Chamber and committees

Indeed, and there is a challenge to ensure that the meals are nutritious but appealing so that children want to take them up. There is also a difference between the take-up at primary versus secondary school and so on.

It is important to look at who takes the free school meal offer up and, if they do not, why not. I am happy to provide further information, because you raise an important point about the usefulness of a policy and its impact on child poverty.

I will briefly touch on a number of areas. The focus for the delivery plans is based on robust evidence of what works, but there is also a recognition that no action in isolation will deliver the level of change that is required.

We have looked at the previous plans and into the future, and the focus for the next plan will remain on the three drivers of child poverty, which are income from employment, cost of living and income from social security and benefits in kind. Previous plans have been based on those three stools, and the same will be the case for the third delivery plan. My understanding from the evidence that the committee has received, and from the conversations that we have had with them directly, is that organisations such as the JRF, the Child Poverty Action Group and so on broadly agree that those are the three drivers that should be focused on.

The other area that we are very conscious of is the need to look at short, medium and longer-term aspects to try to break the cycle of poverty. We have talked about the six priority family groups, which will remain an important part of the work that we are doing.

I am keen that we take a gendered analysis to the work on the next delivery plan, recognising the importance of tackling poverty as it impacts on women and therefore on the family. That is an important piece of work, and a number of organisations, including the National Advisory Council for Women and Girls, Scottish Women’s Aid and others, have been keen that we undertake that type of gendered work. I again give the reassurance that we will do so.

I will point to some of the areas where is it is important to look at systemic change, which I have mentioned before, such as whole-family support and the expansion of fairer futures partnerships, where we are learning lessons from initial partnerships. A number of lessons have been learned from our policies, but there are also areas where we can say with confidence that the Scottish child payment is making an impact. The policy is making a difference and will be an important part of the work that we will continue to do.

The mitigation of the two-child cap will come up in the next financial year and will run into the next delivery plan. I make it clear that, should the UK Government change its mind and decide to scrap the two-child cap, the First Minister has already made his commitment that the money that is in the Scottish Government’s budget for the mitigation of the policy would be used on other measures to tackle child poverty.

I am conscious of the number of FOIs and parliamentary questions that you have had answered on this, Mr O’Kane. I think that it has been dealt with. To summarise, the Scottish Government’s position is that we took action when we gave up on the Labour UK Government taking that action, and we delivered it through the budget.

That question ties into a number of questions that members have asked about evidence gathering. I appreciate Liz Smith’s point that times have changed since I was at school, when I was in a separate meal queue and we all had our wee tickets. That was one of the worst examples of stigmatising young people, but we are not in that place now, with digital payment cards and so on. Given the way in which children interact and speak, we still have to take account of stigma about free school meals, but we can tackle some of those issues as technology improves. That is an important area, and I give that as an example of how we need to move forward.

We challenge ourselves in two ways, which I mentioned earlier. First, we do evaluation work over time to look at policies in the round. Secondly, and importantly, we speak directly to families about how the provision of services works for them. Too often, services—regardless of whether they are delivered by a public agency, the UK Government, the Scottish Government or a local authority—still require people to jump through too many hoops. There might be too many difficulties, or there might be stigma about asking for help. We combine qualitative work with quantitative work, and our evaluation strategies need to look at how things change over time. Technology helps in some areas, and it can challenge us to deliver services in a more cost-effective way than we would otherwise have delivered them.

We are also looking to make improvements in data sharing. We want local authorities, the Scottish Government and the DWP to be able to share data in a way that assists the delivery of a much more cost-effective and seamless service for people. The Scottish Government is keen to do—and is doing—a lot of work on data sharing across Government to see how it can impact on the cost-effectiveness of different policies and the delivery of better services.

You have mentioned an important area, convener, in relation to the work that can be undertaken, whether it is in a school or other settings in which there are already relationships between parents, carers and the service. Our requirement is to ensure that the services that we have are available where and when people need them.

I point to the work—which I mentioned briefly before—on the fairer futures partnerships. I went on an excellent visit to North Ayrshire recently, where we had the same type of discussion in a school setting about what can be provided by a trusted person with whom the parents already have a relationship. They can seek support on income maximisation or benefits, or wider support—in that school, they could have discussions about employability too, and the parent was then supported in several ways. That was all done in a trusted setting with trusted relationships that allowed some of the parents I met to move on to employment or to education and training on the route to employment. Those are the types of area that you touched on, convener, and they are part of the fairer futures partnerships work that is being expanded. That work and support are an important way to provide an alternative route out of poverty through employment, in a supportive fashion and without sanction.

