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

Gypsy/traveller accommodation fund

To deliver more and better Gypsy/Traveller accommodation and improve living conditions for Gypsy/Travellers. Gypsy/Travellers have poorer outcomes than settled people across health, education, life expectancy etc. Child poverty is a subsidiary objective and not an explicit outcome for the Fund.

• Costs of living

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

Potential size of impact

There are 397 publicly provided Gypsy/Traveller pitches across 29 sites in Scotland. Projects funded in the first round are planned to improve standards on 76 pitches in 3 local authorities.

Type of impact

Indirect by improving living conditions which in turn are intended to lower costs of living and allow access to other support services/employment.

Certainty of impact

The Site Design Guide represents a very significant improvement in the quality of accommodation by comparison with current minimum standards for sites and responds to needs identified by residents. It is therefore very likely to improve quality of life for residents, though direct impact on child poverty is unclear.

Priority families targeted by policy:

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

All Gypsy/Travellers families on public sector sites will benefit, however, not all will have children. The policy is particularly likely to reach families with three or more children, lone parent families, minority ethnic families and families with a disabled person.

Tracking progress

This is a new policy. We are in the process of developing an evaluation. The first stage will be to develop a theory of change, linking to outcomes for residents including child poverty.