Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan: Progress Report 2025-26

Section 3: Assessing progress against the targets

While the rest of this report looks at progress from April 2025 to March 2026, this chapter draws on the available survey data, which covers up to March 2025. Specifically, this chapter includes:

• Overall progress toward the 2030 child poverty targets, including detail of the revisions to poverty data
• Updated child poverty data on priority groups
• Assessment of child poverty drivers (income from employment, cost of living and income from social security) and long term outcomes
• Assessing the cumulative impact of policies for families

Latest update on child poverty rates

The targets set by the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 are based on single year figures for three out of the four targets, and the latest single year figures are for 2024-25. The data for the persistent poverty measure is based on data from the 2021 to 2024 calendar years.

The latest statistics show that:

• 21% of children lived in households in relative poverty, with the 2030 target set at <10%. Relative poverty measures the proportion of children living in households with an equivalised income below 60% of the contemporary UK median income. Relative poverty falls if income growth at the lower end of the income distribution is greater than overall income growth.
• 16% of children lived in households in absolute poverty, with the 2030 target set at <5%. Absolute poverty measures changes in poverty relative to a point in time taking inflation into account. The absolute poverty line is fixed at 60% of median UK income in 2010-11, as per the Act requirements. Specifically, it shows the proportion of children in families with an inflation-adjusted equivalised income below 60% of the UK median income in 2010-11. Absolute poverty falls if low income households are seeing their incomes rise faster than inflation.
• 14% of children lived in households in combined low income and material deprivation, with the 2030 target set at <5%. This measures whether households are able to afford basic necessities. Specifically, it represents the proportion of children in families with incomes less than 70% of the contemporary median that lack certain basic necessities.
• 17% of children lived in households in persistent poverty, with the 2030 target set at <5%. Persistent poverty measures whether people have been living in poverty for a number of years. Specifically, it shows the proportion of children in families who have been in relative poverty for three out of the past four years.

Revisions to poverty data

The Family Resources Survey (FRS) provides details about the incomes and living circumstances of households across the UK, including Scotland. The survey underpins estimates of relative poverty, absolute poverty, and low income and material deprivation. Over the past few decades, falling response rates have led to reductions in sample size.

To improve the accuracy of the data, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been carrying out a major development programme looking to incorporate administrative data as much as practicable through data linkage. For the latest release in March 2026, administrative data on benefits were used to replace survey responses. This has reduced the level of underreporting of key benefits, and provides a more accurate reflection of household income from benefits. The administrative data linkage was also applied back to 2021-22, including for the interim target year (2023-24). DWP will be releasing the linked back series to 2018-19 during summer 2026 and are currently investigating the data they hold on the devolved Scottish disability and carer benefits, with a view to including these in the data linkage as soon as practicable.

Scottish Child Payment receipt has been imputed to account for underreporting, and there are on-going discussions around setting up a data share for the Scottish Child Payment between Social Security Scotland and DWP so these data can be linked in future.

Persistent poverty is measured through a different data source, the longitudinal study Understanding Society. Persistent poverty statistics are routinely revised when households that have opted out of earlier waves of the survey respond to later waves. For example, in the most recent publication, the previous data point for 2019-23 was revised downwards from 23% to 16%.

Data revisions mean that statistics for the interim target year now show estimates for some measures below the interim target level. However, the data show a large degree of volatility and the figure for the subsequent year is above the interim target level. Other factors we need to consider when assessing progress include:

• Wider evidence over 2023-24 tells us that families’ circumstances had not substantively improved as seen through a range of other indicators in the Child Poverty Measurement Framework and explained in the section ‘drivers of poverty’ below.
• The wide confidence interval highlights the uncertainty in the estimates. Although relative child poverty in 2023-24 was estimated at 16%, this is out of line with the other data points and unlikely to represent a true change.
• Further revisions of the FRS data will take place over summer 2026, for the years 2018-19 to 2020-21. There will be further changes in 2027, when the way the statistics are scaled to population totals (known as grossing) is updated. This update will incorporate the latest census population data and may result in further revisions to the poverty rates. The FRS release strategy provides further detail on planned changes over the coming years.

These factors make it difficult to clearly identify longer-term trends at this stage. The additional back series planned by DWP should provide a better picture of the impact of the methodological changes to date. Looking at three-year averages, poverty rates are relatively stable.

To better understand whether families’ financial circumstances are improving, it is necessary to look at groups at greater risk of poverty and also at a wider range of evidence. This includes indicators across the drivers of poverty reduction, data on consequences of poverty, and impact evidence on the wide range of policy action undertaken.

