Scottish Attainment Challenge 2022 to 2023 - 2025 to 2026: equality impact assessment

Executive summary

The Scottish Attainment Challenge (SAC) was launched in 2015 to help achieve equity in educational outcomes, and its refreshed mission is to use education to improve outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty, with a focus on tackling the poverty-related attainment gap.

The Scottish Government and Education Scotland jointly deliver this programme. The Scottish Government is responsible for the development and implementation of the policy, allocation and distribution of funding, and evaluating impact nationally. Alongside this Education Scotland provides guidance and support to local authorities and schools via Attainment Advisors (AAs) and Senior Regional Advisors (SRAs) in terms of the implementation of approaches locally, identifying appropriate outcomes and measures, professional learning and sharing good practice. As part of their inspection function, Education Scotland evaluates the quality of learning and teaching in Scottish schools and education services.

Closing the poverty-related attainment gap is a key focus of the Scottish Government and speaks to its wider mission to reduce child poverty.

Social inequalities such as poverty can influence levels of childhood adversity and trauma along with people’s ability to overcome such experiences. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated such inequalities and in some cases, led to an increase in Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and trauma (including abuse, bereavement and domestic abuse). For some children and young people this will impact directly on their ability to learn and thrive at school, in some cases for the first time, and they will need additional help and support to overcome these experiences.

It has long been recognised that stressful events occurring in childhood can impact profoundly on children and young people’s development and outcomes including the capacity to learn, achieve academically and participate fully in school life. Children and young people who have had such experiences can perform poorly in educational terms compared to their peers. For example, young people who have experienced four or more ACEs are twice as likely as their peers to leave school without educational qualifications (Hardcastle et al., 2018) with knock on, detrimental consequences across the course of life.

Education is one of the most effective means we have to improve the life chances of all of our young people. That has not changed. If anything, the disproportionate impact that closing our school buildings due to COVID-19 had on the most disadvantaged in our society has demonstrated even more clearly the vital role that it can play.

The refreshed SAC will not introduce a new policy, but will build on existing policy for the next phase: 2022/2023 – 2025/2026. Evidence of progress over the first 5 years of the SAC and the impact of COVID-19 has informed the next phase of the programme.

The SAC is related to a number of Scottish Government programmes such as Early Learning and Childcare, Tackling Child Poverty and Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC). GIRFEC in particular has established a national practise model to help the development of consistency in practises to support children, young people, and their families' overall welfare and developmental growth. GIRFEC's overall aim is to offer consistent and holistic support that is rights-based, child and family-centred, and early coordinated.

Following a range of consultations and analysis of data, funding will now be distributed to all 32 local authorities using Children in Low Income Families (CILIF) data to distribute in a targeted way. This recognises the impact of the pandemic and poverty on all pupils touching those in urban and rural communities alike.

This policy’s mission is to use education to improve outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty, with a focus on tackling the poverty-related attainment gap. In summary the plans are that with the support of £1 billion over this parliamentary term – increased from £750 million during the last parliament – the refreshed SAC programme, from 2022/23, will include:

• an annual investment of up to £200 million in 2022/2023 to support children and young people impacted by poverty;
• continued empowerment of headteachers through Pupil Equity Funding (PEF) as the primary model for distributing funding to the education system, with funding of approximately £130 million annually to be allocated to 97% of schools;
• continued investment to support Care Experienced Children and Young People (CECYP funding), contributing to keeping the Promise
• the introduction of Strategic Equity Funding (SEF) of over £43 million, which will be distributed annually to every local authority based on Children in Low Income Families Data;
• investment in national programmes to enhance supports across the system, supporting a range of national initiatives such as youth work and mentoring; and
• a broader recognition of children and young people’s achievements and attainment through the refreshed mission.

Funding allocations for PEF and SEF are confirmed on a multi-year basis until the end of the Parliamentary term, giving local authorities and schools certainty to support long term planning.

This document will demonstrate how the programme and wider efforts will continue to provide support for children and young people impacted by poverty through additional funding to local authorities, schools and other key partners, and assess the impacts on groups with protected characteristics. This takes into consideration the accompanying:

• Fairer Scotland Duty Assessment (FSDA)
• Children’s Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment (CRWIA)
• Screening Template of Island Communities Impact Assessment (ICIA)

These documents will be reviewed and updated in line with any material changes to the policy, and any future iterations will reflect our increased understanding of these impacts as the amount of data and research available continues to become available.