Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government’s latest annual progress report on child poverty , published on 13 June 2023, sets out progress toward the meeting the child poverty targets and in implementing the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, ‘Best Start, Bright Futures’.

Modelling published alongside this year’s progress report estimates that 90,000 fewer children will live in relative and absolute poverty in 2023-24 as a result of Scottish Government policies, with poverty levels 9% points lower that they would have otherwise been. This includes lifting an estimated 50,000 children out of relative poverty through our Scottish Child Payment. However, we will not know if the interim child poverty targets have been met until March 2025.

Our approach to tackling child poverty is in stark contrast to that of the UK Government. Scottish Government analysis, published in April 2022, estimated that reversing key UK Government welfare changes that have taken place just since 2015 could lift an estimated 70,000 people out of poverty in Scotland, including 30,000 children, and put £780 million in the pockets of Scottish households this year.

As official statistics on rates of relative poverty in Scotland come from the Family Resources Survey which is run by the Department for Work and Pensions, which is a sample survey. This therefore this does not allow a breakdown to be produced below the national figure for Scotland.

Progress is being made. At a national level the poverty-related attainment gap remains narrower than it was pre-pandemic for National 5s, Highers and Advanced Highers. We’ve seen good progress in primary school literacy and numeracy, with the latest data showing the biggest reduction in the gap on record and a record low gap in positive destinations for school leavers 9 months after leaving school.

The Scottish Government gathers a range of data via the National Improvement Framework, which includes 11 key measures of particular relevance to the attainment gap in both the Broad General Education and Senior Phase – with two new key measures added on School Attendance and Initial Positive Destinations. A detailed breakdown of attainment and the poverty-related attainment gap can be found on the Scottish Government website - Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence levels: 2021/22 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) and Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations, No. 5: 2023 Edition - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

At a local level, the publication of the Scottish Attainment Challenge: Framework for Recovery and Accelerating Progress includes a requirement for all local authorities to set locally identified stretch aims for progress in raising attainment and closing the poverty related attainment gap. The national aggregation of all 32 local authority 2022/23 stretch aims for progress closing the gap is available to access here:- Scottish Attainment Challenge - local stretch aims: 2022 to 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . Collectively, the core stretch aims set by local authorities showed a great deal of ambition for both recovery and accelerating progress. Further, we have now received all local authorities’ stretch aims for progress for 2025-26 and are reviewing these ahead of publication later in the year.

Local Authorities and schools in Mid Scotland and Fife are able to access ongoing advice and guidance from Education Scotland's Attainment Advisor team who help to share best practice and provide guidance on effective planning, implementation and evaluation of interventions helping to maximise improved outcomes for children and young people in schools and local authorities.

The response to question S6W-21286, answered on 13 September 2023, notes that as a result of the devolved settlement and the Scottish Government’s powers, along with the interaction with reserved tax and benefits, it is not possible to deliver the Parental Transition Fund as originally envisaged.

As set out in the Medium-Term Financial Strategy, the current financial situation facing the Scottish Government is amongst the most challenging since devolution. Tough and decisive action must be taken to ensure the sustainability of public finance, whilst also strengthening the immediate support available for households impacted by the cost of living crisis. On this basis, the £5 million made available for the Parental Transition Fund in 2023-24 has been reallocated to help meet the previously announced increased investment in the Fuel Insecurity Fund to address the need for immediate help with fuel costs and to support the Scottish Government’s path to balance.

I refer the Member to the answer to question S6W-21286 on 13 September 2023. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

In the Programme for Government, we committed to developing the local infrastructure and services needed to provide childcare to families with children from the age of nine months to the end of primary school in ‘early adopter communities’ in six local authority areas.

We are already delivering innovative school age childcare services to priority families through our early adopter work in four local authorities – Glasgow, Clackmannanshire, Dundee and Inverclyde . Over the next year we will expand delivery in those existing areas and add two additional areas – Fife and Shetland. We will also broaden the scope of the early adopter communities – to test innovative models of delivery to provide childcare for families with children from the age of nine months to the end of primary school. This builds on what we have already learned from the early delivery of funded school age childcare for priority families.

The investment announced will enable us to begin to create and test, for the first time, what an all-age childcare system will look like for Scotland. We are taking a person-centred and place-based approach to designing this system – that means involving children, parents and providers in co-designing services to meet their needs.

In the Programme for Government 2023-24 we committed to developing the local infrastructure and services needed to provide childcare to families with children from the age of nine months to the end of primary school in ‘early adopter communities’ in six local authority areas.
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We are already funding four early adopter communities - in Glasgow, Clackmannanshire, Dundee and Inverclyde - and have added two new early adopter communities in Fife and Shetland as noted in the Programme for Government.

In the Programme for Government we committed to begin work to phase in an expanded national offer for more families with two-year-olds, focusing on those who will benefit most. We already offer 1140 hours of high quality, funded early learning and childcare to around a quarter of families with two year olds who experience the most disadvantage.

We now have the highest number of two year olds ever accessing the existing funded 1140 offer and following years of work with the UK Government we now have new data sharing agreements in place which mean that, for the first time, local authorities are able to access much better information to allow them to identify and contact eligible families.

We will continue to work closely with local authorities and providers to maximise uptake of the existing offer as we develop plans to phase in the expansion.

Over the next year we will also work with local authorities and our partners in the sector to develop plans to expand access to around 40% of families in Scotland over time.

Further detail, including on the additional investment required to deliver the childcare expansion over this Parliament, will be set out at the Scottish Budget for 2024-25 later this year.

Insights gathered to date indicate that families find it difficult to navigate the childcare system. In response we have been considering what a digital service to simplify that process might look like.

Latest Official Statistics covering the 2021-22 academic year show that there were 170 full-time first degree entrants aged 18 and under from the 20% most deprived areas in Scotland entering university from the Mid Scotland and Fife region. This number rises to 415 if you look at all aged entrants.