Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan: Progress Report 2025-26. Annex A: Child Poverty Measurement Framework

Long term impacts on poverty

Indicator 24: High quality early learning

Percentage of settings providing funded Early Learning and Childcare achieving Care Inspectorate grades of good or better across all four quality themes or key questions. (New indicator from 2026)

Early learning settings are graded against four key questions: How good is our care, play and learning? How good is our setting? How good is our leadership? How good is our staff team?

Source: Care Inspectorate Data

How this indicator relates to the child poverty targets:

There is good evidence that high quality early learning and childcare (ELC) provision can improve social, emotional and educational outcomes for young children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Indicator 25: Improved wellbeing/health inequalities

Proportion of children with a developmental concern at their 27-30 month review. (New indicator from 2026)

Source: Public Health Scotland

Proportion of children with a developmental concern at their 27-30 month review. In 2024 to 2025 24% of children in SIMD quintile 1 (the most deprived) had a developmental concern compared with 10% of children in SIMD quintile 5 (the least deprived).

How this indicator relates to the child poverty targets:

Reducing health inequalities is important because problems in early child development are strongly associated with longer-term health, educational and wider social difficulties.

Indicator 26: Increased participation in school

Overall attendance rate gap, that is the reduction in the difference in attendance between pupils from the most and least deprived areas of Scotland. (New indicator from 2026)

Source: Scottish Government school education statistics.

How this indicator relates to the child poverty targets:

This indicator allows us to see whether there have been improvements in the proportion of children in the most deprived areas participating in school over time, providing a crude and simple measure of engagement with the education system. Gaps in educational attendance are likely to have lifelong consequences for young people’s employment opportunities – and therefore future poverty.

Indicator 27: More families living in warm homes

The number of children living in temporary accommodation in Scotland as at 31^st March each year. (New indicator from 2026)

Source: Homelessness Statistics

How this indicator relates to the child poverty targets:

The quality of housing and access to basic essentials like food are critical to children’s health and wellbeing and to later life outcomes

Indicator 28: Food security

Percentage of children in low income households (in the bottom 30% of the income distribution, before housing costs) with low or very low food security. Food security status is based on the USDA (United States Department for Agriculture) food security scale. Referring to the last 30 days, people are asked whether, and how often, they were worried about running out of food, had to reduce meal sizes or skip meals. From the questions, a ten-point household score is generated. A score of 0 = high food security; 1-2 = marginal food security; 3-5 = low food security; 6-10 = very low food security.

Source: Family Resources Survey. Note, that pandemic survey year (2020/21) has been excluded. As such the first data point includes two years of data (2021-23).

How this indicator relates to the child poverty targets:

Access to affordable food is essential to maintaining a reasonable standard of living. High prevalence of food insecurity indicates that costs are too high, incomes are insufficient, or both.

Indicator 29: Improved attainment

The poverty related attainment gap looks at the gap in attainment between pupils from the most deprived and least deprived SIMD quintiles under the All-Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) measure (SCQF Level 4 or better, SCQF Level 5 or better and SCQF Level 6 or better). (New indicator from 2026)

Source: Scottish Government – School statistics

How this indicator relates to the child poverty targets:

Poverty related differences in attainment are likely to have lifelong consequences for young people’s employment opportunities – and therefore future poverty.

Indicator 30: Positive destinations

Percentage of school leavers in a positive follow-up destination (reduction in the gap between school leavers from the most and least deprived areas of Scotland). (New indicator from 2026)

Source: Scottish Government – School statistics

How this indicator relates to the child poverty targets:

Poverty related differences in positive destinations after school are likely to have lifelong consequences for young people’s employment opportunities – and therefore future poverty.