Tackling child poverty skills package - equality impact assessment
This impact assessment considers the potential impacts of a £22 million skills package, comprising RISE, TAF and a new FWDF. The package aims to help reduce child poverty by supporting people to gain skills, access education, and enter, sustain and progress in work.
Recommendations and Conclusion
The EQIA has shown that the impact of the tackling child poverty skills package will be positive across many protected characteristics, in particular age, disability, pregnancy and maternity, race and sex. The actions are grounded in evidence of who is most at risk of child poverty, and the six priority family types are strongly correlated to protected characteristics.
The focus, aims and targeted actions through the skills package for the priority family groups and other groups facing poverty will be beneficial to these protected characteristics in particular, resulting in a strong potential for the skills package to contribute to advancing equality of opportunity for the targeted cohorts and indirectly reducing inequalities associated with discrimination in education, training and employment. It is also expected that the identified positive impacts will help to foster better relations between people who have protected characteristics and those who do not have them.
For other characteristics, we have more limited data. We have found no evidence of negative consequences, though in line with best practice we will keep this under review as part of the monitoring of this EQIA.
Once delivery of the three initiatives commences and progresses, we will gain a better understanding of the difference this package of skills support will make in reducing discrimination and enhancing opportunity.
Summary of recommendations:
- There is limited data, included Scotland-specific data, on the impact of skills and training in alleviating poverty/child poverty. There is also limited evidence on the intended or actual impact for people with protected characteristics. As part of overall monitoring for the skills package and to minimise the risk of unintended widening of inequalities, particularly among ethnic minority communities, focus will be placed on robust data gathering on access and participation.
- To ensure that the skills support package delivers positive and equitable outcomes, an evaluation approach will be developed to measure longer-term impact on progression and earned incomes, as well as the impacts on the six priority family groups. The analysis of gathered data and the outcomes of the evaluation will inform policy and programme modification, and future policy design and delivery.