Tackling child poverty - place-based, system change initiatives: learnings

1. Introduction

There are a wide range of complex and interconnected factors that influence levels of child poverty – as shown in this child poverty system map. Moreover, evidence on what works to tackle child poverty has highlighted that policies or initiatives that focus on a single barrier or challenge are unlikely to lead to sustainable change. Instead, a combination of policies targeted at different barriers, working effectively together, is likely to help reduce child poverty.

Evidence also suggests that supporting families living in poverty in a holistic and joined up way can be instrumental in helping to tackle child poverty.^[2] Families can find the system of support relating to child poverty difficult to navigate, with many individuals unaware of, or unsure on how to access, appropriate support. Further, policies and initiatives, at local and national levels, are often disjointed with a need for greater alignment between and across support systems for families.

In the second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan published in March 2022, Best Start, Bright Futures (BSBF), a range of policies were introduced that were more attuned to this complex and interconnected range of factors affecting child poverty. It committed to:

• ensuring that systems work for the people who need them and that the range of support that people need to move out of poverty is joined up;
• partnership working - with Scottish Government and Local Government working together with partners from across the public, third and private sectors;
• a place-based approach, with the design and delivery of services based in the distinctive needs of communities; and
• holistic and person-centred support, that wraps around the needs of the individual or family.

For example, this could mean employability, childcare and transport service providers working together in order to provide support that better meets the needs of families seeking employment. BSBF also outlined the need for us to better understand how well the current ‘child poverty support system’ is working for families and how it can be improved.

Given the range of place-based, systems change policies outlined in the Plan, there is a need to draw together learning and insight from across the separate initiatives in order to provide evidence and learning to inform local delivery approaches, transferability to other local areas, and lessons for national policy. System change initiatives are those which focus on making ‘structural and procedural changes to the organisations which support families, which in turn are intended to improve the services provided to families. This can include (but is not limited to) changes in:

• The types of services available
• The ways in which families are contacted and brought into the system
• The extent to which the right families are reached
• Methods of identifying and targeting families that need support
• The complexity and length of families’ journey through the system.’^[3]

This report is the first stage in our system change evaluation approach^[4] and seeks to collate and synthesise early evidence and learning from across the range of initiatives focused on place-based, system change to tackle child poverty. Chapter Two of the report sets out the initiatives which are in scope for this work.^[5] This is a first, baseline report, highlighting preliminary learning during a period in which many of the policies and initiatives in scope were in the early stages of design, development or implementation. As the initiatives are refined and further developed, and their individual evaluations progress further, these findings will be reviewed to ensure they are still relevant and that ongoing learning and evidence is captured.

Approach

The analysis in this report aims to collate key developments and findings relating to selected place-based, system change policies focused on child poverty reduction. The objectives for the system change evaluation are set out below and this report provides a first step in answering these questions.^[6]

1. To identify and understand the range of approaches taken to system change and person-centred support in local child poverty systems through the initiatives committed to in Best Start, Bright Futures (as well as other relevant Scottish Government initiatives).

2. To provide an understanding of issues experienced in the implementation of system change initiatives and distil key lessons which can be applied to other areas and to wider policy development.

3. To understand how initiatives have impacted on system change and what the impacts have been for delivery organisations, individuals or families accessing services and wider partners and stakeholders.

4. To understand which types of system change approach are effective, for whom, and in what contexts.

5. To assess the extent to which the approaches examined can (and, where measured, do) contribute towards child poverty reduction and the mechanisms by which this may occur.

The analysis in this report is based on:

• Published evaluation evidence on place-based, system change initiatives from policy and analytical teams in Scottish Government, structured around key research questions.
• Interviews with relevant Scottish Government policy and analytical colleagues.[7] In total, 13 interviews were completed, comprising multiple individuals from across 10 policy initiatives.

Report outline

In Chapter Two the report provides an overview of system change initiatives in the child poverty space, outlining the eight initiatives which are drawn on in the analysis, and setting out the approaches to place-based, system change across these initiatives.

Chapter Three considers the implementation of system change initiatives to date, exploring successes and enablers and barriers and challenges to implementation.

Chapter Four sets out emerging learning on the impacts of system change initiatives on key stakeholder groups, including: individuals or families accessing services, service providers and policy stakeholders.

Chapter Five considers how to assess the effectiveness of place-based and systems change initiatives, exploring experiences of monitoring and evaluation, as well as the scalability and replicability of system change initiatives.

Finally, in Chapter Six, preliminary conclusions are offered from the work so far, summarising the key themes and learning from the report findings, and next steps for the work are outlined.