Tag: Tackling CHild Poverty Delivery Plan

Increasing childcare in disadvantaged communities

£4.5 million for after school and holiday clubs

Councils can now apply for their share of £4.5 million to support the provision of after school and holiday clubs for Scotland’s most disadvantaged areas.

The funding will help improve both indoor and outdoor spaces in the school estate, with schools also encouraged to consider wider community needs.

First Minister Humza Yousaf set out details of the funding as he convened a national anti-poverty summit in Edinburgh yesterday.

The First Minister said: “Tackling poverty must be a shared priority for us all and this summit offers the opportunity to listen to a wide range of views to help us take the right action to drive down inequality across Scotland.

“Helping families deal with cost of living pressures is one of our key priorities and providing further funding for affordable and accessible school age childcare will help deliver that.

“Funded school age childcare supports parents and carers into work and enables them to support their families, while also providing a nurturing environment for children to take part in a wide range of activities.

“Scotland already has the most generous childcare offer anywhere in the UK. All three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds are entitled to 1,140 hours a year of funded early learning and childcare. We are working with partners to make further progress, with plans to develop a funded early learning and childcare offer for one and two-year-olds by 2026, focusing on those who need it most.”

The Scottish Government will provide a £4.5m recurring Capital Fund, managed and administered by Scottish Futures Trust, to deliver improvements to the school estate that will support the provision of before and after school and holiday clubs within Scotland’s most disadvantaged communities.

The intention is that the fund will be limited to the school estate (both indoor and outdoor spaces) for year one, but schools will be encouraged to consider wider community needs and spaces where children want to be after school or during the holidays, particularly where links or partnerships already exist.

The £4.5m fund will be open to all Local Authorities who will be required to demonstrate how they have worked in partnership with school age childcare and activities providers, to be ambitious in their ideas, and to define projects which will deliver benefit for children and families, particularly those from low-income areas.

Funded school age childcare is targeted at families on the lowest incomes, specifically the six priority family types identified in the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan (lone parent families, minority ethnic families, families with a disabled adult or child, families with a younger mother [under 25], families with a child under one, and larger families.)

Scottish Government hails progress on tackling child poverty – but more to do

Almost £6 billion has been invested to support low income households across Scotland over the last three years.

More than a third of that total, around £2.18 billion, has directly benefitted children as the Scottish Government prepares to publish its Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan for 2022-2026.

On Thursday (24 March) Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison will update Parliament on the national mission to break the cycle of poverty for thousands of families.

The Delivery Plan for 2022-26 builds on the work of ‘Every Child, Every Chance’, published in 2018. It introduced a range of new supports through Social Security Scotland, including the Scottish Child Payment and Best Start Grants, and employability services such as Fair Start Scotland.

Ms Robison said: “In the face of UK government austerity, combined with the deeply damaging £20 cut to Universal Credit, our investment over the last four years to support low income families has had a significant impact. But there is still more we must do to deliver the transformational changes we all want to see.

“Our second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan will be a plan for all of Scotland. All parts of society have a role to play in our national mission to end child poverty. This is a collective effort across society to deliver for our future generations and break the cycle of poverty once and for all.

“Our ambitious measures are already delivering considerable support to children and families compared with other parts of the UK – for example, through free childcare and employment support, maximising incomes and affordable housing and, of course, social security.

“We remain the only part of the UK to have five family benefits, including the Scottish Child Payment, which was designed to tackle child poverty head on. Combined with our three Best Start Grants and Best Start Foods, low income families receive up to £8,400 of financial support by the time their first child turns six.

“Our budgets may be fixed, powers limited, and the scale of the challenge as we emerge from the pandemic has increased. However, we are determined to do everything within our powers to give the children of Scotland the opportunities they deserve to succeed.”

The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 set four income-based child poverty targets to be met by 2030/31, with interim targets set for 2023/24.