For almost a decade, the Scottish Government has made eradicating child poverty one of its flagship missions, combining legally binding targets, successive cross-government delivery plans, and high-profile interventions such as the Scottish Child Payment and ‘baby box’. These policies have been consistently framed both as flagship domestic reforms and as a point of contrast with UK Government welfare policy – a significant source of pride for the Scottish Government.

But although new statistics show Scottish Government policies are reducing child poverty, the scale of progress required to meet legally-binding 2030 targets demands a step-change in ambition. The next Parliament will have its work cut out for it to deliver what the First Minister has described as the Scottish Government's ‘foremost priority’ – particularly during a period of significant fiscal pressure. As Scotland approaches the May election, the key question is whether political parties are willing to move beyond rhetoric and deliver the scale of change needed to meet the 2030 targets.

The Scottish Government’s longstanding ambition to reduce poverty was formalised in the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017, which set legally binding targets across four measures of poverty.

The latest official statistics, published last month, show Scottish Government policies have started to move the dial on child poverty. Relative child poverty in Scotland was 21% in 2022-25, meaning 210,000 children were in households with incomes below the poverty line. While this remains above the 2023-24 interim child poverty targets, it represents a reduction of 30,000 children and three percentage points compared to the 2020-23 period.

The statistics also show that policies are not just lifting a few families above the poverty line, but actually increasing income across the bottom end of the income distribution. We know this because the percentage of children in absolute poverty also fell by three percentage points over the same time period. 

The reduction of relative and absolute poverty is a genuine achievement. Although there is some uncertainty around the central estimates, the new statistics suggest that Scottish child poverty rates have decreased faster than the equivalent UK-wide figures. While relative child poverty after housing costs was already three percentage points lower in Scotland than the UK, aided by lower housing costs for low income households in Scotland, the gap has widened to six percentage points since 2023 (21% in Scotland against 28% in the UK). Put simply, if Scotland’s child poverty rate were in line with the UK’s, around 65,000 more children would be living in relative poverty today. Scotland now also has a lower relative child poverty rate before housing costs (19% in Scotland against 20% in the UK).

The differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK can therefore be linked to Scotland’s distinct ‘social contract’ – a suite of policies that diverge from the rest of the UK to provide a stronger social safety net. This includes greater provision of social housing, the mitigation of UK welfare cuts, and new devolved welfare policies such as the Scottish Child Payment. By providing more affordable housing and boosting incomes for low-income families, Scotland’s distinct approach has lifted children out of poverty while progress has stalled across the UK.  

Looking ahead, the Scottish Government estimates their package of targeted policies will keep 100,000 children out of relative poverty in 2026/27, with half of this resulting from the Scottish Child Payment alone. 

While this marks a clear policy success and is welcome, there is a long road ahead. Persistent child poverty (the proportion of children in poverty in three out of the last four years) has increased to 17% in the last year, and has shown no improvement in the past decade. Despite recent progress, child poverty rates across all four measures remain unacceptably high. Moreover, the gains made must be viewed in the context of the statutory targets and the wider ambitions set out in legislation.

The Scottish Government's own analysis published this month shows it does not expect to meet the final legally binding 2030-31 targets with its current suite of policies. To meet the final relative poverty target of less than 10% of children in relative poverty by 2030-31, relative child poverty will need to fall by 11 percent, moving an additional 110,000 children out of relative poverty within the next Parliament. 

To put this challenge into perspective, the fastest parliamentary-term reduction in child poverty Scotland has experienced since the 1990s was around six percentage points, during the 2001-2005 UK Parliament. With devolution still being nascent in the 2000s, the policy direction in Scotland was mostly set by reserved UK decisions. That period benefited from a UK Government that had made child poverty reduction its defining domestic priority, scaling up and building on reforms to social security, national minimum wage, and family support infrastructure – all of which had been set in motion by the previous Labour government. This poses significant challenges for the next Scottish Parliament. 

 

The question for the next Parliament is not whether the ambition is right, but whether it will be matched by policy and funding. The former may be easier than the latter – there is no shortage of ideas. Organisations across Scotland’s policy landscape like the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), IPPR Scotland, and the Fraser of Allander Institute have mapped out the type of policy packages that would be needed to meet the targets. This will require action across all drivers of poverty – earnings from work, earnings from social security, the cost of living, and wider support to help families thrive. 

The Scottish Child Payment remains the single most powerful lever available, and should be further increased. But on its own it will not be enough – especially with most children in poverty now living in working households. Helping parents access better-paid, more secure jobs, alongside effective employability support, will be key. This can be further bolstered by  raising pay and conditions in the industries where most parents in poverty work, like care and hospitality. 

Just as important is how services are delivered. Over the past Parliament, there has been real progress in testing more joined-up, person-centred approaches through pilots and Public Sector Reform initiatives. The challenge now is scaling that up. When families can access integrated services that address problems before they reach crisis point – and when those services are properly joined up, so support with housing can evolve into employability advice – outcomes for the most vulnerable households improve. In England, evidence from evaluations of Sure Start and more recently the Supporting Families programme have shown the public sector saves long-term by investing in this way as it reduces long-term use of services and increases tax raised. If the next Parliament is serious about meeting its targets, this kind of shift from ambition to delivery will be essential.

The funding challenge is even more acute, as the next Parliament must meet child poverty targets within an increasingly difficult fiscal context. Various reports in recent weeks have warned of the fiscal pressures ahead, with rising demand for health, care and welfare services placing severe pressure on devolved budgets. In light of these challenges, the Scottish Government’s current fiscal strategy involves reprioritising public spending and making use of ‘efficiency savings’. But meeting child poverty targets while sustaining investment in wider public services cannot be achieved through reprioritisation alone. As we showed in our recent report, Funding Scotland’s Future, matching policy ambition with equally ambitious tax reform is a necessity – not an option. If the state is to sustain the services we all rely on, let alone significantly ramp up progress on eradicating child poverty, taxes will have to rise. If they don’t, then spending cuts and a return to austerity are an inevitability, which will impact the poorest households the most.

To meet its statutory targets, the next Scottish Parliament faces a task that dwarfs anything seen since devolution: almost twice the child poverty reduction of the most successful parliament since the 1990s. And this will have to be achieved within an increasingly challenging economic and fiscal context. Given this, the 2030 targets are likely to be out of reach without significant changes to policy and funding. But the importance of this goal transcends the legal obligation. The long-term health and economic scarring effects of growing up in poverty are well established. Success in poverty reduction would be transformative for Scotland’s economy, setting the foundation for a more inclusive and prosperous society in the decades ahead. 

This should not be a partisan issue – the Scottish Parliament voted unanimously in favour of Scotland’s statutory child poverty targets. As such, ahead of the election, all parties must set out how they intend to meaningfully shift the dial on child poverty, by outlining ambitious, credible, and funded plans.