Child poverty rates amongst groups most at risk

There are some types of households who have a higher risk of poverty, and make up the majority of those in poverty, we refer to these as ‘priority groups’. These are households with a disabled person, three or more children, a baby aged under 1, minority ethnic households, mothers aged under 25, and lone parent families.

The latest available child poverty rates continue to show that those in priority family groups are more at risk of being in poverty than all children, and in particular than those whose families have none of these characteristics. The latest figures are shown in Tables 3.1 and 3.2, alongside baseline year data when the Act came into force. However, it is necessary to be mindful that data developments by the FRS are still ongoing, and as such, it is not currently possible to look at progress by subgroups. We are anticipating a deeper analysis at this time next year.

Low income and material deprivation data by priority family groups can only be shown by looking at the combination of the last two years. This is because the most recent material deprivation estimates are based on updated survey questions introduced in 2023-24.

There is no data on persistent poverty amongst priority groups. This is because data for persistent poverty comes from the Understanding Society survey, and sample sizes by priority family group are too small. But considering the consistently greater risk of poverty for priority groups under other indicators, it is expected that persistent poverty rates for the priority groups will also be higher.

Statistics allow us to quantify the risk of poverty for these particular groups. But in order to understand their experience of poverty, additional research and evidence is needed. Over the years we have provided detailed reports for each priority family group which look at child poverty rates and progress in each of the three drivers of poverty, alongside wider evidence. These reports are complemented with analysis on other groups at higher risk of poverty and a focus report on gendered poverty.

The drivers of child poverty

To better understand changes in the target measures of child poverty, we look at the three drivers of poverty. That is: income from employment, cost of living, and income from social security and benefits in-kind. The measurement framework provides a range of indicators for each of the drivers that can be tracked over time. This year, we are also including indicator data to track long-term consequences of poverty.

The summary of progress includes an assessment of indicator data along with impact findings from evaluations of relevant policies.

Income from employment

As noted previously, a job does not guarantee a secure route out of poverty or financial security. Indeed, there has been a slow but constant upward trend in the levels of in-work poverty amongst all working families. At the time the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 came into force, 66% of children in relative poverty lived in a working household (2015-18). This figure stands at 75% in 2022-25.

Scottish economic insights over the reporting period 2024-25 showed a strong labour market with low levels of unemployment and relatively stable levels of employment. Overall, there was real terms earning growth in 2024, meaning that wages increased faster than inflation. While the economy, in overall terms, appeared to be performing relatively strongly (when compared to recent years), the impact of this for low income households is more mixed. Possibly, this demonstrates that a range of complex factors are at play.

On one side, indicators do show hourly pay for low income families at a slowly increasing rate, with stable proportions in secure work. This matches the ONS ‘Low and high pay in the UK’ report showing a continuous decrease in the prevalence of jobs earning less than two thirds of the median wage (low-paid jobs).

At the same time, however, the percentage of children living in households where no adult is in paid employment showed an increase to 12.7% (compared to 10.7% in 2023 and 10.2% in 2022). Data continues to reaffirm, however, that having a job is still not enough. Three quarters (75%) of children in relative poverty, live in a household where someone works. The ONS low and high pay report shows that some industry types still see high levels of workers in low-paid work, notably accommodation and food workers. Flexibility of employment, contractual security and pay all play a role. Importantly, the number of hours worked can support households to boost their income.

Amongst those in employment, the number of hours worked by low income households stands at 21 hours per week in 2022-25. Over time, work intensity amongst low income households with children decreased. In 2017-20 they averaged 24 hours of work per week (2017-20). There has been a steady decline in the proportion of parents who are in work and would prefer to work more hours (i.e. under-employment). In 2024, this stands at 3.6% of parents in employment willing to increase working hours compared to 6.3% in 2017. There are multiple reasons why parents may not be able or willing to increase working hours, an inability to combine paid work with caring for their children being one of them.

Recent data also shows an increase in underutilisation of skills. That is, the proportion of employed parents with degrees who are in low or medium skilled occupations. In the latest data point (2024), 20.8% of parents with degrees were in low or medium skilled occupations. That compares with 14.8% in 2023 and 15.0% in 2022. However, this latest increase should be treated with caution for now as we see whether this results in an established trend or not going forwards.

