Whole Family Wellbeing Funding Programme - EQIA

Background

The £500m Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF) Programme is transformative, transition funding intended to support the local building of universal and holistic family support services and approaches across communities in Scotland. Our ambition is that preventative, needs-based support should be available for all families – when they need it, where they need it and for as long as they need it.

The purpose of this EQIA is to review the progress being made with the WFWF Programme (the Programme) from its initiation to present time. The Programme was due to end in 2025-26, however, we have listened and learned from the first year and a half of the Programme and have a clearer sense of how to further enable the conditions for change.

The Scottish Government does not intend to prescribe a new end point for the programme at this time. We want to ensure our decisions continue to be evidence based, responsive to learning, and take account of what local areas need by way of support. It is also recognised that elongating the Programme will take it beyond the current parliamentary term. We cannot bind future administrations to Programme decisions beyond the Budget which the current Parliament will approve for 2026-27. However, we can make evidence-based recommendations about where the Programme should best be deployed and at what level. This EQIA will be updated as the Programme evolves, in line with the WFWF Investment Approach.

The Programme's aims are:

• improved family wellbeing, in line with the Children, Young People and Families Outcomes Framework: Core Wellbeing Indicators – National Reporting
• reduced inequalities in family wellbeing between those from the most and least disadvantaged communities
• reduction in families requiring crisis intervention through a shift in investment towards prevention and early intervention
• reduction in the number of children and young people living away from their families, by strengthening and supporting families to stay together where children are safe and feel loved
• increase in families taking up wider supports, such as employability support, contributing to a reduction in children living in poverty or entering poverty across the six priority family types as identified in the first Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan Every child, every chance: tackling child poverty delivery plan 2018-2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) and in the second publication Best Start, Bright Futures: Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2022-2026 (www.gov.scot)

To achieve these aims we need:

• to support children and families, regardless of where their need arises, and to wrap that support around the needs of the whole family, delivered in line with the WFWF Routemap and National Principles of Holistic Whole Family Support
• whole system change, to ensure that support services are experienced as seamless to those who use them
• a multi-agency and multi-disciplinary approach drawing in support across adult and children’s services, including employability, mental health, alcohol and drugs misuse, and education

Following engagement with stakeholders, including The Promise Scotland, third sector, health and local government, the Programme was split into 3 distinct Elements:

• Element 1 – providing direct support to Children’s Services Planning Partnerships (CSPPs): with funding allocated across all 30 CSPPs to build local service capacity and transform family support services. Each CSPP is responsible for collectively deciding how to spend this allocation in line with our WFWF Routemap and National Principles of Holistic Whole Family Support
• Element 2 – national support for local delivery: a package of activity aimed at supporting local transformation, including collaborative partnerships with three CSPPs; a Learning into Action Network to share learning, facilitate peer support and collaborate; a Knowledge Hub; as well as the commissioned evaluation, research and learning partner work for WFWF
• Element 3 – taking a cross Scottish Government (SG) approach to system change: including funding approved for 12 projects led by wider SG policy teams which will progress the aims of the WFWF

The Programme has been designed to ensure that children, young people and families will be directly positively affected, as this Programme will begin the transformative whole system change in support available to improve their outcomes, health and wellbeing, and life chances.

The Programme aims to positively affect any child or young person and their families, irrespective of sex, disability, sexuality, race, religion or belief. Our vision is to provide access to the help they need, where and when they need it, and for as long as they need, free from stigma, in line with Covid-19 Children and Families Collective Leadership Group Holistic Family Support: Vision and Blueprint for Change (www.gov.scot). The Programme takes a holistic view of the term family – adoptive, biological, foster, kinship, extended, composite and others i.e. settings and homes that have felt like family and that some children and young people may belong to more than one family.