Child poverty cumulative impact assessment: update

1. Summary

This report estimates the impact of Scottish Government policies on relative and absolute child poverty, updating the modelling that was originally undertaken for the second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan. The report additionally estimates the impact of these policies on deep poverty, which provides an indication of how children in the poorest households in society are affected. Finally, the report estimates the impacts of a selection of hypothetical UK Government policies.

The report estimates that:

• Scottish Government policies will keep 100,000 children out of relative poverty and 70,000 children out of absolute poverty in 2024-25, with the respective child poverty rates 10 percentage points and 7 percentage points lower than they would have been without these policies.
• Scottish Government policies will also keep 70,000 children out of deep poverty in 2024-25.
• Removing the two-child limit and reinstating the family element in Universal Credit would lead to a further 10,000 fewer children in Scotland living in relative and absolute poverty in 2024-25, while introducing an Essentials Guarantee would lead to a further 30,000 fewer children living in relative and absolute poverty.

All modelling is subject to a degree of uncertainty, relying on a range of assumptions and simplifications. This uncertainty is highlighted by an update to our input data, which leads to a revision in our projections for reasons that do not necessarily reflect real-world changes in policy or the wider economy. The results presented in this report, particularly projections of outturn poverty rates, should therefore be treated with caution.