Tackling child poverty delivery plan 2022-2026 - annex 5: impact of policies on child poverty

Scottish Child Payment

To tackle child poverty by providing direct financial support to families with eligible children.

• Income from social security and benefits in kind

Enhanced life chances (e.g. health, wellbeing, capabilities, longer term goals)

Potential size of impact

SCP is available to all who are eligible (through a qualifying benefit). It is forecast that over 300,000 children will receive payments for each of the next five years.

Type of impact

Increasing income through benefits aims to directly reduce rates of child poverty.

Certainty of impact

As all of the people benefiting from Scottish Child Payment live in households in receipt of low income benefits, the policy is considered to be well targeted at families in poverty or at risk of poverty. Internal modelling estimates that a £25 Scottish Child Payment could reduce the relative child poverty rate (after housing costs) by 5 percentage points in 2023/24

Priority families targeted by policy:

• Lone parents
• 3+ children
• Disabled
• Minority ethnic
• Baby < 1
• Mothers aged <25

All households with children with a parent or carer on a qualifying benefit can apply for SCP. There is no cap on the number of eligible children. The application process has been designed to reflect the needs of the priority groups. For example, offering a streamlined application process with other benefits (best start) is more convenient for households with a child under 1, and providing a range of accessible formats and languages increases uptake.

Tracking progress

Social Security Scotland publishes quarterly statistics on applications and payments for Scottish Child Payment. An interim evaluation gathered information on the immediate impacts on wellbeing and financial stability. Findings will be shared later this year (2022). Further evaluation will be carried out after full roll-out of the payment.