Local Child Poverty Action Report
Renfrewshire Council · 18 June 2025
Back to Leadership Board — 18 June 2025 and its agenda
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___________________________________________________________________ To: Leadership Board On: 18 June 2025 ___________________________________________________________________ Report by: Chief Executive ___________________________________________________________________ Heading: Local Child Poverty Action Report ___________________________________________________________________ 1 Summary 1.1 The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 requires that each local authority and each relevant Health Board must jointly prepare and publish a Local Child Poverty Action Report after the end of each reporting year. This report must describe measures taken during the reporting year within the local authority area that reduce child poverty or improve outcomes for children living in poverty. It must also describe planned and proposed future actions. 1.2 This report sets out activities undertaken in Renfrewshire to reduce child poverty between April 2024 and March 2025, and also planned and proposed actions for the future. 1.3 The report highlights work being undertaken across Renfrewshire Council and its partners, statutory and third sector, to support families and respond to the ongoing cost of living crisis which has impacted may of our families, with the effects being felt particularly by low income families. 1.4 The report has been jointly developed by Renfrewshire Council, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC), and Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP). It also includes information about partnership work to tackle child poverty across Renfrewshire’s Community Planning Partnership.
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2 Recommendations 2.1 It is recommended that Elected Members: • Note the content of the draft Child Poverty Local Action Report 2023/24. • Approve the Local Child Poverty Action Report for publication. 3 Background 3.1 The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 sets out targets for the Scottish Government to significantly reduce child poverty in Scotland by 2030. The Act requires that local authorities publish a Local Child Poverty Action Report within three months of the end of each financial year. 3.2 The Report should provide detail of current, planned and proposed activity which is intended to reduce child poverty in the local authority area. It should also provide detail of preventative actions which will help young people avoid becoming parents in poverty by 2030. 3.3 The most recently published figures on child poverty show that in Renfrewshire the rate of child poverty before housing costs is 15.2%, representing 4,613 children - a decrease of 330 children compared to the previous year when the rate was 16.6%. This figure is less than the Scottish average of 16.3%. Not all wards in Renfrewshire saw a reduction in the proportion of children in low-income families, with three of our wards seeing a slight increase in rate. There continues to be particularly high proportions of children in low-income families in both the Paisley North West and Renfrew South and Gallowhill wards. 3.4 Renfrewshire’s Child Poverty Action Report recognises that a significant amount of work has been, and is being done, to reduce child poverty. The Report highlights the many activities carried out by Renfrewshire Council, Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and wider partners which are intended to tackle child poverty across Renfrewshire. 4 Overview of Local Child Poverty Action Report 4.1 The Scottish Government has identified the three key drivers of child poverty as: • income from employment; • costs of living; and • income from Social Security and benefits in kind.
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4.2 This report focusses on our longer-term response to child poverty as well as shorter term responses to recent increases in the cost of living, highlighting actions and achievements throughout 2024/25. The report is structured to reflect the strategic priorities within the Scottish Government’s Child Poverty Delivery Plan, Best Start Bright Futures published in Spring 2022: • Providing the opportunities and integrated support parents need to enter, sustain and progress in work; • Maximising the support available for families to lead dignified lives and meet their basic needs; • Supporting the next generation to thrive. 4.3 Providing the opportunities and integrated support parents need to enter, sustain and progress in work. • Our employability service, Invest in Renfrewshire offers a wide range of tailored supports to help residents on the journey towards and into employment. In 2024/25 we have continued to see a steady number of parents coming forward to use the services of Invest and the Local Employability Partnership (LEP) funded organisations with over 300 parents accessing the service. • The Renfrewshire LEP has continued to plan and co-commission local employability services to help Renfrewshire residents make a successful transition towards employment and reduce unemployment in the area. Over the last year, the number of residents claiming out of work benefits in Renfrewshire has reduced from 3590 to 3375, equating to 2.9% of the population. There are also 90 Living Wage employers in Renfrewshire. • Our Procurement Team has realised 162 Community Benefits this year. 27 of these were to support communities, 84 of these are skills and training opportunities and 34 recruitment, with the rest being supply chain opportunities. 4.4 Maximising the support available for families to lead dignified lives and meet their basic needs • Our Fairer Renfrewshire programme, continues to have a positive impact on low-income families in Renfrewshire in 23/24. At the Council’s budget setting meeting for 24/25, a further £700,000 was invested in this programme to continue a number of existing supports such as free school breakfasts in schools in areas with high levels of child poverty, and funding for the mobile children’s library, the Skoobmobile. The programme also supports our Fairer
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Renfrewshire Lived Experience Panel as well as advice across schools. • Advice is a vitally important part of our efforts to tackle child poverty, with the Council supporting the Healthier Wealthier Children and School Support services which provide dedicated advice services to families with children. Apart from our own Advice Works service, which provides advice to families with younger children through their Family Advice Service, the Council also provides funding to Renfrewshire Citizens Advice Bureau (RCAB) to provide both a general advice service and a community legal advice service. This year additional services have been funded: • A Welfare Rights service based at RCAB • A School Support service in every secondary school in Renfrewshire and in our ASN schools These Council funded advice services gained almost £17million for the people of Renfrewshire in 24/25, and helped them manage almost £22 million in debt. • The Stronger Start project based within Maternity at the Royal Alexandra Hospital which provides advice and advocacy for mothers with complex needs received a total of 135 referrals in 24/25. A total of 98 women received both advice and advocacy support with £150k in financial gains. • In November 2024, we paid families an additional £50 per child for children receiving School Clothing Grant to help with winter clothing. Funding has been allocated in the 2025/26 budget to repeat this payment for over 5,000 children. • Our successful Winter Connections Programme saw £75,000 allocated from the Fairer Renfrewshire Programme to fund 42 activities across Renfrewshire, with venues also provided hot drinks, snacks and food. Funding was also allocated across all Renfrewshire’s libraries, including our mobile library to provide hot drinks and cup-a-soup on a universal basis, and snacks for children taking part in activities. • Our Summer of Fun Programme was very well received, with £100,000 of Council funding allocated to provide a comprehensive free programme comprising holiday camps, funded activities in the third sector, activities in libraries and activities for families supported with free food and drinks. Whole Family Wellbeing funded ASN provision was also provided across two sites, combining to a programme of activities for children and families,