Employability support can help parents to increase their earnings and there have been continuous increases in the number of parents reached through employability support. Positive outcomes are achieved for those who engage with the service, though at limited scale. For example, amongst all those reached by the service (from April 2019 to September 2025), 31% had entered employment and a further 14% had entered further or higher education or training. Alongside employability support, initiatives like the Fairer Futures Partnerships, that are designed to better integrate family support services and provide more holistic support, have been shown to help families stabilise their finances, avoid escalation to crisis point, and to help ensure that interconnected challenges around, for example, debt, addiction or mental health, which can threaten sustained employment, are addressed holistically.

A key barrier to increasing income through paid work, particularly for women, is around the availability of childcare. This was evidenced in the evaluation of No One Left Behind. Childcare responsibilities preventing access to training or work was reported as an issue by 53% of single parents and 25% of women. The expansion of funded early learning and childcare (ELC) (i.e. the 1140 hours per year of free childcare), has provided much needed support for parents as evidenced by the Scottish Study of Early Learning and Childcare evaluations. The national outcomes evaluation, published in March 2026, provides clear evidence of an increase in the proportion of mothers of children receiving funded ELC who are in employment, training or full-time education. Employment rose for mothers across all income groups. Specifically, for the lowest income group, the proportion in work increased from 41% pre-expansion to 53% post expansion. The proportion in full-time work remained at 27%. The increase found in maternal employment was during a period of high employment rates and substantial change in the labour market (including the impacts of the pandemic and increased home working). However, the employment rate of all women aged 16 to 64 in Scotland (and for women of similar ages to those using funded ELC) remained relatively constant over the same period.

Cost of living

The cost of living is the term used to refer to the prices of goods and services in the economy. Inflation refers to the rate of increase in these prices. Low income households are more vulnerable to increases in the cost of living as they spend a greater proportion of their income on essentials (such as food, housing or energy).

Following a peak during 2022 (at 11.1%), Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation slowly decreased over 2023 before stabilising during 2024 just above Bank of England’s 2% target. There are some positive signs of households benefitting from this reduced rate of inflation, as noted in paragraphs that follow. However, over 2025, inflation has been slowly increasing to remain between 3% and 4%. For 2026, there is significant uncertainty in the outlook for inflation and therefore the impact on low income households due to the sharp rise in fuel prices arising from the conflict in the Middle East. In April, the Bank of England set out three scenarios in which inflation averaged between 3.3% and 4.5% in 2026. As such inflationary impacts on the cost of living remain a concern.

Following a period of peak inflation during 2022, the reduced rate seems to have allowed low income families some respite. Overall, there seems to be an improvement in the financial resilience of families with an increase in the proportion of low income households stating that they are managing well financially (23% in 2024 up from 17% in 2023). In comparison, there was no change across all households with children. Further, low income households have been more able to save. We see a nine percentage point reduction in the proportion of low income households with children unable to save (59% in 2012-23 vs 68% in 2019-21).

Still, it is worth noting that many families are still struggling with the cost of living.

• Fuel poverty has reduced significantly (to 25% from 34% in 2023) but remains stubbornly high. The decrease in fuel poverty largely reflects the fall in energy prices in 2024 wherein the average index price of fuels for Scotland decreased by 23.3% compared to 2023. Impacts of recent developments due to the war in Iran and subsequent spikes in energy costs are yet to be reflected in the data.
• The proportion of household income spent on housing has remained stable over the last couple of years. But the number of children in temporary accommodation remains at a consistently high level (10,480 children at end September 2025, and 10,360 at end of September 2024).
• The proportion of income spent on food has been slowly but steadily decreasing over time, though, food insecurity remains high. Programmes like the Cash First approach to tackling food insecurity have provided a sense of dignity and relief for families – but there are questions about the delivery model and how best to ensure it can support families at scale.
• While the majority of low income families do not have to pay for their childcare, those who do, spend around 13% of their income on it. In fact, those paying for childcare still find it difficult or very difficult to afford their household’s childcare costs.

Income from social security and benefits in-kind

Means-tested social security benefits are designed to help with living costs and often supplement the income that households receive from other sources, primarily employment. However, due to different circumstances some households may not receive any income from paid work at a given point in time, and may rely entirely on benefit income to pay for living costs.

Across various evaluations, we see the clear positive impact social security and benefits in-kind have on families. Specifically, the evaluation of the Five Family Payments (Scottish Child Payment, the three Best Start Grant payments and Best Start Foods) shows how the support helped to reduce financial pressure and money-related stress. The majority of recipients report reduced worries about money thanks to the benefits received, which is possibly reflected in the general indicator on increased financial resilience.

