From: Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan: Progress Report 2025-26 published yesterday to the above MSM response:

Steps taken in the past year to further strengthen the support available to families include:

• Launching the £3 million Bright Start Breakfasts fund, awarding funding to 490 breakfast clubs including 142 new clubs. This has created almost 9,000 breakfast club places, supporting up to 20,000 primary and special school children.
• Tackling the cost of transport by abolishing peak fares on Scotrail services, delivering free foot passenger travel on inter-island ferries for under 22 year old islanders, extending the national concessionary ferry scheme, and introducing a £2 bus fare cap across the Highlands.
• Expanding the Citizens Advice Scotland Council Tax Debt Project across all 32 Local Authorities, with clients supported to make over £2.8 million through Council Tax related financial gains.
• Further strengthening support for disabled people and carers by completing the transfer of awards to Adult Disability Payment and Carer Support Payment and launching the Carer Additional Person Payment expected to benefit around 16,000 people in 2026-27.
• Expanding our Fairer Futures Partnerships into eight more Local Authority areas, bringing the total number of partnerships to sixteen, with ‘Adopt and Adapt’ funding allocated to all other Local Authorities to allow them to test innovative solutions and engage more deeply with learning generated from this approach.
• Expanding our Fairer Funding approach, providing multi-year grants worth over £130 million over two years to 51 third sector organisations delivering essential services and action on child poverty.
• Publishing the Housing Emergency Action Plan, setting out a range of new and enhanced action to tackle the housing emergency in Scotland. This included doubling the funding available for housing acquisitions from £40 million to £80 million and investing an additional £2 million to help to families with children move from temporary accommodation into settled homes.
• Supporting passage of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 which will help to strengthen renters’ rights, prevent homelessness, and support those who are experiencing domestic abuse.
• Providing immediate support to families by reinvesting funding previously committed to the Two Child Limit Payment. This includes providing an additional £5.5 million for the Scottish Welfare Fund and allocating over £3.5 million to charities to deliver emergency support – with Children First and Aberlour helping over 5,000 families and 184 other organisations delivering support.

This is in addition to our continued investment in actions delivered over the life of this plan, including devolved employability support, free bus travel for under 22s and disabled people, and our package of social security payments including the Scottish Child Payment.

Source: https://www.gov.scot/publications/tackling-child-poverty-delivery-plan-progress-report-2025-26/pages/3/

In short, these steps are Scotland-only measures designed to tackle child poverty within the devolved framework. They do not apply elsewhere in the UK, though outcomes in Scotland are influenced by UK-wide policies (and the report often notes this).

Media coverage?

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