Scottish child poverty targets review — a chance to advance, or a retreat?

Targets need renewed ambition

The Scottish Government has announced a review of the Scottish child poverty reduction targets. In a separate piece of analysis we set out a more technical study of how poverty is measured and the pitfalls this review should avoid.

But here we set out the political, policy and public opinion background to the review. We argue that the outcome of the review needs to be a renewed ambitious set of targets that re-energise the Scottish Government and Parliament back onto reducing child poverty. We show that this is supported by the public, who overwhelmingly agree child poverty reduction should be a top priority of the Scottish Government, and that there should be targets, but also agree that the Scottish Government is not doing enough to reduce child poverty.

This is the crux of the issue: despite some positive steps, it is that lack of progress that necessitates this review. If the Scottish Government had done more since 2017 the review would not be necessary. But that ship has sailed, so most importantly the Scottish Government needs to be more ambitious in its policy programme to reduce child poverty. To support that it should agree new, stretching targets that centre an income-based measured and find ways to strengthen accountability.

What are the Scottish child poverty reduction targets for?

“The Child Poverty (Scotland) Bill is our collective statement of intent to tackle the causes and the consequences of child poverty, as well as being recognition of the central importance of income — or, indeed, of lack of income. It is our statement of intent, as a Parliament, not just to tackle but to end child poverty. However, as most members from across the chamber have rightly acknowledged, statements of intent are all very well, but it is what we do that counts.”

— Angela Constance MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities, Scottish Parliament, 8 November 2017, Stage 3 Debate of the Child Poverty (Scotland) Bill

These words from Angela Constance, who is still in Cabinet today as Health Secretary, sum up well the purpose of what became the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017. A bold statement by the Scottish Parliament, driven by the Scottish Government, to not just state Scotland’s ambitions to end child poverty but to quantify what that means and to put future Ministers on the hook for what they do, not just what they state.

But in June, the Scottish Government announced a review of these key targets.

Is a review of the targets actually needed?

There is a simple reason the 2030/31 targets actually need to be reviewed — a lack of Scottish Government action means they are extremely unlikely to be met in the relatively short window of time left.

Sadly, the position we are in now is that we have a latest Delivery Plan under the Act which we don’t think even meets the legal requirements of the Act. This was then followed by manifestos in the Scottish Parliament election campaigns that were, euphemistically, underwhelming.

As a result, we have targets, but they have lost their teeth because people, most importantly the Scottish Government, don’t think they’re going to be met. Understandably they may not say so, but it’s hard to conclude otherwise.

The task of the review, then, must be to provide ambitious and clear targets that provide a powerful catalyst for Scottish Government action and for the Scottish Parliament to hold them to account on that. This is not just what we think, it is also what the public thinks; polling we have done to accompany this work shows overwhelming support for child poverty being a top priority of the Scottish Government, and for there being targets to support action on it.

What should the review look like?

What, then, actually needs to be reviewed? We think this is timelines, data collection, what is measured and the accountability mechanisms.

The obvious answer is for the timelines to move. For example, for the 2030/31 date to host new interim targets, and then the current targets to be moved back to some later time in the decade. A political failure undoubtedly, but a chance to reset and underline the First Minister’s commitment to eradicating child poverty. We’re not saying that has to be the answer, this will rightly require consultation, but some change to the timelines is needed. It would also be a perfectly good outcome for the timelines to move, but little else change.

The timescales must, however, be pressing – not least because of the deep struggles that many children and their families face. Child poverty will not fall significantly without radical changes to our public services and economy; much as we would wish it to, that won’t happen overnight. But it also won’t happen without urgency. One of the reasons we are where we are today is that the Scottish Government didn’t significantly invest in child poverty reduction policy until the child payment was doubled to £20 a week, which was fully rolled out on 14 November 2022, 5 years and 6 days after the Scottish Parliament passed the 2017 Act.

The analysis that we’re publishing alongside this, by Carla Cebula and Peter Matejic, sets out ways in which data collection for the current targets should be improved, it would be welcome if the Scottish Government made a stronger commitment to do that. It is on both the DWP and Scottish Government to prioritise this improvement work — it is long past the point where acknowledgement of the issues is enough.

