The Fraser of Allander Institute has tday published a new report, jointly authored with @MMUPolicyEval & @PovertyAlliance, that explores some of the challenges and opportunities that the Scottish Government faces in meeting its Child Poverty Targets:
Around 1 in 4 children in Scotland live in relative poverty. This means they live in a
household with an income 60% below the UK median income after housing costs
have been deducted.
Child poverty can have serious and lifelong impacts across a range of outcomes,
and the Scottish Government have stated their aim to reduce significantly the
incidence of child poverty. The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 20172 includes a target
to reduce relative child poverty to 10% by 2030/31.
Meeting this target would represent an unprecedented reduction in child poverty to levels not seen in Scotland certainly since the early 1990s when the current statistical series began.
The purpose of the analysis in this report is to look at some of the large, national level, devolved policy levers that the Scottish Government could use to meet the
targets. We have focussed on childcare, employability programmes and social
security.
By analysing variations of these types of policies, and different combinations, this
analysis illustrates the scale of the impact on poverty and the associated costs and
benefits of different options.
We envisage that this will be helpful for policymakers and stakeholders who will be focused on developing actions for the next Tackling Child Poverty Delivery plan, due to be published by the Scottish Government by the end of March 2022.