Tackling child poverty delivery plan 2018-2022: annex 4

CRWIA Stage 5

Recommendations, Monitoring and Review - key points

1. Record your overall conclusions from the CRWIA

The TCPDP is intended to reduce poverty and inequality for children across Scotland, and secure their socio-economic rights in particular. It pays particular focus to those with protected characteristics and to those families at higher risk of poverty and disadvantage.

Poverty negatively impacts on the life chances of children and young people and can negatively impact on outcomes in later life.

Poverty levels vary greatly across Scotland, with certain groups at a higher risk of poverty. A concerted effort must be made to assist these groups to move out of poverty. Therefore, the Delivery Plan requires to have both a geographical focus and a focus on priority families.

Efforts to tackle poverty and inequality, where they are targeted or where they are applied more generally, will have positive impacts on children and young people.

Key Issues Through Consultation with Children and Young People

The main recommendations made by children and young people, through consultation facilitated by the Children’s Parliament, Young Scot and the Prince’s Trust focussed around the themes identified by the Poverty and Inequality Commission. They also specifically noted that they wish for continued engagement, and for ideas to be listened to and taken into consideration.

The themes and key actions are noted below;

Increasing Incomes and Reducing Costs

• The cost of the school day, including trips, uniform costs and travel
• The cost of heating and electricity for low income families
• The cost of travel for families; both to school and for recreation

Work and Earnings

• Apprenticeships should be better paid and more accessible
• Removal of zero hour contracts
• Create flexible working for parents
• Increase the minimum wage for 16 year olds
• More support for people with learning conditions to be offered by employers
• More support to start a business

Social Security

• Put more money towards benefits

Housing

• •Build more social housing
• •Provide shelters for people without homes

Improving Quality of Life and Helping Families Mitigate The Impacts of Poverty

• Help young people and families with activity expenses
• Better access to mental health support for people in deprived areas
• Provide money management skills in school
• Provide greater support for those who do not have food
• Ensure children have access to a computer and the internet
• Schools to focus on a range of career pathways, provide larger library stocks, and to provide preloaded ‘food cards’ for children to pay for lunches
• Provide greater support to communities affected by poverty

2. Recommendations

Robust monitoring should be undertaken to ensure that reductions in child poverty levels across Scotland are evenly distributed amongst those groups at greater risk of poverty.

The Delivery Plan should consider both geographical requirements and the requirements of high-risk groups. Policies should be developed to be inclusive and ensure that groups over-represented in poverty are lifted out.

Delivery Plan actions developed should pay cognisance to the issues raised in consultation and seek to address them, or where action cannot be taken immediately, pledges made to consider them further.

3. How will the policy/measure be monitored? Date and agreed process for monitoring and review

On publication the Delivery Plan will be presented to Parliament for scrutiny, accompanied by a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities.

Scottish Ministers must set out in the delivery plan the changes, if any, they have made in the delivery plan as a result of any recommendations made by the Poverty and Inequality Commission. The Poverty and Inequality Commission have also published their advice provided to Ministers.

Annual Progress Reports will presented to Parliament for scrutiny and published by Scottish Ministers, these reports must outline progress towards meeting the targets and in implementing the relevant delivery plan. Where the measures taken have not delivered sufficient progress towards meeting the targets, the progress report must describe how Scottish Ministers propose to ensure sufficient progress is delivered in future.

A final report and report on the interim targets will also be published in the reporting year following the target date. These must set out, if the targets have not been met, why each has not been met.

A refreshed Child Poverty Measurement Framework will also be updated and published alongside the Delivery Plan. This provides a richer set of measures and will be reported on annually, outlining clearly where performance has improved or worsened.

4. Date and agreed process for Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Evaluation

Annual reporting forms a key component of the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act, through this, annual reports on progress towards the 2030 targets must be published by Ministers.

The first annual report will be published in 2019, within 3 months of the end of the annual reporting year.

Interim and Final reports must also be published in financial years beginning 1 April 2024 and 1 April 2030 respectively.