Do we know how much the Scottish Government has spent on tackling child poverty?

27th June 2025

An attempt to uncover outturn expenditure on measures in the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery plans by Fraser of Allender Institute.

Tackling Child Poverty is cited as the number one priority of the Scottish Government, and a set of statutory targets and related delivery plans should be leading to dramatic falls in child poverty.

However, progress has not been as fast as hoped, with the interim targets set for 2023/24 not met. As we look ahead to the next, and final, child poverty delivery plan due before the end of March 2026, understanding efforts to date on child poverty is crucial to know what has worked, what hasn't, and most importantly, why. The level of fiscal resource allocated towards actions to tackle poverty is a key part of building this understanding.

This analysis attempts to piece together outturn expenditure on actions that have been taken forward to date on tackling child poverty. This builds on and improves the current process of tracking spend in annual progress reports by verifying that the spend has actually taken place and attempts to match spend to all actions that should be impacting on the drivers of child poverty.

Our analysis covers the period 2018/19 to 2023/24. The data included latest Scottish Government progress report published in June 2025 covers 2024/25 and was published too late to include in this analysis, and indeed too early for outturn data for 2024/25 to be fully available. However, we have reviewed the 2024/25 progress report and are content that our discussion and recommendations remain applicable.

This analysis is a collaboration between the Fraser of Allander Institute and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

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