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which was successful in reaching low income families and children within Child Poverty Priority groups. • Our Energy Advocates have saved clients over £135,000 this year including ongoing savings, write offs and Warm Home Discounts. • We topped up our Cost of the School Day funding by £75,000 through our Fairer Renfrewshire Programme. This funding is allocated to schools to alleviate financial barriers to education. 4.5 Supporting the next generation to thrive • In Renfrewshire, there is a relentless focus on closing the poverty related attainment gap while raising attainment for all. As a result, there has been an increase in attainment across almost all curricular areas and stages. Attainment is now broadly in line with or ahead of pre-pandemic levels. • With the cost of living affecting so many families this year, Youth Services has developed a number of responses informed by and to support young people including Evolve groups for those aged 13- 16 in local communities during school time as well as supporting young people who couldn’t otherwise afford it to access the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. • Work around The Promise has progressed well and there are currently 362 trained Promise Keepers across Renfrewshire, an increase from 259 last year. Promise Keepers are empowered to enact changes within their services, share knowledge, and promote positive, non-stigmatising language as outlined in the Renfrewshire Language Policy. 5 Next steps 5.1 Collaborating across services and with partners is vital to provide the most comprehensive supports for families living with low incomes. In 25/26 we will continue to join up support and bring partners together, to focus collectively on achieving the most for our communities and families. Through the Fairer Renfrewshire Sub-Committee, and using our Fairer Renfrewshire Officers Group and wider statutory and 3rd sector links, we will work across services to develop responses to increased costs of living and child poverty and maximise impact of services. 5.2 After a successful year where the Fairer Renfrewshire Lived Experience panel expanded its reach to support the HSCP and third sector, we will continue to fund and consult with the panel working to embed the voice of lived experience in our policy and practice. We will
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bring the Panel together with elected members as well as Council Officers and will support the Panel with its identified priorities. 5.3 Using improved quantitative and qualitative data about our communities, we will better identify required resources and target services where they are needed most, while continuing to respond flexibly to emerging issues affecting families across the whole of Renfrewshire. 5.4 With a focus on services in local areas, we will go into our communities to engage those parents who are not working or who are working in low paid jobs to enhance their skills and career prospects and increase their income. Working with partners, we will raise awareness of the many benefits of employment to families and the support available to parents, especially within the child poverty priority groups, to help them start their own journeys towards work. 5.5 Again, with partnership across services at its core, we will develop a summer programme for children and young people, especially targeting those with low incomes or requiring additional support, and their families across Renfrewshire, allowing children from low income families to have the same experiences and make the same memories as those from families with higher incomes. ___________________________________________________________________ Implications of the Report 1. Financial – No implications 2. HR & Organisational Development – No implications. 3. Community/Council Planning – The Report highlights the continued activities which support the key priorities set out in the Council and Community Plans to tackle inequality and widen opportunity. 4. Legal – No implications 5. Property/Assets – No implications. 6. Information Technology – No implications. 7. Equality & Human Rights - It is anticipated that activities within the Report will have a positive impact on Equality and Human Rights considering the overrepresentation on equality groups within low- income households. 8. Health & Safety – No implications 9. Procurement – No implications
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10. Risk – No implications 11. 12. 13. 14. Privacy Impact – No implications. COSLA Policy position – no implications Climate risk – none Children’s Rights - the articles within UNCRC underpin the work that is being progressed in Renfrewshire through the Fairer Renfrewshire programme, particularly in relation to rights in relation to aspects such as life, survival and development, food, clothing and a safe home and supporting the best interests of the child and their families. Child poverty and family wellbeing are key local partnership priorities _________________________________________________________________ Author: Annabelle Armstrong-Walter, Connected Communities Manager.
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1 Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/25
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 2 Table of Contents 1. Foreword ................................................................................................. 3 2. Executive Summary ..................................................................................... 3 2.1. Progress during 2022/23 ................................................................................ 4 2.2. Priorities for 2023/24 .................................................................................... 7 3. About Child Poverty ..................................................................................... 9 4. Strategic Context ...................................................................................... 14 5. Theme 1: Providing the opportunities and integrated support parents need to enter, sustain and progress in work ......................................................................................... 21 6. Theme 2: Maximising the support available for families to lead dignified lives and meet their basic needs .................................................................................................... 33 7. Theme 3: Supporting the next generation to thrive .................................................. 64
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 3 1. Foreword This, our seventh Local Child Poverty Action Report, sets out activities undertaken in Renfrewshire to reduce child poverty and support our children to thrive. It covers what we have done between April 2024 and March 2025, along with future plans to tackle child poverty. We want Renfrewshire to be a fair place, where everyone has the best chance to live happy, healthy and fulfilled lives, where no child lives in poverty, and where children feel valued no matter their background. The last few years have been challenging, especially for families with low incomes. Although, in general inflation has reduced, fluctuations in energy prices, higher costs for food and increases in housing costs mean that the cost of living remains much higher than in recent years. Debt levels have also increased and our data indicates that many families are struggling financially. Renfrewshire Council, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC), and Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) continue to work with Community Planning partners and the third sector to support our families living with the financial pressures on their households. Our Fairer Renfrewshire Lived Experience Panel also allows us to gain insight from local families and individuals on how poverty affects their lives, and how we can build better services to support our low income families. People experience poverty for many reasons and we know that it can be harder for single parent families, larger families, young families, families where there is a disability and for some ethnic minority families. We know that by working together, we can positively impact the lives of our families and support them into work and better paid jobs; help them to maximise their income; work with young people so they attain more at school; and support the mental health of families and children. This report shows the ways we do this across services and partners through working collaboratively. We also know that our actions alone cannot solve child poverty, and that collaborative effort is required at both a local and national level. We continue to be ambitious for our families and will continue to work together to find ways of tackling the challenges our low income families are facing. Alan Russell Chief Executive, Renfrewshire Council Chief Executive, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 4 2. Executive Summary This is Renfrewshire’s seventh Local Child Poverty Action Report. The report captures the range of activity that has taken place in Renfrewshire to reduce child poverty in 2024/25 and looks forward to the actions planned for 25/26 and beyond. Although no longer referred to as a crisis, continued Cost of Living pressures have had a significant impact on Renfrewshire’s families over the last year and this report describes the actions we have put into place to help our families deal with the financial challenges facing them. These immediate supports, and short-term actions sit alongside our existing initiatives and longer-term plans. This report is set out in a way that reflects the three themes of the Scottish Government child poverty delivery plan, Best Start, Bright Futures: • Providing the opportunities and integrated support parents need to enter, sustain and progress in work • Maximising the support available for families to live dignified lives and meet their basic needs, and • Supporting the next generation to thrive 2.1 Progress during 2024/25 2.1.1. Providing the opportunities and integrated support parents need to enter, sustain and progress in work • Our employability service, Invest in Renfrewshire, offers a wide range of opportunities and integrated supports to help residents on their journey towards and into employment. In 2024/25 we have continued to see a steady number of parents coming forward to use the services of Invest in Renfrewshire and the Local Employability Partnership (LEP) funded organisations with over 300 parents accessing the service. • The Renfrewshire Local Employability Partnership have continued to plan and co- commission local employability services to help Renfrewshire residents make a successful transition towards employment and reduce unemployment in the area. Over the last year, the number of residents claiming out of work benefits in Renfrewshire has reduced from 3590 to 3375, equating to 2.9% of the population. This is less than the Scotland rate (3.2%) and lower than that of Great Britain (4.2%).There are now 90 accredited living wage employes in Renfrewshire.