Considering the positive impacts for families who receive benefits, it is imperative that people access the support they are entitled to. For this, the Scottish Government monitors benefit take-up rates, that is, the proportion of people eligible for benefits that go on to get them. These show that for the five family payments, estimated take-up rates are high and indicate that the majority of families eligible for these payments get them, directly ensuring that families have more income and contributing directly to reducing poverty. The latest take-up rate for Scottish Child Payment for children aged under 6 was at 97% (nearly universal). Take up rates are also recorded for under 16s following the expansion of the benefit in November 2022. In 2024-25, take up was estimated at 94%, a 5% point increase relative to the previous year.

We track the proportion of households with children who are eligible for Universal Credit. This year shows a slight increase in eligibility, possibly reflecting changes in other indicators such as the increase in children living in households where no adults are in paid employment. These changes may mean that a greater proportion of families are eligible for Universal Credit. However, it may also reflect demographic changes or variation in the sample data given the small size of the change.

We also track the real value of both out-of-work and in-work benefits. While the majority of devolved Scottish social security benefits are uprated with inflation automatically, the changes in the value of UK benefits or other circumstances can impact the real value received by families. An increase in the real terms value of both out-of-work and in-work benefits was observed in 2024-25 as benefits were uprated faster than inflation in the same year. However, in 2025-26 the real value of out-of-work and in-work benefits dropped again. This reflects the lagged uprating of benefits, with the UK and Scottish benefits uprated using the previous year’s inflation while inflation saw an increase again in 2025-26. Additionally, some benefits such as the Local Housing Allowance remain frozen. Finally, the in-work benefits are likely being impacted by the above inflation increases in the minimum wage in 2025-26, which would interact with the Universal Credit taper reducing in-work benefits.

Progress on long term outcomes for children

Ultimately, we want to reduce child poverty in order to improve long term outcomes for children and young people. Moreover, improving these outcomes should also have a preventative effect in terms of reducing future poverty.

The picture we get from these indicators on children’s outcomes is mixed. For some indicators the picture has improved somewhat over the last year or two, but is often still worse than the pre-pandemic status. For other indicators, we have seen either no progress or a worsening trend, especially on housing, reflecting the national ‘housing emergency’ declared. There are complex factors that will play into these outcomes, not least of which are the ongoing effects of the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis which have placed more pressure on families and negatively impacted outcomes, but it is clear that we are not, as yet, seeing an improving picture for children’s outcomes overall. It will be important to continue to monitor these indicators going forward and use all the evidence available to unpack where policy interventions are making a positive difference and where more action is needed.

Early childhood development is important because problems in early child development are strongly associated with longer-term health, educational and wider social difficulties. There continue to be persistent inequalities in the early child development data with a strong association between deprivation and developmental concerns identified. The gap between the rate of developmental concerns reported at 27-30 months for children in the most and least deprived quintiles fell slightly from 16 to 14 percentage points (ppt) over the last couple of years but has remained at between 13 and 16 ppt over the last 10 years, indicating a persistent poverty-related gap in these outcomes. This adds to the wider evidence that children growing up in poverty and/or living in more deprived areas face a heightened risk of a range of health challenges throughout childhood.

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. Data on the quality of ELC settings in Scotland shows that this has remained consistently high, with around 90% of settings achieving Care Inspectorate grades of good or better across all four quality themes each year since 2017. Importantly this was maintained following the significant expansion of funded ELC from 600 to 1140 hours in 2021, albeit with a slight dip from 91% of settings achieving good or better in 2020 to 89% in the latest year of data (2024). There is no evidence, however, that this expansion of funded ELC, despite high take-up, has to date contributed to a closing of the poverty-related gap in children’s development outcomes at age 4 or 5. However, it is important to note that the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis have provided an extremely challenging context for delivery of the expansion and for families.

Turning to education measures, there have also been some small recent improvements in school attendance rates and limited progress on the poverty-related attainment gap. While the attainment gap (between pupils living in the most and least deprived areas) has narrowed somewhat for the ACEL measures^[1] of literacy and numeracy at primary and secondary school, there has been less progress on the school leaver attainment gap. The gap in achieving at least one National Qualification at SCQF Levels 5 and 6 fell slightly over the past year, by 1.3 and 0.7 ppt respectively, but it rose slightly for a qualification at SCQF Level 4 by 0.7 ppt.

