Funding to Tackle Child Poverty in Scotland

Grants of up to £100,000 are available to Local Authorities and Health Boards in Scotland for projects to test and evaluate innovative approaches to tackling child poverty. The funding is available through the third round of the Scottish Government’s Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund.

Although the lead applicant must be a Local Authority or Health Board, the lead applicant can nominate a third-sector organisation or statutory body to deliver the project and therefore receive funding.

Projects must focus on innovative approaches to one or more of the three main drivers of child poverty:

• Improving income from employment.
• Supporting people with the cost of living.
• Increasing awareness and uptake of social security benefits.

Proposals should focus on at least one of the following:

• Identifying potential improvements to service design and delivery that could improve the impact of existing activity to tackle child poverty.
• Improving the uptake and engagement of priority families with services.
• Improving the understanding, targeting, monitoring and evaluation of activities impact on tackling child poverty.
• Bringing a greater range of services and sectors to bear on tackling child poverty efforts.

The Fund is intended to support short-term projects (up to 24 months) to generate evidence on a known problem, adapt a promising approach from elsewhere to work in the local area or re-design a service to deliver a greater impact on child poverty.

The Scottish Government is hosting online information sessions on 8 October and 30 October (11:00-11:45). Interested applicants must email TCPU@gov.scot to book a place.