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 5 • Our Procurement Team has realised 162 Community Benefits this year. 27 of these were to support communities, 84 of these are skills and training opportunities and 34 recruitment, with the rest being supply chain opportunities. 2.1.2. Maximising the support available for families to lead dignified lives and meet their basic needs • Our Fairer Renfrewshire programme, continues to have a positive impact on low-income families in Renfrewshire in 23/24. At the Council’s budget setting meeting for 24/25 , a further £700,000 was invested in this programme to continue a number of existing supports such as free school breakfasts in schools in areas with high levels of child poverty, and funding for our mobile children’s library, the Skoobmobile. The programme also supports our Fairer Renfrewshire Lived Experience Panel as well as advice across schools. • Advice is a vitally important part of our efforts to tackle child poverty, with the Council supporting the Healthier Wealthier Children and School Support services which provide dedicated advice services to families with children. Apart from our own Advice Works service, which provides advice to families with younger children through their Family Advice Service, the Council also provides funding to Renfrewshire Citizens Advice Bureau (RCAB) to provide both a general advice service and a community legal advice service. This year additional services have been funded: • A Welfare Rights service based at RCAB • A School Support service in every secondary school in Renfrewshire and in our ASN schools These Council funded advice services gained almost £17 million for the people of Renfrewshire in 24/25, and helped them manage almost £22 million in debt. In addition, through a successful bid for Lottery funding, the Stronger Start service set up at the Royal Alexandra Hospital to provide advice and advocacy for mothers with complex needs has been continued for another two years. This project was developed in partnership with HSCP, NHSGGC and RCAB colleagues. • In October 2024, we paid families an additional £50 per child for children receiving School Clothing Grant to help with winter clothing. Funding has been allocated in the 2025/26 budget to repeat this payment for all eligible children. • Our successful Winter Connections Programme saw £75,000 allocated from the Fairer Renfrewshire Programme to fund 42 activities across Renfrewshire with £2,155 allocated across all
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 6 Renfrewshire’s libraries, including our mobile library. Venues also provided hot drinks, snacks and food. • Our Summer of Fun Programme was very well received, with £100,000 of Council funding allocated to provide a comprehensive free programme comprising holiday camps, funded activities in the third sector, activities in libraries and activities for families supported with free food and drinks. Whole Family Wellbeing funded ASN provision was also provided across two sites, combining to a programme of activities for children and families, which was successful in reaching low income families and children within Child Poverty Priority groups. • Our Street Stuff Programme provides a range of free multi-sport, gaming and educational activities 6 evenings a week, Monday to Saturday, throughout the year. We offer young people aged 8 - 16 across Renfrewshire access to exercise and social activities in a number of areas that they may otherwise not have the chance to take part in. • Our Energy Advocates have saved clients over £135,000 this year including ongoing savings, write offs and Warm Home Discounts. • We topped up our Cost of the School Day funding by £75,000 through our Tackling Poverty Programme. • Approximately 87% of those young people eligible in Renfrewshire have a Junior or a Young Scot National Entitlement card and free bus travel as part of the U22s Free Bus Travel Scheme saving families money on transport costs and supporting schools trips. This is an increase from 86% last year. A Cost of the Nursery Day pilot was delivered by the Renfrewshire HSCP Health Improvement Team. This project supports early-years establishments through upskilling staff to become a ‘Cost of the Nursery Day’ champion and reducing costs for parents. 2.1.3. Supporting the next generation to thrive • There is a relentless focus on closing the poverty related attainment gap while raising attainment for all. As a result, there has been an increase in attainment across almost all curricular areas and stages. Attainment is now in line with or ahead of pre-pandemic levels. Renfrewshire is ahead of national figures across all stages and curricular areas in 2023-24. • Contributing to tackling child and youth poverty, Youth Services has developed a number of targeted and inclusive programmes that reduce costs of participation, increase access to services, travel and digital tools and promote wellbeing, engagement, and attainment for vulnerable and
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 7 care-experienced young people. Young people engaging in Youth Services activities can access free food, period products and digital devices and connectivity as a matter of course. • Work around The Promise has progressed well and there are currently 362 trained Promise Keepers across Renfrewshire up from 259 at the same time last year. Renfrewshire actively engages with the Care Experienced community to ensure their voices are heard and their needs are met in service design and delivery and they can contribute to the development of policies such as the Renfrewshire Language Policy, which promotes the use of positive, inclusive language when referring to Care Experienced individuals. 2.2 Priority Actions Our priorities in 24/25 have included: Priority Actions for 2024/25 1 Develop Fairer Renfrewshire Programme 2 Better use the voice of our communities in decision making, including development and support for the Fairer Renfrewshire Lived Experience Panel to deliberate on and guide policy and practice 3 Expand opportunities for parents to enter, sustain and progress at work through the Parental Employability Support Fund 4 Embed models of dedicated advice provision for families with children 5 Monitor the ongoing impacts of the Cost-of-Living Crisis, continuing to flexibly respond to emerging issues 6 Join up support for families within communities and across partners 7 Utilise quantitative and qualitative data to inform work This report provides examples of where these priority actions have been progressed, including development of policy responses to child poverty and the continuing cost of living crisis through the Fairer Renfrewshire programme. We have started using data to inform work specifically in the Gallowhill area of Paisley, which has seen child poverty rates rise sharply in recent years. Using quantitive and qualitative data, we have
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 8 started to build a picture of this area, and with an HSCP funded Community Needs Assessment concluding in March 25, we will begin to build capacity and work alongside the community to develop actions based on its own needs and wants. Our Fairer Renfrewshire Panel has been running for over a two years, and in that time the Panel has developed and become an invaluable resource for Council services and beyond, feeding into policy and practice in a number of areas including our Local Transport Strategy, summer holiday programme and digital inclusion. The Panel were also commissioned by Renfrewshire HSCP to scrutinise and report on the most recent Health and Wellbeing survey results and report back to our Community Planning Partnership Executive Group. Our advice services for families, which were extended the previous year have now bedded in, and are making significant gains for families. We have advice embedded in all secondary and ASN schools through a pilot with Renfrewshire Citizens Advice Bureau (RCAB), and it was agreed at budget to extend this service for another year, for 2025/26. The Council’s Advice Works service has continued its initiative where all families applying for Free School Meals or Clothing Grants were offered advice and also provide a Family Advice Service for all families with children of primary school age and below. Both Advice Works and RCAB are involved in our school meal debt processes, which is more support focussed, and both will receive referrals from schools for families who may be struggling with money. Looking forward to 25/26 Collaborating across services and with partners is vital to provide the most comprehensive supports for families living with low incomes. In 25/26, we will continue to join up support and bring partners together, to focus collectively on achieving the most for our communities and families. Through our Fairer Renfrewshire Sub-Committee, and using our Fairer Renfrewshire Officers Group and wider statutory and 3rd sector links, we will work across services to develop responses to increased costs of living and child poverty and maximise impact of services. This cross-cutting way of working will help us in our focus on our areas of highest child poverty. In particular we will be exploring and establishing place-based approaches to tackling child poverty in Gallowhill, Paisley, in response to recent sharp rises in rates of child poverty. With a focus on services in local areas, we will go into our communities to engage those parents who are not working or who are working in low paid jobs to enhance their skills and career prospects and increase their income. Working with partners, we will raise awareness of the many benefits of employment to families and the support available to parents, especially within the child poverty priority groups, to help them start their own journeys towards work.