Whether it is to understand the proportion of children who are living in poverty or whether it is to dig deep to understand the consequences for the labour supply or for education, the link to administrative data would allow us to explore in depth the effect of the Scottish Child Payment.” (23 May, Col. 6) On the Scottish Government’s interim report into tackling child poverty, Professor Tominey highlighted that it is vital this is complemented by independent and academic analysis (23 May, Col. 10), and stressed the need for better data more generally using information already available: “…the linked administrative data sets exist, and we can analyse that data to understand the full consequence and benefit of the Scottish Child Payment.” (23 May, Col. 10) She also said statistics can be produced which “are quite easy for the public to engage in and which make it easy to judge the success of the policy” (23 May, Col. 17). Comparative...