Educational gaps are likely to have lifelong consequences for young people’s employment opportunities – and therefore future poverty. Evaluation of the Attainment Scotland Fund notes that despite limited progress on the school-leaver attainment gap, progress has been seen across the programme in setting the foundations required to tackle the gap, such as enhanced collaboration, better use of data and evidence, more support of and engagement with families and communities, provision of wider opportunities and a focus on readiness to learn.

The quality of housing and access to basic essentials like food are critical to children’s health and wellbeing and to later life outcomes. We continue to see food insecurity at stubbornly high levels^[2]. Low food security can result in adverse health consequences for children, exacerbating the wider inequalities in diet seen among children based on income or deprivation level. With respect to housing, the number of children living in temporary accommodation has been climbing steadily every year since 2014, with 10,180 children living in temporary accommodation in 2025. Households with children also spent longer in temporary accommodation than those without, although were less likely to be placed in bed and breakfast accommodation. Research has shown adverse consequences from living in temporary accommodation affecting children’s sense of security, physical, mental, and social health, and schooling and development.

Assessing the cumulative impact of policies for families

Despite stable trends in child poverty levels, wider evidence shows that action taken by the Scottish Government to date is having a substantial impact for families.

• The latest impact modelling, published in March 2026, estimates that policies included in ‘Bringing Hope, Building Futures’ will keep around 100,000 children out of relative poverty and 70,000 children out of absolute poverty in 2026-27.
• The impact of these policies is expected to grow over time to keep 110,000 children out of relative by 2030-31. New commitments, including to expand support for childcare to all children from nine-months to the end of primary school, are not reflected in existing modelling.
• Rates of relative child poverty levels in Scotland are lower than the UK average – 21% compared to 28% in 2022-25. This suggests that additional policies implemented in Scotland are helping low income families.
• While policies may have provided some respite for families and prevented further rises in poverty, evidence on a range of children’s outcomes shows a more challenging picture with some small improvements but with sizeable poverty-related gaps persisting on most measures.

Cumulative impact

We assess the cumulative impact of the policy package in two distinct ways: through economic modelling, which allows us to estimate the impact that the package of policies can have on child poverty rates and through qualitative assessment of how various policies are working together to foster system change. A summary of our learning in both areas is below.

The latest modelling estimates that in 2026-27, a package of ten Scottish Government policies will cumulatively reduce the relative child poverty rate by 10 percentage points, and the absolute child poverty rate by 7 percentage points, compared to if those policies were not in place. This would represent keeping 100,000 and 70,000 children out of poverty respectively, with similar impacts on deep poverty (defined as living on <50% of median equivalised income). The impacts grow to reach 11 percentage points (110,000 children) by 2030-31 for relative poverty and 8 percentage points (80,000 children) from 2030-31 onward for absolute poverty. This modelling does not yet account for new commitments of the Scottish Government, including to expand support for childcare which will help parents to increase their earned incomes.

Importantly, we also need to understand how well policies are working together to drive the child poverty agenda. We continue to learn, and share our learnings, from evaluations of place-based, system change initiatives. We have published a learning paper from the Child Poverty Pathfinders exploring evaluating evolving and complex programmes. This paper has important reflections for policy makers, programme delivery teams and evaluators on how to get the best out of future evaluations. It considers: timescales; robustness of data; burdens on key stakeholders, including families; and the limitations of measuring impact and value for money.

These findings highlight that meaningful change, particularly where system change is an outcome, can take considerable time. We continue to gather learnings from a range of programme level evaluations to understand how they impact on families accessing support and services, as well as any barriers or unintended consequences that they may experience. A synthesis of this learning will be published later in 2026, but due to challenges in attributing reductions in child poverty to complex programmes such as place-based, system change initiatives, direct causal links to observed changes in poverty rates remain difficult to demonstrate. However, evaluation findings, and synthesis analysis of these findings, will set out the pathways by which interventions should impact on poverty outcomes and indicate the likely contribution to child poverty reduction.

UK comparisons

Over the past two decades, child poverty rates have consistently been lower in Scotland than in the rest of the UK. However, data linkage (taking effect from 2021-22) and changes in survey methodology (2023-24) mean it is currently advisable not to make a direct comparisons of longer-term trends before and after these changes were introduced.

Relative and absolute child poverty after housing costs is currently estimated to be six percentage points lower in Scotland than in the UK (see table 3.4).

Similar patterns can be seen for levels of low income and material deprivation with a five percentage point difference between Scotland and the UK (see table 3.5). There is no earlier comparable data due to ongoing data developments.

Further analysis exploring Scottish Government and UK Government contributions to tackling child poverty in Scotland since 2010 will be published in the upcoming focus report.