I hope that they are reintroduced into the strategy. As well as calling on the UK Government to make changes in reserved areas, we are endeavouring to assist UK Government colleagues with our learning and with our experience of our policies. The Welsh Government is doing likewise in the areas in which it has undertaken work, so we can learn from each other. That is an important part of the strategy.

As well as making those calls, we are trying to assist with learning. Part of that involves our sharing information on our experience of the importance of targets and the challenges in reaching them. I do not know whether officials want to say a little more about the work that we are doing on that.

There has been a change to the work that Ms Robison is taking forward because it would be premature to deliver a review of Scottish finances before the UK Government’s spending review on 11 June. All that Mr O’Kane has done is highlight once again how utterly dependent we are on—

Thank you, convener. I appreciate the opportunity to give evidence on the Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2025, which bring forward a number of minor but necessary updates to legislation.

The amendments make three separate sets of changes to the legislation. The first set of provisions are required to remove references to tax credits from certain devolved benefit legislation. That follows the UK Government’s decision to close tax credits from 5 April this year and ensures that the policy intent of the legislation matches the reality in relation to which qualifying reserved benefits are available to determine eligibility for devolved benefits.

Tax credits formed a route for establishing eligibility and responsibility for a child in relation to best start foods, best start grants and the Scottish child payment. They also formed a route for eligibility to the funeral support payment, the winter heating payment and the pension-age winter heating payment. Tax credits closed for new applications in April 2019, and the DWP and HM Revenue and Customs undertook a planned transition to universal credit, known as the “move to UC”, to move eligible tax credit recipients on to universal credit before tax credits closed in April.

The amendments have been reviewed by the Scottish Commission on Social Security, which asked about the Scottish Government’s role in the promotion of universal credit. Scottish Government officials worked closely with Social Security Scotland to deliver a synchronised letter campaign that identified those who are in receipt of devolved social security payments with tax credits as a qualifying benefit. Social Security Scotland wrote letters and made phone calls to those clients, informing them of the upcoming changes and the effect that those could have on eligibility for their devolved benefits. There is no evidence that the move to UC has affected the numbers or eligibility of those applying for the named benefits, with applications and awards remaining relatively stable for each Scottish Government benefit.

A further amendment is required to the Social Security Information-sharing (Scotland) Regulations 2021 to replace an outdated reference to discretionary housing payments being made under the Discretionary Financial Assistance Regulations 2001.

The final set of amendments is required to ensure that appeals are dealt with consistently across all benefits. Those amendments update the Scottish Child Payment Regulations 2020 and the Carer’s Allowance Supplement and Young Carer Grants (Residence Requirements and Procedural Provisions) (EU Exit) (Scotland) Regulations 2020. The changes relate to appeals for the Scottish child payment and carers allowance supplement, where individuals are seeking to receive that support from outside the UK. Those amendments align with the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, as amended by the Social Security (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 2025.

I extend my thanks to SCOSS for its formal scrutiny of the draft amendments. I welcome the opportunity to assist the committee in the consideration of the regulations today.

We are determined to drive down the poverty rates for the priority groups—and to drive down all the statistics that are set out in our child poverty delivery plans. We will ensure that we do everything that we can to support the six priority family groups. However, there is a challenge, which I have to come back to: if policies elsewhere are pushing some of those priority groups into poverty, it makes the situation more challenging. I recognise the importance of parental employability schemes in addressing that, but that is exactly why they are there—to provide wraparound support for lone parents in that area.

With all these areas, there is a policy consideration about whether to have universal or targeted support. That has been discussed in the past, particularly in relation to school meals. I go back to the point about why universalism is an important policy for certain aspects such as free school meals. That speaks to the stigma when children and their families speak about not being the “free school meals kid” and not being seen to be separate or different from other children. Although it is exceptionally important to take into account the cost of a policy and the fact that it might benefit people who could otherwise afford it, it is also important to bear in mind the evidence and lived experience of children who talk about how important it is that everyone is treated the same and for there not to be a stigma. That is another important consideration.

You are absolutely right that it is one of those areas where people have differing views, but the universalism of free school meals is based on attempting to help with the stigma that children often feel.