6th October 2026
Scotland has a child poverty target written into law.
By 2030/31, the proportion of children living in relative poverty after housing costs is supposed to be below 10%.
It was an ambitious target when the Scottish Parliament agreed it in 2017.
The problem is that Scotland is still a long way from reaching it.
The latest figures show relative child poverty at 21%, meaning roughly one in five children is living in poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says the legal target is now set to be missed by a wide margin.
And now the Scottish Government is reviewing the targets themselves.
That raises an obvious question.
Is Scotland reviewing how it measures child poverty because the measurements need improving, or because the existing targets have become increasingly difficult to meet?
The Government says the review is necessary
The Scottish Government announced the review in June.
Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville argued that some policies being introduced by the Government do not show up directly in the existing income-based measures.
For example, childcare provision, school-age childcare, family support and other services can reduce the costs faced by families without necessarily increasing their measured household income.
The Government's argument is therefore that the existing targets may not capture the full effect of what it is doing.
That is a legitimate point.
Measuring poverty is not simple, and a single statistic cannot capture every aspect of a family's financial circumstances.
But there is another side to the argument.
If a family cannot afford enough food, heating, clothing or other essentials, the fact that some services have become cheaper does not make that poverty disappear.
And that is where the Joseph Rowntree Foundation is challenging the Government.
Is this moving the goalposts?
JRF says the existing income-based targets remain a good way of measuring whether children's financial circumstances are actually improving.
It accepts that the measurement system can be improved.
But it warns that the review risks delaying action and, potentially, lowering ambition.
That is an important distinction.
There is nothing wrong with improving the measurement of poverty.
There could be something wrong if changing the measurement makes it easier to claim progress without actually making families substantially better off.
In football, changing the size of the goalposts after the match has started would obviously be controversial.
Poverty policy has a similar problem.
Scotland has already missed the interim targets
The problem is not simply that the 2030 deadline is approaching.
The interim targets have already been missed.
The JRF's latest assessment says that the current Scottish Government plans do not provide the scale of change required to shift the child-poverty rate sufficiently.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies reached a similar conclusion earlier this year, saying that Scotland's 10% target for 2030 looks highly unlikely to be achieved. It also found that Scotland's child-poverty rate, at 21%, is lower than the UK-wide rate of 28%.
So Scotland is doing better than some parts of the UK.
But doing better than elsewhere is not the same thing as achieving the target Scotland set for itself.
What actually reduces poverty?
This is where the debate needs to move beyond statistics.
If a family does not have enough money coming into the household, there are only a limited number of ways to change the situation.
Increase income.
Reduce essential costs.
Or do both.
That can involve employment, wages, childcare, housing costs, transport, social security and other support.
The Scottish Government has already introduced policies intended to help families, including the Scottish Child Payment.
The question is whether the combined effect of those policies is large enough to reduce poverty at the scale originally promised.
The latest figures suggest it has not been large enough.
The danger of endless reviews
There is nothing inherently wrong with a government reviewing a policy.
Indeed, reviewing something that is not working properly can be exactly the right thing to do.
But there is a danger with reviews when the underlying problem is already obvious.
If one in five children remains in poverty, the families affected do not necessarily need a better definition of poverty.
They need more money, lower essential costs, better housing, better employment opportunities and effective services.
And they need them now.
JRF makes much the same point. It says the Scottish Government needs a new, much bolder and properly funded plan to reduce poverty, rather than allowing the review to delay action.
The Scottish Government says the review will not distract from action
To be fair, the Government has specifically said that the review will not distract it from measures such as childcare expansion and other cost-of-living policies.
That commitment should be tested against what happens next.
If the review produces better measurements while action continues and becomes more effective, it could prove useful.
If it produces new measurements, new targets and new deadlines while the number of children living in poverty remains stubbornly high, people will understandably ask whether Scotland has simply found a more comfortable way of describing the problem.
The distinction matters.
What about the £25 a week?
One of the most important Scottish interventions has been the Scottish Child Payment, now worth £27.15 per eligible child per week.
It is a straightforward example of the difference between an intervention that changes the measurement and one that changes a family's finances.
A payment into a family's bank account increases disposable income.
There is no complicated interpretation required.
The family has more money.
That is precisely why income-based poverty measures matter.
They can show whether policies intended to increase family incomes are actually translating into lower poverty.
Local government matters too
The JRF report also makes a point that is particularly relevant to Scotland's current debate about local government.
Councils have significant influence over the conditions that affect poverty, including housing, childcare, transport, employability and economic development.
JRF argues that local government needs a bigger role in poverty reduction, backed by more stable funding and reform of local government finance.
That is particularly important in rural Scotland.
A child growing up in Caithness does not face exactly the same circumstances as a child growing up in Glasgow.
Transport costs can be higher.
Housing choices can be more limited.
Employment opportunities can be fewer.
Childcare can be harder to access.
Distance itself can become a cost.
A national target therefore needs local action behind it.
Perhaps the real target should be action
The Scottish Government's review could eventually produce better ways of measuring poverty.
But it should not become a substitute for reducing poverty.
The existing figure is already stark enough.
21%.
One child in every five.
The question is not really whether Scotland can find a better way of describing that figure.
The question is what it is going to do to bring it down.
The Scottish Government has described eradicating poverty as its defining mission.
That is a substantial commitment.
But missions are ultimately judged by results.
If the target is retained, there needs to be a credible plan showing how Scotland will get from 21% to below 10%.
If the target is changed, there needs to be an equally clear explanation of why, and a guarantee that the new target will be at least as ambitious rather than simply easier to achieve.
Otherwise there is a danger that Scotland spends another few years discussing how poverty should be measured while another generation of children grows up experiencing it.
The review may be necessary. But the families living in poverty cannot afford
Note
The JRF report published today, 5 October 2026, and is the full Poverty in Scotland 2026 report, including the executive summary, child-poverty figures, local-government analysis and recommendations. See https://www.jrf.org.uk/understanding-poverty/poverty-in-scotland-2026