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 9 Again, with partnership across services at its core, we will develop a summer programme for children and young people, especially targeting those with low incomes or requiring additional support, and their families across Renfrewshire allowing children from low income families to have the same experiences and make the same memories as those from families with higher incomes. After a successful year where the Fairer Renfrewshire Lived Experience Panel expanded its reach to support the HSCP and third sector, we will continue to fund and consult with the Panel working to embed the voice of lived experience in our policy and practice. We will bring the Panel together with elected members as well as Council Officers and will support the Panel with its identified priorities. Using improved quantitative and qualitative data about our communities, we will better identify required resources and target services where they are needed most, while continuing to respond flexibly to emerging issues affecting families across the whole of Renfrewshire. 2.3 Scottish Government Child Poverty Targets and Drivers Child Poverty Targets were set by the Scottish Parliament in 2017 and are as follows: The statutory income targets are ambitious and relate to the following measures of poverty: Relative poverty: a child is in relative poverty if they live in a household where equivalised income is below 60 per cent of the inflation adjusted UK median income in the same year. This is a measure of whether those in the lowest income households are keeping pace with the growth of incomes in the economy as a whole. Absolute poverty: a child is in absolute poverty if they live in a household with an income below 60 per cent of the median equivalised net income in 2010–11. This is a measure of whether those in the lowest income households are seeing their incomes rise in real terms. By 2030, after housing costs Less than 10% of children live in households that are in relative poverty Less than 5% of children live in households that are in absolute poverty Less than 5% of children live in households that are in combined low income and material deprivation Less than 5% of children live in households that are in persistent poverty
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 10 Combined low income and material deprivation: a child is in combined low income and material deprivation if they live in a household with an income below 70 per cent of the equivalised median net income for that year and are unable to afford a number of basic goods and services (material deprivation). Persistent poverty: a child is in persistent poverty if they have been living in Scotland and in relative poverty for three of the past four years. In March 2022, the Scottish Government published its second child poverty delivery plan, Best Start Bright Futures under the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017. Best Start, Bright Futures sets out a vision for Scotland, the changes that are needed to achieve this, and the actions Scottish Government intend to take with partners to deliver that change for the period 2022 to 2026 and focusses on three themes: • Providing the opportunities and integrated support parents need to enter, sustain and progress in work • Maximising the support available for families to live dignified lives and meet their basic needs • Supporting the next generation to thrive These combined with the three drivers of child poverty give a focus to the work taking place in Renfrewshire to poverty within our families. The Scottish Government is due to publish its final child poverty delivery plan prior to 2030 in April 2026 and is consulting on themes in 2025, however, for this report and next, the themes are. In March 2025, the Scottish Government published figures which confirmed that the interim target of 18% of children living in relative poverty was missed with relative child poverty reducing from 26% to 22% in Scotland. The missed target was not unexpected as the interim targets were set when child poverty rates were consistently lower and pre-dated the pandemic and the cost of living crisis. The new delivery plan is expected to recognise the further challenges in reducing child poverty. Income from employment Costs of Living Income from Social Security and benefits in kind
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 11 2.4 Priority Groups ‘Best Start, Bright Futures’ builds on action delivered through the first Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 'Every Child, Every Chance'. This plan identified six priority family types that face additional barriers to moving out of poverty: • Lone Parents • Families that include a disabled adult or child • Large families with 3 or more children • Minority Ethnic families • Youngest child is under 1 year old • Young Mother aged under 25 years old Focus continues on these priority families as reporting continues to show that almost 90% of all children in poverty in Scotland live within the six priority family types. In March 2025, the Scottish Government published their Poverty and Income Inequality in Scotland report for 2021-24. This report presents three-year averaged estimates of the proportion of people in Scotland living in poverty, and other statistics on household income and income inequality. With respect to the priority groups, updated figures were provided for the proportion of children in relative poverty after housing costs, in Scotland 2021-24.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 12 Households with mothers aged under 25 are not included in this analysis, because they were too few in the sample this year to provide robust estimates, however the previous figure was 55%. Figures are fairly similar to those provided previously, with the only significant change in the statistics relating to households with 3 or more children, with the proportion increasing from 32% to 41%. 2.5 Child Poverty in Renfrewshire In March 2025, the Department for Work and Pensions released new statistics on children in low- income families. The proportion of children in low-income families in Renfrewshire has been steadily rising since 2014/15 (discounting data for 2020/21 which has significant caveats, due to the coronavirus pandemic). This year’s figures, however, show a slight decrease in rates. The decrease is likely to be at least partially due to Scottish Child Payment income being included for the first time, with 2023/24 being the first full year that Scottish Child Payments were paid to all eligible children under the age of 16. For 23/24, the percentage of children in relative low income, before housing costs in Renfrewshire is 15.2%, representing 4,613 children. This is a decrease of 330 children compared to the previous year, when the rate was 16.6%. The rate for Scotland is 16.3%. Not all wards in Renfrewshire saw a reduction in the proportion of children in low-income families, with three of our wards seeing a slight increase in rate. There continues to be particularly high proportions of children in low- income families in both Paisley North West and Renfrew South and Gallowhill wards, with children living in relative low income rates at 27.5% and 23.9% respectively, although both these wards showed the largest annual decrease in rates compared to last year.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 13 Ward 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22 2022/23 2023/24 Change in % compared to previous year Renfrew South and Gallowhill 18.2 21.9 21.7 24.6 22.3 29.2 27.6 28.9 31.9 27.5 -4.4 Paisley Northwest 21.9 23.8 24.8 28.0 26.8 29.8 24.1 24.9 27.5 23.9 -3.6 Paisley Southwest 13.8 15.1 15.5 17.4 18.2 20.1 17.0 18.8 19.4 17.9 -1.5 Johnstone South and Elderslie 14.3 16.0 18.2 20.6 16.6 20.1 15.6 16.2 17.7 17.1 -0.6 Paisley East and Central 15.8 15.1 17.7 19.0 17.4 19.1 16.9 16.8 16.6 16.5 -0.1 Scotland 15.4 16.6 16.4 18.3 16.8 19.5 16.8 16.9 17.8 16.3 -1.5 Renfrew North and Braehead 13.8 15.4 14.1 18.6 17.5 18.4 14.7 16.3 16.8 15.7 -1.1 Paisley Southeast 9.0 10.3 9.9 11.8 11.1 15.7 12.9 13.6 15.0 15.3 0.3 Renfrewshire 13.1 14.4 14.9 17.1 15.6 18.4 15.3 15.9 16.6 15.2 -1.4 Johnstone North, Kilbarchan, Howwood and Lochwinnoch 10.8 11.9 12.1 15.0 13.4 16.3 13.7 15.2 17.1 14.9 -2.2 Paisley Northeast and Ralston 11.4 14.2 14.1 16.6 14.4 17.0 13.4 13.1 14.1 12.0 -2.1 Erskine and Inchinnan 8.5 8.7 10.2 10.1 8.8 11.2 10.3 10.9 9.9 11.4 1.5 Houston, Crosslee and Linwood 11.3 12.2 11.4 13.3 12.0 13.5 10.4 10.0 10.1 8.9 -1.2 Bishopton, Bridge of Weir and Langbank 7.3 7.3 6.9 8.1 6.8 8.0 6.4 5.1 6.9 7.3 0.4
