Scottish Government funding awarded to fight child poverty

The Scottish Government has opened a fund to trial new ways of combatting child poverty.

The Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund (CPAF) will enable up to £500,000 to be shared by local projects, with grants of up to £80,000.

Grants will be awarded to local projects that test and evaluate new approaches which target at least one of the three drivers of child poverty reduction: improving income from employment, supporting people with the cost of living, and increasing awareness and uptake of social security benefits.

Applications are open until 5pm of Friday 12 July and can be be submitted by local authorities and health boards, who may choose to work with other groups and organisations in the community.

Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said: “Eradicating child poverty is a central mission for the Scottish Government and we must find new and innovative ways to achieve this.

“Measures such as the Scottish Child Payment are estimated to keep 100,000 children in Scotland out of relative poverty this year, but we are determined to go further. The Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund will support projects that target the root causes of child poverty and create lasting change in our communities.

“Local authorities and health boards are already undertaking transformative work to tackle child poverty and this fund will support them to go further and share best practice, to help make child poverty a thing of the past.”