Best Start Grant - interim evaluation: qualitative research (annex B)

1 Introduction

1.1 Background

Since its inception, the Scottish Government has made a clear commitment to eradicating child poverty and over the last 20 years there has been a significant reduction in child poverty rates^[1]. However, since 2013, rates have increased, though not to the level recorded 20 years ago^[2]. A renewed commitment to tackling child poverty was made in the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017. Ambitious statutory targets were set for 2030: less than 10% of children should be living in relative poverty; less than 5% in absolute poverty; less than 5% with combined low income and material deprivation, and less than 5% should be living in persistent poverty three years out of four^[3]. The Act also requires Scottish Ministers to publish delivery plans for tackling child poverty, the most recent of which is the 2018-2022 delivery plan Every Child, Every Chance^[4].

This renewed commitment aims to utilise, where possible, the wider powers devolved to the Scottish Parliament following the 2014 independence referendum, the Smith Commission and, in particular, the range of social security powers devolved via the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018. Consequently, the Scottish Government has been able to introduce several new benefits aimed at tackling child poverty. The Best Start Grant (BSG) is one of these new benefits and forms part of the 2018-2022 delivery plan. In line with the belief that poverty is fundamentally driven by a lack of income, the BSG focuses on early years intervention and aims to provide lower-income families with financial support during the early years of a child’s life. This focus on early years aligns with a considerable range of parallel policies aimed at improving children’s outcomes and reducing inequality in early life such as the Family Nurse Partnership, the extension of the universal Health Visiting pathway, the Baby Box initiative and the expansion of statutory Early Learning and Childcare entitlement.

From December 2018, the BSG replaced and expanded upon the UK Government’s Sure Start Maternity Grant. Unlike the Sure Start maternity benefit, there is no limit to the number of children in a family who can claim BSG. According to the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, it is hoped that the policy will have a small direct impact on material deprivation and possibly also an impact on poverty rates for a number of families.^[5]

1.2 The Best Start Grant

The Best Start Grant is comprised of three possible payments to parents or carers who are in receipt of certain benefits^[6] or are under 18 years old. These three payments are:

• Pregnancy and Baby Payment: a payment of £600 on the birth of a first child and £300 on the birth of any subsequent children
• Early Learning Payment: a payment of £250 for children between 2 and 3.5 years old to support child development
• School Age Payment: a payment of £250 to help with the costs of preparing for school.

The Pregnancy and Baby Payment replaces the Sure Start Maternity Payment but there is no UK equivalent for the Early Learning or School Age Payment. Since eligibility is tied to the receipt of particular benefits, claimants need to make separate applications for each payment and may not qualify for every payment. Applications can be made at any point in the BSG cycle. For instance, the first or only payment could be for the Pregnancy and Baby, Early Learning, or School Age Payment. At the point of application, if an applicant has children who are entitled to different parts of the Best Start Grant, they only have to complete one application in order to claim all the BSG payments that they are entitled to at that time.

Social Security Scotland began taking applications for each of the BSG payments at different dates:

• Pregnancy and Baby Payment: 10 December 2018
• Early Learning Payment: 29 April 2019
• School Age Payment: 3 June 2019.

1.3 This research

The BSG has only been fully operational since June 2019 and whilst initial case study evidence from Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) Scotland’s Early Warning System is providing some insight in to the operation and impact of the BSG^[7], as of yet there has been no objective evaluative assessment of the success of the benefit or the impact the payments have had on recipients. As a result, the Scottish Government commissioned ScotCen Social Research in December 2019 to conduct qualitative research to inform the evaluation, which will provide evidence on the early operation and impact of the BSG as well as to suggest improvements to its future function. It is important to note that Best Start Foods, another new benefit in Scotland, is not part of this current evaluation.