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 14 In 24/25 we have been working to better understand the reasons behind the rises in certain Wards in recent years as part of our ‘Deep Dive’ into data, and ensure we are targeting the right supports in the right areas. 3 Strategic Context 3.1 Fairer Renfrewshire Programme The Fairer Renfrewshire Programme is a large, partnership programme of work across Renfrewshire, seeking to tackle the inequalities that exist across Renfrewshire’s communities. There are four key themes which are shared across all elements of the Fairer Renfrewshire programme, and these are: The Council’s Fairer Renfrewshire Sub-Committee has been meeting since August 2022. This Sub- Committee considers matters relating to poverty and financial insecurity, including food and fuel insecurity and the continuing high Costs of Living affecting our families. With oversight of the Council’s response to the Alcohol and Drug Commission report and the Fairer Renfrewshire Programme, it makes recommendations to the Council and the Leadership Board regarding those matters. A Fairer Renfrewshire Officers Group, chaired by the Head of Policy and Partnerships, meets monthly. This Group brings together Officers from across the Council as well as Renfrewshire HSCP and OneRen, Renfrewshire’s charitable trust which provides culture, leisure and sporting opportunities. This allows cross service information sharing and scrutiny on matters related to making Renfrewshire fairer, and promotes a cross cutting approach intended to increase impact on outcomes for our households who are living in poverty. The Council Plan is a key strategic document for Council employees, local people, businesses, partner organisations and voluntary organisations, setting out what the Council is aiming to
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 15 achieve until 2027, with a refresh carried out in 2024. Alongside Renfrewshire’s Community Plan, the Council Plan provides organisational direction, ensuring that the key strategic priorities of the Council translate into specific actions within service improvement plans. One of the key pillars of the plan is ‘Fair – nurturing bright, happy and healthy futures for all’, which outlines a number of key corporate priorities focussed around addressing child poverty. The Plan also describes a cross- cutting theme – improving outcomes for children and families, which runs across all strategic outcomes in the Plan, and underpins all we do. In tandem with the Council Plan, the vision for our Community Plan is "working together to make Renfrewshire a fairer, more inclusive place where all our people, communities and businesses thrive". There are three ‘Areas of Focus’ within the Community Plan, of which ‘Supporting low- income families’ is one, with 4 action areas dedicated to this areas of focus. With an emphasis on joining up support for families within communities, and taken in tandem with the Council Plan, our Community Plan illustrates our commitment, along with our partners, to reducing child poverty and supporting our children to have the best start in life. 3.2 Renfrewshire’s Health and Social Care Partnership Renfrewshire HSCP IJB Strategic Plan, Shaping Our Future 2022 -2025, focuses on Prevention and Early Intervention under key themes. These include the Healthier Futures theme which highlights commitment to continue to work with partners in Renfrewshire to contribute to reducing child poverty locally by detailing actions we continue to work and report on. This report has a strong input from the HSCP Health Improvement Team who focus on prevention and early intervention and have been working closely with Council Colleagues in a number of areas. This year the Health Improvement Team also commissioned the Fairer Renfrewshire Lived Experience Panel to carry out work for them. 3.3 Renfrewshire’s Children’s Services Partnership Throughout Scotland, local authorities and health boards work with community planning partners to ensure services delivered to children, young people and their families are the best they can be. In Renfrewshire, we do this by listening to our communities to identify what support people need, why they need it, when they need it and how best it can be provided. This work takes place through Renfrewshire’s Children’s Services Partnership (RCSP) whose members include the Council, other
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 16 public sector organisations, and the third sector. Together, we identify local priorities and plan how we can join up to add value and deliver services to children, young people and their families that make a real difference to their lives. Our three-year Renfrewshire Children’s Services Partnership Plan has been developed to cover the period 2023 – 2026. It sets out our focus for Renfrewshire’s children, young people and families and identifies the steps we will take to improve their lives. The Partnership examined national and community priorities and how these link in with our vision children’s service planning. This includes work around The Promise, UNCRC, GIRFEC, Whole Family Wellbeing and Poverty. Based on what is known about the needs of children and young people of Renfrewshire, we have identified four outcomes that partners will work together to deliver. 1. We will ensure our children and young people enjoy good physical and mental health 2. We will ensure our children and young people are safe and loved 3. We will ensure our children and young people have their rights protected and their voices heard 4. We will ensure our children and young people achieve and make positive contributions to their community The Children’s Services Partnership Oversight and Monitoring Group continues to meet at least quarterly and provides updates to each meeting of the Partnership Board. 3.4 Children’s Services Improvement Plan Renfrewshire’s Education Improvement Plan (2024/25) has been developed through consultation with a variety of stakeholders. Our Education Improvement Plan sets out where we want to improve and how we want to do that, based on the evidence we have gathered on our current performance.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 17 Our Plan focuses on 6 main priority areas: Our improvement priorities align to those outlined in the National Improvement Framework and the Education Improvement Plan supports the delivery of the priorities contained within key plans such as Renfrewshire Council’s Plan, Children’s Services Partnership Plan and Children’s Services Improvement Plan. 3.5 How we work with people As a Council, Renfrewshire is very keen to engage with our residents and use their voice and feedback to support the design of policy and practices across services. Some examples of this engagement are below. Fairer Renfrewshire Panel In 2022/23, we established a Fairer Renfrewshire Panel of people with lived experience of poverty to inform Council policy and practice. Working with Poverty Alliance as an expert national partner, and STAR Project as our expert local partner, we ran a 6 month ‘test of change’ to establish whether a Panel would result in meaningful engagement on the part of both people with lived experience and policy makers. The decision was made to extend the arrangement and the Panel has continued to meet since, now supported solely by STAR Project. The panel is diverse, and experiences include being adults and children in poverty, dependent on benefits and in-work poverty, as well as New Scots and those who have been previously consulted without it making a difference. Over 24/25, the Panel has provided insight in a number of areas. The Local Transport Strategy has been one of these, with the Panel inputing their experiences around transport/getting around in Renfrewshire. A draft Local Strategy has been developed, and the panel will be engaged to feed back on this in 25/26. The Panel have also met with our Events Team and worked as a focus group with the Council’s Commissioning and Creative Events Lead to support the development of their Events strategy to be inclusive of people facing barriers to participation.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 18 The Panel has continued to meet with our Employability Service, Invest in Renfrewshire, and have had their feedback actioned in a number of areas, including the development of a new project for those at the beginning of their employment journey. The Panel has also informed the Cost of the Nursey Day pilot delivered by the Renfrewshire HSCP Health Improvement Team during 2024/25 as described at 5.6. This year the Panel received their first piece of commissioned work from Renfrewshire HSCP, to contribute to their analysis of the results from the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde 2022/23 adult health and wellbeing survey: Renfrewshire report. The Panel provided support in determining priorities based on the experience of people at disadvantage and with experience of barriers to services. Their analysis was presented at a special meeting of the Community Planning Partnership Executive group, to which senior Council Officers were also invited. The panel have also offered to be involved in the drafting of the next survey. Also this year, for the first time, the Panel has attended events, both to present and to expand their knowledge. Members attended an Aberlour event on Public Debt and presented at a Child Poverty Leads event about their experience as a lived experience Panel. One of the Panel members is now the Renfrewshire HSCP’s Joint Integration Board Service User Representative, adding links to the Fairer Renfrewshire work as well as the service user perspective the position was designed for. The Panel has continued to meet with the Convenor and Depute of the Fairer Renfrewshire Sub- Committee and this year came together with the full Sub-Committee and Fairer Renfrewshire Officers Group to discuss Panel priorities and their future plans. These conversations and engagements with Council services and beyond will help people on low incomes get their voices heard on the policies and decisions that most impact their lives and help us understand their needs, especially those in the Child Poverty Priority Groups. Youth Services Our Youth Services team have also carried out consultation and outreach in under-represented areas to develop youth voice in the community. Over 24/25, this work has continued in the form of events, residentials and assemblies to support young people to come together and prioritise the issues that matter most to them. This has included: • The West Partnership Alliance. Young people from Renfrewshire worked with peers from other local authorities to explore key issues. One focus in Renfrewshire was the experiences of New Scots, leading to the creation of a practical guide to help improve support, illustrated interactive
