Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan: progress report 2024-25

Executive Summary

This report outlines the range of action taken across 2024-25 to drive progress on child poverty, in line with our second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, ‘Best Start, Bright Futures’. Despite levels of headline inflation falling across this period, low income households have continued to be disproportionately impacted by the legacy of increases to the cost of essentials, including food and energy. At the same time, the Scottish Government has had to make difficult decisions to prioritise limited resources in the face of extraordinarily challenging fiscal conditions.

This report also details progress against each of the interim targets set by the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017. Although child poverty levels remained above the interim child poverty targets, the proportion of children living in relative poverty reduced in the latest year and the 2023-24 rate was lower than it had been since 2014-15, while the proportion in absolute poverty has also fallen, with the annual figure the lowest in 30 years.

Action taken over the past year has continued to build on this progress, and we have further strengthened our focus on delivery with the formation of a new Cabinet Sub-Committee on Child Poverty, chaired by the First Minister. Through our priorities for 2025-26, we will continue to drive action forward in the final year of ‘Best Start, Bright Futures’ and the remainder of this Parliament. We will also continue consultation and engagement to inform development of the final Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, to be published by the end of March 2026.

Despite the challenging circumstances faced in 2024-25, we have strengthened our approach and responded to the needs of families, including by:

• Expanding our Fairer Futures Partnerships into five more Local Authority areas in Aberdeen City, East Ayrshire, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire and Perth & Kinross, bringing the total number of partnerships to eight.
• Taking action on School Meal Debt, with £2.8 million of funding used to support Local Authorities to clear all debts which were identified during this process.
• Expanding our successful Council Tax Debt advice pilot project into six new Local Authority areas, offering targeted advice on Council Tax debt and working to improve best practice in debt collection in a total of nine Local Authority areas.
• Investing to enable childcare staff delivering funded early learning and childcare in private and third sector services to be paid at least the real Living Wage, supporting an average increase of around £2,000 in the gross salary of eligible staff working full time in 2024-25, of which the majority are women.
• Launching the Programme for Scotland’s Childminding Future, supporting the creation of over 40 new childminding businesses.
• Investing in a £41 million package of support for people struggling with energy costs in Winter 2024-25. This included an additional £20 million for the Scottish Welfare Fund, a further £20 million for the Warmer Homes Scotland Scheme, and making £1 million available to registered social landlords and third sector partners to fund work to sustain tenancies and prevent homelessness

We have also supported families through the continued delivery of key actions, including:

• Increasing our Scottish Child Payment to £26.70 and awarding more than £455 million to families in 2024-25, with more than 326,000 children benefitting as of 31 March 2025. An estimated 40,000 children will be kept out of relative poverty in 2025-26 due to this support.
• Supporting 6,086 parents through No One Left Behind employability services between April and December 2024, an increase of almost 600 in comparison to the same period in 2023-24.
• Supporting around 3,500 children and families with access to vital activity services through the Scottish Football Association ‘Extra Time’ programme, increasing their childcare options and supporting them entering and sustaining employment, training and study.
• Providing free bus travel to over 2.3 million people through our concessionary schemes, with almost 799,000 children and young people registered for free bus travel through the scheme as of March 2025 – a 10% increase from March 2024.
• Making £7.8 million available to Local Authorities to mitigate the UK Government’s benefit cap as fully as possible within devolved powers through Discretionary Housing Payments, supporting around 3,000 households with almost 10,000 children. In Scotland, 98% of all households impacted by the benefit cap are families, and around 74% are lone parent families.
• Delivering 4,947 affordable homes across Scotland, between April and December 2024, of which 3,981 were for social rent – estimated to have helped 1,647 households with children into affordable housing.
• Delivering a second round of the Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund, with awards made to projects focusing on a range of activities, including using data to better identify families and target support; and improving accessibility and uptake of financial wellbeing advice and income maximisation support.

In the coming year we will continue to drive forward the implementation of ‘Best Start, Bright Futures’ and further strengthen the support available to families by:

• Continuing to work at pace on the legislation and systems necessary to deliver the first payments to mitigate the two-child limit in 2026.
• Delivering a £3 million Bright Start Breakfasts Fund to create more free breakfast club places for families who need it most, from August 2025.
• Investing a further £1.5 million to expand our successful Extra Time Partnership, supporting 5,000 children and their families most at risk of poverty through partnership with more than 50 local football clubs and trusts.
• Continuing our programme of delivery to expand Free School Meals to those in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment in P6 and P7, as well taking forward work to develop a new Test of Change phase to support those in receipt of Scottish Child Payment in S1 to S3, backed by £3 million of new investment.
• Providing an additional £1 million to help support holiday playschemes and activities provision for children with a disability across all 32 Local Authority areas.
• Taking forward a £2 bus fare cap pilot across one regional transport area from January 2026, backed by £3 million of investment.
• Continuing work to develop and introduce the Care Leaver Payment, including drafting the necessary legislation and assessing the best method of delivery.
• Further expanding the Fairer Futures Partnerships to Shetland, North Lanarkshire and Fife, enabling more local areas to test and improve delivery of joined-up services, maximise incomes and support people towards education and into sustained employment.
• Continuing to work to secure the successful passage of the Housing (Scotland) Bill to boost tenants’ rights and provide long-term rent controls.
• Allocating funding of £768 million in 2025-26 to the Affordable Housing Supply Programme, enabling the delivery of more than 8,000 homes. This includes targeted funding of £40 million to the Local Authorities with the most sustained temporary accommodation pressures.
• Abolishing peak rail fares permanently from 1 September 2025, to encourage more people to travel by train, reduce car journeys, and help existing peak time rail passengers with the cost of living.
• Extending the Young Carer Grant to 19 year olds and launching our new Carer Additional Person Payment, to give extra support worth £10 per week to unpaid carers getting Carer Support Payment and caring for more than one person.