Scottish Government spend on The Promise: FOI release

Information requested

Please provide the total amount that the Scottish Government has spent to date on the Promise, broken down into a table to reflect each financial year after the Scottish Government committed to it.

Response

Over four years ago the Independent Care Review concluded, and The Promise was published. Developed following direct engagement of over 5000 care experienced people and members of the workforce, this set the direction for what needs to change to improve lives.

In February 2020 the Scottish Government and parties across the Scottish Parliament signed up to all the actions set out within it.

To keep The Promise requires a whole systems approach to connect the different strands of policy work, new and ongoing commitments and financial programmes across Government that can impact on the lives of care experienced children, young people and their families.

In March 2022 we published our Scottish Government Promise Implementation Plan, setting out the actions we are taking across Directorates to keep The Promise by 2030. In September this year we published an update to the Plan - Keeping The Promise to our children, young people and families: progress update 2024 which summarises the work that has been underway since March 2022. This captures work across 26 Directorates of Scottish Government and activities which are both universal and targeted in nature. All of which make a contribution to Scotland’s work to keep The Promise. Given the wide scope of activity which is taking place across the Scottish Government and local government to keep The Promise it would not be possible to provide a total figure for all of that work.

The table below covers spend on Promise-related activity from within the Directorate for Children and Families who hold lead responsibility for The Promise - including where budgets have now been baselined within the Local Government Settlement. These figures include spend in relation to the funding of The Promise Scotland, the Promise Partnership Fund, Whole Family Wellbeing Funding, Scottish Recommended Allowance for Foster and Kinship Carers and other Promise related spend managed within the Directorate.

Expenditure	2020-21 (£m)	2021-22 (£m)	2022-23 (£m)	2023-24 (£m)	2024-25 YTD (£m)	TOTAL (£m)
	10.54	23.78	47.15	81.92	71.94	235.32

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