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 19 activity to show barriers and successes of New Scots settling in Renfrewshire and lesson plan to support delivery. • Themed Youth Assemblies. These events bring together young people from schools and partner organisations to revisit priorities, speak with expert panels and make recommendations. In 2024, the Young and Equally Safe Youth Assembly focused on gender-based violence. Two further events are planned for 2025: EcoNet – a climate change and sustainable travel event run in partnership. A dedicated assembly for young people who are care experienced, taking place later in the year. • Local Youth Voice Groups. Groups like Erskine Youth Council, Linwood Youth Voice, and Renfrewshire Youth Voice continue to meet regularly to raise local concerns and influence change. Themed groups including Climate Change Champions, Renfrewshire Promise Champs and Young and Equally Safe also continue • MSYPs. Renfrewshire has 5 representatives in the Scottish Youth Parliament, who work to bridge the gap between local and national issues. Taking forward the views of local young people and building partnerships with communities and decision makers. Employability As described at 4.2, our employability service has commissioned Social Value Lab to carry out consultation with parents in the Renfrewshire area around engagement with employability services. The team at Social Value Lab consulted with 23 parents, conducting in-depth interviews and focus groups and 95 parents completed an online survey. They also engaged with the Parental Advisors and with Key Stakeholders. This research allowed barriers to employment to be identified, and Invest team to start work across Council services and the wider LEP to remove these. Community Needs Assessment, Gallowhill Using funding provided by Public Health NHSGGC, Active Communities were commissioned by Renfrewshire Health and Social Care partnership to facilitate a community needs assessment in the community of Gallowhill from July 2024 – January 2025. This took the form of speaking to the community on the streets, hosting events, having anonymous written paper feedback in various community locations, an online questionnaire, speaking to people attending clubs or groups in the area and speaking to people who work in the area. Using the Place Standards Tool, which provides a framework to structure conversations about the physical and social aspects of a place, 1033
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 20 responses have been collected, and will feed into the development of coordinated actions to build capacity and work alongside the community to develop actions based on its own needs and wants. Results are being explored to inform next steps with a partnership session held, bringing together services from across the Council and key partners such as the HSCP, One Ren, and Engage Renfrewshire to discuss issues identified by local people and to start planning a place-based, partnership response to challenges in the Gallowhill area. To support this, Fairer Renfrewshire funding has been provided to 3rd sector organisation, Active Communities to employ a Community Development Officer who will be working in Gallowhill for the next 18 months. It is intended that all partners including Renfrewshire Council, Education, Community Planning Partners, Engage, local current service providers, Community Learning and Development, OneRen, Police, NHSGGC Public Health and Health Improvement as well most importantly, local community members from Gallowhill will be brought together to consider the results of the needs assessment and identify next steps required to create the infrastructure to respond to local needs. This work will be coordinated by the newly formed Connected Communities service. Housing Regeneration – Community Neighbourhood Renewal In our 8 housing regeneration areas, a new approach to Community Neighbourhood Renewal is being established with community representatives, across Council Services and with third party partners to operate in parallel with the physical regeneration plans. The neighbourhood renewal approach will be tailored to the needs and circumstances of each area, going beyond housing and the immediate external environment, and taking account of broader issues such as links to health and wellbeing, access to outdoor space and sustainable travel and employment or training opportunities that maximise the benefits achievable for local residents. Howwood Road area was selected as a pilot for this new approach, with a specific focus on promoting health and wellbeing, employability, and energy advice, along with community capacity building. The first Neighbourhood Renewal meeting for this area took place on 22nd May 2024 and was well attended and received by the local community with over 140 individuals in attendance. Linking in with the newbuild consultation event planned for this date, we were able to work collaboratively across Council services, with third sector partners to use the newbuild consultation event as a platform to launch the Neighbourhood Renewal Group for this area. The event provided tenants and residents with the opportunity to speak to Council Officers and partners about the development plans and receive advice on matters such as employability, health
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 21 and wellbeing and energy advice and information on how to be involved in the project going forward. .As part of this neighbourhood renewal process for this area, residents were asked for ideas or suggestions for the development of the former St. Davids school site as it is not envisaged that this will be developed for housing due to site constraints previously highlighted to the Board. A number of the ideas were collated for consideration for the vacant site including outdoor learning area that could be utilised by local schools and football park/pitches. Another suggestion that has been considered and developed further since the event in May, is the use of a property for a local drop-in surgery. This is a space where tenants and residents can speak with Officers about the programme of works in the area and we could potentially hold a number of advice or wellbeing surgeries in association with the partners we are working with, across this area. A suitable centrally located property has been identified for this purpose and following completion of the required changes to facilitate the use as a drop in venue, Officers will promote the location and times this service will be available to residents within the Howwood Road regeneration and renewal area.This approach aims to strengthen community voices and improve place-based decision making across and will be taken forward across all regeneration areas in Renfrewshire to enhance and measure the offering and impact of the programme. 4 Theme 1: Providing the opportunities and integrated support parents need to enter, sustain and progress in work Income from employment is one of the 3 main drivers of child poverty. As such, increasing income from employment for unemployed and low-income parents is a key objective nationally and in Renfrewshire. 4.1 Local Employability Partnership Renfrewshire Local Employability Partnership (RLEP) is the local strategic employability partnership consisting of partner agencies from the Renfrewshire Community Planning Partnership. It is chaired by Renfrewshire Council and its purpose is to support the implementation of local and national employability policy (No One Left Behind) through collective leadership, joint planning and co-commissioning. In doing so, the partnership, working closely with local delivery partners, makes best use of resources available to deliver effective needs-led employability services
