With the starting gun fired on the 2026 Holyrood election, the public deserve an honest conversation about governing Scotland.
Party manifestos will be soon be released - which begs the question: What makes a good Holyrood election manifesto in 2026? Here are 5 tests:
www.ippr.org/articles/wha...
But the scale of Scotland's child poverty policies are far from enough to eradicate child poverty. Getting there will require us to recognise child poverty as a structural issue in an unequal society, not a phenomenon restricted to individual families. More here: www.ippr.org/articles/wha...
This is not to say there aren't reasons to think child poverty policies are not having an impact. Other ways of interrogating the data, particularly modelling counterfactuals, consistently point to the Scottish Child Payment playing a significant role, cutting the child poverty rate by 4-5 points.
What does all this mean? The combination of the methodology change, single-year noise and the pandemic mean the headline stats are not hugely reliable for understanding how child poverty is changing in Scotland.
The next average "2021-24" averages the same two data points plus the very low single-year estimate for 2023/24. Arguably, given the 2023/24 figure looks noisily low, the apparent drop between 2020-23 and 2021-24 is at least in part a reflection of this noise
Data from 2020/21 is relatively low quality as the survey was hugely disrupted by the pandemic. This has been dealt with in past child poverty stats by omitting that year from averages. So "2020-23" is actually the average of estimates for just two years, 2021/22 and 2022/23.
Single-year figures are not helpful, and instead we should look to longer-time frames and in particular the trend. In the chart above I've followed SG statisticians' averaging approach, but here too there are complications that can mislead.
However, single year estimates for Scotland are unreliable, and the ONS advises taking three-year averages. This plot shows how volatile the single-year estimates are - child poverty fell 11 points in 2023/24 and then rose 5 in 2024/25. At this resolution statistical noise is crowding out the signal
For child poverty in Scotland, the single-year estimate for 2023-24 has seen the biggest change.
Old method: 22%
New method: 16%
2023-24 was SG's interim target year, with child poverty supposed to be below 18%. Changing method is the difference between meeting and missing the target.
The fixes don't just affect the latest statistics, but actually change our picture of poverty rates in the past (from 2021-22 onwards).
Today's stats include some fixes to these issues. The DWP has been able to link survey respondents to admin data on their benefits, improving accuracy in benefit reporting. But they haven't yet implemented fixes to correct under-counting - those will come in later releases.
The child poverty stats are derived from survey data. There have been long-running issues with the representation of benefits income in this data - both people under-reporting their benefits and the survey under-sampling benefit recipients.
www.gov.uk/government/p...
The headline child poverty rate (21% average across financial years 2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25) does not bode well for Scottish government to hit its 2030 target (10%).
But with changes to the methodology behind the stats there is noise in the data that we should avoid over-interpreting.
The next average "2021-24" averages the same two data points plus the very low single-year estimate for 2023/24. Arguably, given the 2023/24 figure looks noisily low, the apparent drop between 2020-23 and 2021-24 is at least in part a reflection of this noise.
Data from 2020/21 is relatively low quality as the survey was hugely disrupted by the pandemic. This has been dealt with in past child poverty stats by omitting that year from averages. So "2020-23" is actually the average of estimates for just two years, 2021/22 and 2022/23.
Single-year figures are not helpful, and instead we should look to longer-time frames and in particular the trend.
In the chart above I've followed SG statisticians' averaging approach, but here too there are complications that can mislead.
The fixes don't just affect the latest statistics, but actually change our picture of poverty rates in the past (from 2021-22 onwards).
Today's stats include some fixes to these issues. The DWP has been able to link survey respondents to admin data on their benefits, improving accuracy in benefit reporting.
But they haven't yet implemented fixes to correct under-counting - those will come in later releases.
The child poverty stats are derived from survey data. There have been long-running issues with the representation of benefits income in this data - both people under-reporting their benefits and the survey under-sampling benefit recipients.
www.gov.uk/government/p...
With Scotland going into a major election, parties pledging to tackle child poverty must be clear that the issue is a structural feature of an unequal society.
We respond to today's child poverty stats⤵️
www.ippr.org/media-office...
New child poverty stats are due tomorrow, but Scotland is already projected to miss its 2030 target by a wide margin. In this blog, @davehawkey.bsky.social looks at why progress has stalled and why reducing child poverty requires a more equal distribution of income⤵️
www.ippr.org/articles/wha...
For months, we have been digging into a big myth — that strong social protection holds back economic growth.🔍
Spoiler: it doesn’t.💪
We launch our findings tomorrow in our report 'More than a Safety Net'. Stay tuned.🚀
For now, hear it from @stephenboydippr.bsky.social ⤵️
📢 Starting today, we will publish a series of blogs as part of our project on Employment, Productivity and Reform in the Scottish Public Sector.
First up, this blog by @davehawkey.bsky.social looking at teacher pay per pupil in Scotland in an international context. ⤵️
www.ippr.org/articles/app...
Our response to the Budget made the airwaves📻
@bbc5live.bsky.social led with our take on the Budget as “tepid” in conversation with Scotland’s Public Finance Minister Ivan McKee.
🎧👇
Scotland’s Budget raises ambition — but ducks the hard fiscal choices⚠️
👶Eradicating child poverty isn’t cheap.
🌡️Climate action needs additional spend.
🏫Public services can’t improve on real-terms cuts.
Read more in @stephenboydippr.bsky.social's blog here ⤵️
www.ippr.org/articles/pol...
*100 years. Still too late.
Some early thoughts on the Scottish budget:
Yet again, short-term politically driven tax changes with minimal real impact are prioritised over the development of a serious, long-term strategy to achieve the revenues necessary to deliver on the FM’s 4 key priorities. This can’t go on. 1/
We need a meaningful strategy to get our homes and other buildings ready for a future without fossil fuels.
www.ippr.org/articles/no-...
That £1.3bn is slated to help 20,000 households per year. At that pace it'll take over 200 years to get through all of Scotland's homes. I need to do the calcs properly, but I *think* that puts net zero heating at some point *after* the 2045 target.
Scottish government prevarication on heat in buildings continues.
In 2020 SG committed £1.6bn over this parliament, later raised to £1.8bn. Today's spending review commits £1.3bn to 2030. This is a cut to a budget that was already below the level it needs to reach.
