Tackling child poverty priority families overview
An overview of evidence on the six priority family types identified as being at higher risk of child poverty. Slide deck can be found in the supporting documents.
Progress towards child poverty targets
The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 sets statutory targets to reduce levels of child poverty, including fewer than 10% of children living in relative poverty, by 2030. This means fewer than one in ten children living in households on low incomes, compared to the average UK household.
Child poverty rates are above interim targets. Overall, long-term child poverty rates have shown little change.
Over the period of the two delivery plans, a range of factors have made the circumstances particularly challenging to deliver on the aspirations of the Child Poverty Act. While a solid policy package has been presented ensuring cross government and external engagement, external circumstances have impacted on the delivery of the package. This includes the variety of recent crisis (Covid, war of Ukraine, cost of living), which added pressure on budgets.
On the drivers of poverty:
- increasing income through employment can help families avoid poverty. While there is room to expect improvements in the economy and in turn people’s lives, this will take time to be seen in child poverty rates. Progress over the past year has been limited, reflecting fairly stagnant economic growth over the reporting year. Rates of in-work poverty increased and low income families’ work intensity has reduced. Employability policies in place can have positive outcomes for parents but scale needs to be a sufficient pace to support targets.
- the cost of living is a key challenge for low-income families. There are key concerns particularly around housing and childcare costs.
- income from social security is in many cases a lifeline for families. We see uptake increase and clear positive impact of social security and benefits in-kind on families.