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 22 that help Renfrewshire residents make a successful transition towards employment and reduce unemployment in the area. RLEP is committed to reducing those inequalities that exist in relation to employment between different geographic areas and for different groups who face significant barriers to work. Success as a Partnership goes beyond reducing unemployment at a Renfrewshire level to reducing the gaps that exist for these areas and groups. This includes Care Experienced young people which are prioritised by RLEP in its services and programme delivery as well as those who have arrived in Renfrewshire through Resettlement Schemes. Renfrewshire LEP has established a number of sub-groups focussing on priority groups and all of these will consider employability related actions to tackle child poverty with the Council’s Employability Service ‘Invest’ leading on the LEP’s parental employment support approach. The Health Conditions and Recovery sub-group, chaired by HSCP Health Improvement, works to support people in Renfrewshire with health conditions to improve their employability. This Subgroup has continued to progress their action plan through 2024/25. Key pieces of work have included the promotion and evaluation of mental health support for employability clients and the delivery of mental health training for employability staff, including Scottish Mental Health First Aid, Trauma-Informed Practice workshops and Neurodiversity Awareness sessions. The subgroup has also continued to progress work on an “Asking the Employability Question” toolkit for staff working in health and social care settings. The toolkit purpose is to increase staff confidence discussing employability with the individuals they work with and increase awareness of referral routes to employability services. The subgroup aims to launch this toolkit during 2025/26, with promotion across all LEP subgroups including the Parental Employability Group. Over the last year, the number of residents claiming out of work benefits in Renfrewshire has reduced from 3,590 to 3,375, equating to 2.9% of the population, lower than the Scottish rate of 3.2% and that of Great Britain (4.2%). The proportion of workless households has also dropped by 1.5% to 17.1% - lower than for Scotland as a whole (17.4%) (2023). Economic Inactivity is a key focus at local, National and UK levels, in particular where this is linked to health issues . Our story in Renfrewshire is however very positive as we have seen a significant reduction in the proportion of those inactive (due to health issues) from very high levels during and after COVID of over 43% (compared to 31% at a Scottish level) to 29.8% - now almost 4% lower than Scotland. Gross average weekly earnings for full time workers have increased to £745 from £711, again higher than the Scottish figure of £740.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 23 4.2 Parental Employment Support Income from employment is one of the 3 main drivers of child poverty. As such, increasing income from employment for unemployed and low-income parents continues to be a key objective nationally and in Renfrewshire. Renfrewshire’s parents who meet at least one of the priority groups and who are unemployed or low income employed can access practical and financial support including: Support provided to parents is person centred and tailored to meet their individual requirements, aiming to remove the barriers they are facing to progress towards employment or gain improved employment. In addition, the service offers: • Specialist employability support for parents with a disability/long-term condition or who have a child with a disability/long-term condition. • Specialist support for parents with other significant challenges such as having a criminal conviction. • Targeted support to tackle the increased challenge of in-work poverty by helping parents already in work to remain active in the workplace and gain progression through a rewarding career, through the provision of ongoing training and employability support. • Confidential income and money advice which includes: benefit checks and help with any claim processes; better off in work calculations; help with debts; creation of a bespoke budget for the family; and budgeting skills support to ensure long lasting effect. • Client recruitment Incentives aligned to parents, for those with significant barriers including those parents in the 6 Child Poverty Priority groups.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 24 • Further work with employers to create family/parent friendly working conditions and working patterns e.g. school hour posts. • A Wellbeing Advisor to support parents who are requiring additional support. • Traineeship opportunities as paid placements within various sections of the Local Authority, where parents can re-enter the job market as a trainee initially to develop their skills and confidence to support them to progress towards gaining employment. • Anxiety Management courses and other support with mental health including peer support. Our employability service, Invest in Renfrewshire, offers a wide range of tailored supports to help residents on their journey towards and into employment. In 2024/25 we have continued to see a steady number of parents coming forward to use the services of Invest in Renfrewshire and the LEP funded organisations and have worked with over 300 parents this year, this includes new parents and parents who were registered in previous years. Of the parents newly registering with the service this year, there were a number who met one or more of the Child Poverty priority groups, the table below shows the priority groups that the parents registered during the period of April 2024 to March 2025 meet. In the financial year 2024/25, Renfrewshire Council were awarded funding to support parents through the Child Poverty Funding stream (formerly known as PESF – Parental Employability Support Fund). This funding enabled new services to be put in place to provide a focused and tailored support for families both employed and unemployed. The Invest in Renfrewshire Parental Employability Support team includes a Child Poverty Co- ordinator who manages the delivery of the Parental Employability Support programme and team members. The team increased to 6.5 FTE Parental Employability Advisors in Quarter 1 of 2024/25
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 25 delivery. This recruitment brought the team to full capacity and enabled them to engage with more parents throughout Renfrewshire. The Parental Employability Team have delivered outreach in locations across Renfrewshire, this approach has allowed parents access to support in their local area as well as being able to access support from Invest in Renfrewshire’s main office at The Russell Institute in Paisley town centre. The team have delivered outreach services in various locations on a regular basis including the below: • Station Seven, Johnstone • McMaster’s Centre, Renfrew • Tannahill Centre, Ferguslie • Bargarran Centre, Erskine • Paisley Central Library, Paisley • Glenburn Community Centre, Glenburn • Linwood Library, Linwood • Gallowhill Community Centre, Gallowhill The team are exploring other outreach locations with a view to reaching more parents in 2025/26. They have also participated in outreach activities in schools and early education establishments and will continue to engage with more education establishments in the year ahead. To support the engagement with parents who are unemployed, the Advisors and/or our Client Engagement Officer delivers group information sessions in each of the Jobcentre Plus offices across Renfrewshire. These sessions enable residents to meet with Advisors and learn about the services in the different teams within Invest in an informal setting. Residents also have an opportunity to speak to advisors about their personal support requirements before being referred to the service. Through information gathered at initial assessment and through the ongoing work with people in Renfrewshire, Invest and the LEP subgroups recognised that additional support was required to support people to improve their mental health as part of their journey into employment. The LEP and Invest in Renfrewshire commissioned counselling support from RAMH, Youth Interventions and Time for Talking late in 2023 and this continued to be available in 2024/25, they were offered counselling sessions and where required were referred to specialist support by these providers. In
