End Child Poverty budget briefing 2024-25

Summary of the briefing

  • 1 in 4 children in Scotland are growing up in poverty. This has to change.
  • Poverty strips away the opportunities for children and young people to learn, grow and develop fully, while robbing them of the happy and thriving childhoods that set them up for a life free from the harms of poverty.
  • But child poverty is not inevitable, it is about political choices. By focusing investment on increasing household incomes, while improving services and opportunities for families in poverty, we can ensure no child suffers the harms of poverty.
  • That is why the End Child Poverty Coalition in Scotland is calling on the Scottish Government to focus the 2024-25 Scottish Budget on driving down child poverty, ensuring it allocates the resources necessary to meet Scotland’s legally binding targets.
  • We welcome the progress made on reducing child poverty rates to date. But with the government’s own modelling suggesting that interim child poverty targets are likely to be missed and the 2030 target fast approaching, further and faster action must be taken.
  • The child poverty targets will not be met unless we start making progress now, and this necessitates significant action in the upcoming Budget.
  • We are calling for the Scottish Government to use the upcoming Budget to:
    • Build on existing investment in the Scottish Child Payment by increasing this to at least £30 in this Budget, as committed to by the First Minister during the SNP leadership election, with a view to reaching £40 by the end of this parliament.
    • Apply a robust test across the entire Scottish Budget: will this meaningfully support Scotland’s child poverty ambitions?
  • Specific investment should include:
    • Bolstering the wider income supports provided to children in low-income households, such as Best Start grants, ensuring – at the very least – they retain their real terms value.
    • Ensuring the Scottish Welfare Fund is adequate and accessible, at a time of rising need – including deepening food insecurity – fuelled by acute income crises.
    • Delivering on the Scottish Government’s commitment to invest in holistic whole-family support.
    • Mitigations for those affected by the punitive Two Child Limit and the Young Parent Penalty via top ups or additional payments for those unfairly affected.
    • Deliver on the commitment to fully roll out Free School Meals to Primary 6 and Primary 7 in the next financial year (not waiting until 2026).
    • Helping parents to increase income from employment, through increasing quality and accessible funded childcare, investing in person-centred employability support, and embedding child poverty focused labour market policies, including fair work. This is particularly important for women, who are more likely to be primary caregivers and account for the majority of single parents.
    • Supporting migrant children, caregivers and providing additional support for priority families.
  • To increase investment in tackling child poverty in 2024-25 and beyond, we urge the Scottish Government to use devolved tax powers progressively and ambitiously to raise additional revenue and incentivise fair work, including via tax reforms, reflecting the First Minister’s recognition that “Scotland is a wealthy country, but that wealth is not distributed evenly”.

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