, Scottish Government

                                                                                                      

Apologies

No apologies

Items and actions

Item 1: Welcome, Introductions and review of actions from previous meeting

The Chair welcomed attendees to the second External Reference Group (ERG) meeting, noting the agenda and reviewed the completion of actions from the previous meeting. Previous actions noted:

• Secretariat to explore engagement opportunity for the Group to meet with UKG taskforce (SG colleagues are engaging with UKG counterparts and have requested that a colleague from UKG attend the next ERG to provide an update)
• All members to consider any specific amendments to the TOR and send to the secretariat mailbox - ChildPovertyConsultation@gov.scot
• Secretariat to update the written call for evidence to reflect the feedback from the External Reference Group
• Secretariat to provide a copy of the Child Poverty Programme Board paper on Whole Family Support with the External Reference Group once available. (This was attached as part of the agenda/papers for this meeting)

The Chair highlighted the published ERG page on gov.scot is now available and all meeting minutes, as well as the Terms of Reference will be published here: https://www.gov.scot/groups/tackling-child-poverty-delivery-plan-2026-2031-external-reference-group/

Item 2: Child Poverty Statistics Summary

The Chair noted the publication of the the latest poverty and income inequality statistics for Scotland in March 2025, covering 2023-24, the year of the interim targets set in the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017. Alongside this, updated modelling has been published which estimates the cumulative impact of Scottish Government policies on child poverty. 

In discussion, the members noted:

• The importance and opportunity to reflect on the interim targets, and signs of optimism despite the published statistics
• Noted that statistics next year will rely on outturn data from DWP and therefore interested to understand the impact of this on measured poverty rates and whether Social Security Scotland data will also inform the statistics
• Consideration on data gathering tools available specifically for the six priority family groups, and if this should be included as part of the next delivery plan, noting poverty rates are increasing for some groups

Item 3: Engagement update

The Scottish Government provided an update on the engagement activity underway and due to commence over the next couple of months. This included:

• Analysis and initial findings from the written call for evidence
• Lived experience engagement
• Scottish Government led engagement
• External led engagement

In discussion, members noted:

• The broad approach to the engagement and the importance of drawing on existing work, particularly around lived experience to avoid consulting for its own sake and that views provided already are not simply repeated, especially through engagement with young people
• The importance of identifying the gaps in the existing evidence and therefore focussing engagement to address them
• Utilising a cross-sectoral approach to scope key actions and priorities to ensure coherence across sectors when developing the next Plan
• The need to ensure sectors are working collaboratively to avoid siloed responses to actions
• Consideration of intersectional inequalities is key for place-based approaches, noting that for some groups place-based approaches are not always as effective
• Assurance that SG are engaging on this internally across various policy teams and directorates and the ongoing focus within SG on eradicating child poverty

Item 4: International Review and Scenario Modelling

The Scottish Government provided an overview of the current progress on the international review, including emerging findings and noting the purpose is to deepen our understanding of how these countries have achieved low poverty rates or substantial reductions in child poverty rates – determining that a detailed and historical perspective was needed to capture the complexity of path dependency and local context in reducing child poverty.

The countries in scope include: Croatia, Denmark, Finland and Slovenia.

The international review of evidence will conclude in the coming weeks, with findings being considered and shared internally to inform policy considerations for the next plan.

In discussion, members noted:

• The need to be mindful of comparability to Scotland in terms of transferability and learning, including what the baseline is for public service provision across countries and reliability of international statistics
• Efficacy of approach to increasing working hours in Scotland, noting the challenges associated with real living wage and hours with employers given rising NI costs and wider enabling factors that need to be in place
• Role of collective bargaining and what that means for equality of work in these other countries
• The importance of diversity and equalities in Scotland when drawing broader comparisons

Item 5: Conclusions and Any Other Business

 Members were thanked for their contributions to the meeting and actions would be taken forward accordingly.