In theory the Scottish Government could also go for an all-singing, all-dancing review whereby they commit to a new measurement which attempts to capture a broader suite of costs that families face and, hence, shows the impact of policies in these spaces more effectively. This would take time and money though, and may not yield any greater result that improving the Family Resources Survey in the ways we set out.

In terms of what is measured, income-based targets need to be at the heart of any renewed targets. Which measures, and how they are measured, can of course be debated but it would be a gross backwards step to remove any consideration of income from the targets.

The targets must be ambitious. At the time the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 became law, the latest 3-year average for relative child poverty after housing costs was 23% (2014-17). Meaning the original targets demanded a dramatic fall, on that measure alone, child poverty: they aimed for around 130,000 fewer children in Scotland living in poverty. Any new targets must retain that level of ambition.

While the Scottish Government haven’t been publicly explicit about the other elements of the Act — such as the delivery plan mechanism — this will also need to be reviewed to make it coherent with new targets. Arguably the existing accountability mechanisms should be strengthened. For example, if the Scottish Government want to avoid any skewing of action to a particular policy area, section 9 of the Act could be strengthened to include a mandatory list of policy areas the Scottish Government must set out action on — rather than the current permissive list.

Section 9 could also be strengthened to put an obligation on Ministers to set out in delivery plans the measures they are satisfied will meet the targets rather than that they propose for the purpose of meeting them. We don’t think there is any justification to the argument that the targets create perverse incentives, but if the Government and the Parliament want to avoid risk that they perceive then the legislation can bind them to avoid those.

The Scottish Government’s explanation for the review

In a bit of a contrast to the Scottish Government’s support for the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act, in announcing a review of the targets under the Act, Shirley-Anne Somerville said:

“However, many of the policies that we are investing in are not captured in our income-based targets. That can lead to the debate and calls for action being skewed towards increasing social security, even when other policies lead to direct savings for families or drive systemic change across our public services. That is why I confirm today our intention to undertake a review of the types of targets that we use to measure our impact on child poverty. We need to review the targets to ensure that our approach is grounded in the best available evidence, continues to drive the right actions and supports sustained long-term progress for children and families. We need to know what makes the most difference for families.”

— Shirley-Anne Somerville MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice and Housing, Scottish Parliament, 18 June 2026, Ministerial Statement on the tackling child poverty delivery plan’s annual progress report 2025-26.

As we say above, ultimately the review is necessary because of the lack of progress but taking the Scottish Government’s position at face value, they present a few alternative explanations:

• That investments they are making in child poverty reduction are not showing up in the targets. In the debate that followed her statement, the Cabinet Secretary cited childcare, whole family support and school meal debt as 3 areas that would not be captured by the current targets.
• That the debate is being ‘skewed’ towards social security because of its direct impact on incomes.
• That the Scottish Government no longer believes in the centrality of low-income to the experience of poverty.

Taking the last of these first: it is particularly concerning, and subsequent discussions with officials suggest, that the Scottish Government do not want to move away from income-based measures entirely, which is welcome. Because as we noted in our joint response to the Ministerial Statement with other key anti-poverty organisations ‘removing any measurement of income from child poverty reduction targets would be like having a speedometer in your car that only told you the temperature’.

The analysis that we’re publishing alongside this by Carla and Peter, Adequate incomes are key to reducing child poverty in Scotland, makes a less tongue-in-cheek case for why this would be a fundamental error. As we note above, it is perfectly legitimate to look at possible other measures, and in particular for measures that include greater analysis as to costs, but you cannot effectively measure progress on reducing poverty without monitoring incomes.

On the idea that the debate is being ‘skewed’ towards social security, this isn’t consistent with the argument on other interventions not showing up in the target statistics. The current income-based targets reward longer-term investments. Building more social housing will ensure a healthier more balanced housing market where fewer low-income households are forced into the more expensive, and less secure, private rented sector. Indeed, that is part of the story as to why Scotland’s child poverty rates are lower than in England and Wales.

Similarly, investing in funded, high-quality early learning and childcare provision that benefits low-income households will over time open greater opportunities for parents, and women in particular, to work and to build longer-term earning potential, increasing incomes over time. In theory, yes, social security does show up more quickly in income-based targets. But replacing them with a measure that surfaces the short-term impact of other policies doesn't remove that so-called incentive, it just points to a different set of quick wins.

