Anti-poverty measures announced in Scottish Budget
/This article was featured in the SCDC Weekly - 21st January 2026
Anti-poverty organisations have said that last week’s Scottish budget should have gone further to address child poverty as Scotland.
The final budget before May’s general election saw the government increase funding around whole family support and the Tackling Child Poverty Fund, support more breakfast clubs, and increase the Scottish Child Payment (SCP) to £40 for children under one.
While welcoming these measures, The Poverty Alliance said the SCP increase "must be a first step towards boosting that payment to £40 for every eligible child in the country".
Child Poverty Action Group Scotland said that "the opportunity to go much further has been largely wasted” and noted that the SCP increase for under ones will not begin for more than a year.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlighted that over a third of babies in Scotland currently live in a household in poverty, meaning that “the budget doesn’t meet the scale of action required, with a disappointing lack of detail on how it will be spent and how that will impact on people's lives".
Currently, around a quarter of children in Scotland live in poverty, with ministers required to ensure fewer than 10% of children are living in poverty by 2030.
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