"The event showed the common ground we share with our grantholders. We are here to prevent and reduce poverty and trauma in Scotland by funding, supporting and influencing solutions to drive social change. "
Last week, we hosted First Minister John Swinney and Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice Shirley-Anne Somerville at The Barracks Conference Centre in Stirling. Speaking to a packed house of 80 grantholders as well as Trustees, staff and our advisers, they talked about the Scottish Government’s priorities in the run-up to a decision at Holyrood on the next Scottish Budget.
In his speech, the First Minister’s commitment to remove the two-child limit (2CL) in UK social security generated much of the media attention that followed – and for good reason. We know that the rise in child poverty in recent years has been experienced mostly among families with at least three children. IFS analysis tells us that removing the 2CL would have a fast impact in bringing an estimated 15,000 children in Scotland above the poverty line. Achieving this for Scotland alone will take a high degree of cooperation at pace between two governments. Mr Swinney pledged that if this were done for the UK as a whole, money already committed in Scotland would continue to be used to reduce child poverty. It is a hopeful place to start 2025 against the backdrop of strain, rising demand and financial insecurity facing so many of the charities who joined us.
The event showed the common ground we share with our grantholders. We are here to prevent and reduce poverty and trauma in Scotland by funding, supporting and influencing solutions to drive social change.
How we take on this complex, long-term challenge shapes how far we make a virtue of being a truly independent organisation, with certainty in our strategy until 2030. We have three objectives: to Fund, Support and Influence. More than 95% of our grant funding is for three years. A small share goes further. More than 60% of grants made through our open, responsive funds in 2023-24 were unrestricted, for charities to decide for themselves what is needed for the people and places they serve.
We want to contribute to solutions which break the link between persistent poverty and intergenerational trauma. We unpack this big challenge by funding through four themes: Financial Security, Nurturing Relationships – a revised theme for the Trust - Education Pathways and Work Pathways. The first two of these themes chime strongly with what people with first-hand experience tell us, as well as more than 20 years of high quality evaluation evidence across much of the OECD. In short, money and high quality services – holistic, family-focused and timely – make a similar contribution to improving outcomes for children in low-income families. The First Minister highlighted both themes, emphasising the need for whole family support wrapping around a boost to household incomes as a condition for lasting change.
Our two other themes point to reducing inequalities from the early years through to fair work in order to boost life chances. Programme Awards made in 2024 on both themes are designed to support our partners to identify solutions bringing ‘big change that lasts.’
We heard from a panel of four grantholders: Passion4Fusion, Fife Gingerbread, Dumfries and Galloway CAB and Fresh Start as part of NESSIE, a collaboration between four organisations working at the sharp end in North Edinburgh. They spoke of the exclusion of asylum seekers from support to get on with their lives due to No Recourse to Public Funds; the rural poverty premium and the fear that comes from not knowing where to get support; small organisations becoming fierce change-makers by seeking to shift the system rather than having to go from pillar to post navigating multiple services; and frontline teams having the budget flexibility to respond to people’s needs as they arise, preventing the accumulation of hardship.
Sparked by their questions and challenges, the First Minister and Cabinet Secretary heard from other participants about the vital voluntary sector contribution to achieving progress on poverty. The long-standing call for multi-annual funding has not yet led to long-term change, but the Cabinet Secretary highlighted a Scottish Government pilot on two-year funding agreements with voluntary organisations at the frontline of addressing child poverty. While there may be a justified weariness about more pilots rather than sticking with proven ways of working, this is one approach that needs to go further and faster.
Last week’s event underlined our role and responsibility as an independent funder to use our convening ability, create further influencing opportunities and advocate for social and system change when we are sure of our ground. Being independent does not mean being neutral when our mission is to disrupt the root causes and the cumulative harms arising from poverty and trauma.