And ultimately this exposes fundamental flaws in these arguments.

If any decision making has been ‘skewed’ within the Government that is because of the decisions of the Government. Government may have felt political pressure to increase social security spending but even the most curmudgeonly commentator (ahem…) on Scottish anti-poverty policy cannot ignore the significant investment the Scottish Government have made in the Scottish Child Payment, at around half-a-billion pounds a year it is a hugely welcome investment in children in Scotland. That, though, gives the Scottish Government political wriggle room to say, ‘we’ve put money in families’ pockets, and we know we need to concentrate on other areas that help too’.

Indeed, they have said that but their actions, outwith social security, have not met the ambition of the Scottish Child Payment. The Scottish Child Payment is a big financial investment; it impacts on hundreds of thousands of children and take-up is very high because of good policy design.

This is the weakness in the argument that other policy activity is not showing up in the targets. No-one is arguing that childcare or whole family support cannot have a positive impact on poverty or that they shouldn’t be priorities. On the latter, the Scottish Government are rhetorically highly invested in this model (and there were welcome commitments in this space earlier this month) but they are not investing at anything like the scale needed.

On childcare, families and the organisations that represent them are constantly highlighting the need for further funded hours of childcare for low-income households, but since the 1,140-hour expansion there has been little substantive change. Just prior to the election campaign in March the First Minister announced a further expansion of childcare targeted at low-income households and at scale, indeed most of the parties standing in the election made a childcare commitment. This is welcome, but there has been many a false dawn on childcare expansion so the proof will be in the pudding. Crucially, any expansion must prioritise pre-school children, where affordable, funded provision does the most to enable parents into work and lift household incomes. There is a real risk that a broader offer spreads resources too thinly and leaves the families in poverty further behind.

In short, it is odd to accuse social security policy, that the Scottish Government have rightly trumpeted, of being so effective in reducing poverty as to create an incentive to do more of it. Government should choose policies that work, they can also choose to do different things — their choices, not the targets, are key.

In short, it is highly counterproductive, not to mention a bit odd, to accuse social security spending of being too good at reducing poverty. It is a preventative and effective means of supporting households. Social security can help other services to succeed and putting it in competition with other services that also contribute to reducing poverty is simply undermining the argument for both. Government should choose policies that work, they can also choose to do different things — their choices, not the targets, are key.

Most tellingly, though, to argue that the targets have skewed Scottish Government activity towards immediate improvements in people’s incomes is to ignore the reality for so many children and their families in Scotland today. Foodbank use is still at extremely high levels, families in poverty are far more likely to be in very deep poverty today, tragically I could go on. This argument has been summarised as ‘hitting the targets and missing the point’, bluntly, we’re not anywhere near hitting the targets.

Each of these arguments highlights the bind that the Scottish Government are in. Ultimately the targets need reviewing because the will to meet them has faded, as they would be extremely difficult to meet in the time left. As we note above, it would of course be a significant political failure to move the targets as a result, but it would be a good outcome for the Scottish Government and Parliament to reset the targets and go again. But this core truth is necessary for the review to be successful — by all means the Scottish Government should take the chance to see if measurement can be improved but it should not try to design new targets to provide a fig leaf for a lack of progress, it should confidently restate its ambitions and work towards them.

Public opinion on Scottish Government’s child poverty reduction efforts

As an anti-poverty organisation it is perhaps predictable that we will push the Scottish Government to do more on poverty reduction, and have no reason to apologise for doing so. But how the public perceive these issues is crucial too. As a result, we asked questions as part of the Diffley Partnership’s Understanding Scotland panel, between 2 and 5 August this year, and polled 2,185 people in Scotland.

We asked the extent to which people agreed or disagreed with statements about the importance of reducing child poverty, the need for targets and the Scottish Government’s efforts to reduce child poverty. The findings were stark:

• ‘Reducing child poverty should be one of the Scottish Government's top priorities’. More than 4 in 5 people, an overwhelming 83%, somewhat or strongly agreed with this statement. Only around 1 in 20 people disagreed.
• ‘It is important that the Scottish Government has clear targets and deadlines for reducing child poverty and reports regularly on progress’. Strikingly again, more than 4 in 5 people, an overwhelming 83%, somewhat or strongly agreed with this statement. Only around 1 in 20 people disagreed. This is not a mistake, the responses were the same and equally strong.
• ‘The Scottish Government is doing enough to tackle child poverty in Scotland’. In this case only 26% of people either somewhat or strongly agreed (with only 5% strongly agreeing) that the Scottish Government was doing enough. In contrast, 42% either disagreed or strongly disagreed with this statement.

