The National Coordinator for Local Child Poverty Action Reports took up post with the Improvement Service in July 2018 with the remit of co-ordinating efforts at local and national level to develop Local Child Poverty Action Reports under the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017.
As well as building strong external links with national organisations through the Local Child Poverty Coordination Group, the National Co-ordinator has benefitted from the extensive range of knowledge and skill on offer within the Improvement Service.
Actions/approach
Working in partnership with both IS staff and national partners, the National Coordinator has:
- With the assistance of IS Knowledge Management team, established and facilitated an online network (Knowledge Hub) of those involved in the development of Local Child Poverty Action Reports. The Knowledge Hub group currently has 194 members.
- Building on previous work done by the Transformation, Performance and Improvement team, the coordinator has worked with national partners to develop a ‘feedback framework’ to clarify the purpose and potential content of Local Child Poverty Action Reports. This framework has since been used to inform ‘critical friend’ feedback to 18 local authority areas.
- With help from the Business Support team, facilitated two regional local child poverty events involving over 140 people in total. A further regional roundtable involved a further 10 people.
- With support from the Knowledge Management team, established and chaired regular online conferences for five remote and rural CPP areas to discuss local action to tackle child poverty.
- Building on strong relationships and support provided by the Improvement Service, the national coordinator has actively engaged key stakeholders in the development and implementation of Local Child Poverty Action Reports, including SLAED, SOLACE and ALACHO.
- Working with the Elected Member Development team, developed a briefing note and delivered a webinar for elected members on the requirement for local authorities and health boards to develop and implement local child poverty action reports.
- With support from the Knowledge Management team, organised a series of good practice sharing webinars. The first webinar – on maximising uptake of devolved benefits – was delivered in June 2019.
- Provided ad hoc input to local planning meetings in relation to tackling child poverty locally.
- With input from the Research team, undertaken a survey of 32 local authority officers leading on the development of Local Child Poverty Action Reports.
- Developed a network of local child poverty leads. Network activities have included the delivery of a national event to facilitate good practice sharing and relationship building (63 people) and planning national conference for September 2019. Business Support and administrative staff within the IS have played an important role in supporting these events.
Impact and results
Through the work of the co-ordination group, and drawing on the expertise and knowledge of the Improvement Service, the National Coordinator has promoted effective partnership working and collaborative planning with national and local partners. This has facilitated the provision of timely and proactive support which is responsive and flexible to local partners’ emerging and changing needs.
The work of the National Child Poverty Coordinator has been essential for driving forward the local child poverty action reports. I’ve been really impressed with the dedication, positivity and care with which the coordinator has approached her role, particularly in how she has worked in a collegiate way across other support bodies.