Tackling Child Poverty

Action to tackle deep-rooted inequality and child poverty will be accelerated through £7.4 million of additional investment.

The funding will be made available to local authorities specifically to help disabled parents and enhance the support they get. The funding will also be allocated to the Social Innovation Partnership which invests in alternative approaches to tackling poverty and improving lives.

In addition to the £23.3 million committed in the 2021-22 Scottish Budget, this investment brings the Scottish Government’s Tackling Child Poverty Fund to a cumulative total of £50 million from 2018–2022, helping towards our ambition to eradicate child poverty and to halve the disability employment gap in Scotland.

Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Local Government Aileen Campbell said:

“This increased funding delivers not only on our commitment to invest £50 million through our Tackling Child Poverty Fund, but also to target support to disabled parents to access employment.

“The impacts of COVID have been particularly damaging to disabled people’s employment prospects and it is right that we invest now to enhance the support available.

“Our long-standing Social Innovation Partnership is supporting life-changing and innovative work to tackle child poverty and this increased investment will help to accelerate action.

“We remain firmly committed to eradicating child poverty in Scotland and halving the disability employment gap, and this new investment takes us one step closer to realising these ambitions.”

Background

This £7.4 million is made up of £2.4 million for the Social Innovation Partnership, with an extra £5 million provided through the Parental Employability Support Fund, targeted specifically at supporting disabled parents.

The Social Innovation Partnership (SIP), formed in 2016 and widened in 2018 via the Tackling Child Poverty Fund, is a collaboration between the Scottish Government and The Hunter Foundation (THF).

The Hunter Foundation seeks to invest in solutions, in partnership with others, to eradicating poverty and improving educational attainment. To date THF has invested in excess of £55 million in good causes.