This highlights something of a chasm between how much of a priority people in Scotland think reducing child poverty should be vs the public’s perception of the Scottish Government’s efforts to do so.

And the belief that reducing child poverty should be a top priority goes across the political spectrum. It shows up most strongly in people who said they voted for either the SNP or Scottish Greens in their constituency in May’s election, with over 90% of those voters agreeing that reducing child poverty should be a top priority. For Scottish Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters it was closer to 80%, and for Reform UK and Scottish Conservative voters it was still around two-thirds of people who agreed that it should be a priority (with less than 20% disagreeing).

The level of support is even more consistent across political groups for agreeing that the Scottish Government should have clear targets and reporting — with no less than 70% of any party grouping agreeing. Highlighting that there may be appetite from the public for the Scottish Parliament to again unanimously support child poverty reduction targets, even if they may have different ideological routes to meeting them.

Linked to that we also asked people to select their top 3 actions that would improve their opinion of the Scottish Government’s efforts to reduce child poverty. People were most likely to choose the following 3 options, with around half of all respondents choosing at least 1 of these:

• reducing the costs of essential goods and services (55%)
• providing more affordable, good-quality social housing (48%)
• providing flexible and affordable childcare for those who need it most (48%).

In essence these findings highlight the current perceived weaknesses in the Scottish Government’s approach. That the public agree that reducing child poverty should be a top priority and that there should be targets, but the Government’s current programme of action is not enough. But crucially, there are things the Scottish Government can and should do to reduce child poverty, and which the public currently support.

Statements of intent are all very well, but it is what we do that counts.

Angela Constance, MSP

It is important, therefore, that the Scottish Parliament retain strong child poverty reduction targets; the existing targets have driven the Scottish Government to take key actions like the Scottish Child Payment, and put themselves under self-imposed pressure to explore other ways of alleviating child poverty in Scotland.

But ultimately, the success or otherwise of targets as a policy tool is as Angela Constance set out in 2017, it’s not what you state, it’s what you do. The Scottish Government have talked of a defining mission of eradicating child poverty and while it is perfectly reasonable to review the targets, that cannot be in place of building on, and significantly accelerating, their efforts thus far.

The Scottish Government’s Tackling child poverty delivery plan 2026-31 sells itself as a framework plan that allows this new administration to build on it. This week the Scottish Government will publish its Programme for Government which will likely simply bring many of the commitments from the SNP’s 2026 manifesto into the work of Government. Hopefully that will make significant commitments that will produce significant reductions in child poverty, but if all it does is repeat those manifesto commitments, it is unlikely to do so.

That is why we think it is important for the Scottish Government to reconsider the existing delivery plan and bring forward a more ambitious programme. This need not wait for the targets review to finish; there are areas that are well-evidenced needs they recognise they could, and should, start work on now. For example:

• We know that childcare, particularly pre-school childcare, targeted at low-income families is needed. The Government needs to show how it will meet this need, and how it will fund it. We think, for example, that the time has come to consider a contributory model for childcare funding.
• Employability support is important, and more consistent and longer-term funding would greatly assist councils and providers to support more parents into work. But as the research of the Fraser of Allander Institute shows, it is also crucial for the Scottish Government to recognise the differences in labour markets across Scotland, and work with councils to provide job opportunities for areas that are struggling, rather than trying to individualise the failures of government policy.
• It is also impossible to ignore the further role that social security can play in eradicating child poverty, particularly for those families furthest from the poverty line. The Scottish Government tentatively started this work for families with babies, but there is much more they could do to target families most at risk of the deepest poverty.

As we say above, this review presents an opportunity for the Scottish Government, and Parliament, to restate its commitment to a significant reduction in child poverty in Scotland — something the public think should be a top priority. But reviewing the targets will not do that alone; the Scottish Government must, and the public expect them to, go further on child poverty reduction. This need not, and cannot, wait for the outcome of the child poverty reduction targets review.