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 26 2025/26 LEP have commissioned RAMH to deliver one to one counselling, Coping with Anxiety and Living Life to the Full courses. Time for Talking have also been commissioned to deliver one to one counselling. RAMH provided training for Invest and LEP staff to improve their skills and knowledge in supporting residents with their mental health, this included training in Scottish Mental Health First Aid, Small Change Big Impact – Trauma Informed Practices. They also had the opportunity to attend Understanding Neurodiversity: An Introduction being delivered by Youth Interventions. These courses have been funded for a further year to support more staff to develop their skills. The Invest and LEP funded providers offer a range of barrier removal, prevocational and vocational training opportunities and participants take part in various programmes and activities. There are group activities on offer that cover a wide range of topics including interview skills, team working etc, as well as formal accredited training such as care, first aid, driver training and other sector specific training which enhance and develop the attributes, skills and knowledge required to support progression into sustainable employment. To improve skills and qualifications, parents have access to Digital College courses that they can work through at their own pace and at home or within The Russell Institute, there are over 90 courses that they can select from and their Advisor will assist them to select courses that are relevant to their employment journey. Invest host training sessions for service users at The Russell Institute on a regular basis including employability skills workshops, IT skills and accredited training Steps to Excellence, CSCS, World Host and commission Emergency First Aid at Work and REHIS Food Hygiene. The training team in partnership with the Invest Employer Liaison team deliver Sector Based Work Academies focussing on developing skills to enable people to progress into employment within sectors where employers are recruiting. Parents have participated in these programmes and gained employment Funded Work Placements and Traineeships. The LEP commissioned provision for 2024/25 was delivered by: • West College Scotland ‘YES Programme’ a personalised learning programme to support parents with multiple barriers into employment • BDA Ltd provided support to people interested in progressing into self-employment • ‘I Was Gonnae Charity’ provided a music-based project to support parents through a motivational and creative employability programme.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 27 • ‘REEM – Renfrewshire Effort to Empower Minorities’ will engage and support parents to build confidence and assist them to take the first steps to engaging with employability services. During the year it was recognised that additional training opportunities were required and Daring Greatly were commissioned to deliver ‘Parents with a Purpose’, this programme focussed on parents’ personal development and wellbeing activities. There were many challenges and barriers the parents faced when considering returning to work including English as a second language, money and debt issues, health related conditions including mental health, criminal convictions and housing issues etc. Given the barriers parents work through, it can take time to progress through the stages of the employability pipeline to access all the support required. It is important to work at the pace the parents are comfortable with and this is recognised within their agreed personal action plan. In 2024/25 there were 128 parents who progressed into employment and 7 progressed into self- employment. Funded Work Placements were commenced by 10 parents, a Funded Work Placement is a funded role within a third sector organisation where the full salary costs are provided to the organisation for a period of 6 months to support the parent to develop and enhance their skills and gain valuable work experience. Traineeship opportunities were funded for 18 parents within the Local Authority where they were able to gain valuable work experience within various sections of the Local Authority, the roles were created to be family friendly and provide flexible working for parents with a view to them developing skills to progress into other employment within the Local Authority or other organisations. There were 12 parents who entered Further Education and 132 who gained a qualification. During 2024/25 we continued to receive referrals for people who were arriving in Renfrewshire through resettlement schemes. There were 29 parent refugees who registered with our employability services. In addition to the Parental Employability Advisors Ukrainian parents have access to a Ukrainian speaking Advisor who can support them with translation and provide support throughout their journey into employment. The team also have Advisors who can speak Urdu and Arabic. The Employer Liaison team engaged with employers to encourage flexible working options when considering recruiting parents, employers were offered funding through the Parental Employer Recruitment Incentive to create an opportunity for a parent. The Transition to Work welfare fund was accessed by 44 parents in the year to support them financially in making the transition into employment, parents were able to access up to £500 paid
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 28 over a period of 13 weeks. In addition to this funding they were able to receive financial support with clothing for interviews and for commencing employment and funding towards travel costs for the initial 3 months of employment. Social Value Lab Social Value Lab were commissioned in December 2023 to consult with parents in the Renfrewshire area, this consultation was aimed at engaging with parents who had not previously accessed support or who had registered and didn’t engage. The team at Social Value Lab consulted with 23 parents conducting in-depth interviews and focus groups and 95 parents completed an online survey. They also engaged with the Parental Advisors and with Key Stakeholders. The report was published in October 2024. The team engaged with parents from all Child Poverty Priority Groups and parents from across Renfrewshire, they also engaged with parents who were unemployed, in work, on maternity leave and who were students. The research identified barriers that are being faced by parents around accessing childcare provision, transport to opportunities, financial barriers and the availability of employment opportunities that suit them and their family circumstances. In response, the team are working on raising awareness of the support to remove barriers to employment available through Invest and LEP provision and are working with the team and the LEP Sub Group – Parental Employability Group to identify gaps in current provision and develop other programme to provide additional support. 4.3 Looking forward to 2024/25 Looking to next year, Invest will continue to deliver outreach services and provide services in local areas across Renfrewshire over the period of 2025/26. We aim to continue to engage with third sector groups and organisations and other partners to raise awareness of the many benefits of employment to families and the support available to parents to help them start their own journeys towards work. Employability staff will continue to work closely with organisations that already have good relationships with parents, in particular those working with the child poverty target groups. Parents can access LEP commissioned provision for 2025/26 from organisations which have been awarded LEP Grants to deliver projects and support to unemployed and underemployed parents: • ‘I Was Gonnae Charity’ will provide a music-based project to support parents through a motivational and creative employability programme.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 29 • ‘West College Scotland’ will deliver a parental YES (Your Employability Skills) programme, a personalised learning programme to support parents with multiple barriers into employment. • ‘Challenges Group’ will deliver the Making Work Work employability programme for Mums returning to work or looking to progress in employment, this programme provides an opportunity to work towards a Chartered Management Institute qualification. • ‘RAMH’ will deliver the Living Life to The Full wellbeing programme for a group of parents • ‘West College Scotland’ will also deliver ESOL for Employability programmes. • ‘Kairos Language Café’ will provide conversational English sessions to further enhance communication skills. • ‘Community Transport Glasgow’ are delivering a minibus and bus driver programme with an element of practical driving work experience. • ‘West College Scotland’ Care programme will provide training for people looking to progress into employment in care, this programme will also include work experience. • ‘Brick Lane’ will deliver a music based programme including the opportunity to gain an SQA National Progression Award in Music Performing. • ‘Generation X’ are delivering and 8-week programme to support people to develop skills to progress into employment in Technology and Green sectors. • ‘BDA’ will provide self-employment support for parents looking to progress into self- employed opportunities. These commissioned services will work in partnership with Invest in Renfrewshire’s Parental Employability Support team, with Invest providing the wraparound support for parents participating. Invest will work in partnership to recruit parents for each of the programmes and will provide ongoing support during and after the programmes to support with progression to next steps on their employability journey. Invest also plans to continue to expand the outreach services over the period of 2024/25 to offer services from other venues to support more parents in the different locations across Renfrewshire. This includes a further expansion of the outreach at Gallowhill Community Centre, which is being developed with an aim of engaging with parents from this area. This location has been selected due to the recent sharp increase in child poverty rates within the area. The team will work in partnership with other organisations to meet the needs of parents engaging.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 30 The team are also working on several programme developments to enhance the services and provide additional support to parents in Renfrewshire. 4.4 NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Employment Programmes Throughout 2024/25, NHS GGC has continued to focus on three themes around employability: Apprenticeships, Academy and Career, with work being progressed under those themes including: Apprentice • 42 apprentices graduated this year, with a recognition event taking place in September 24. • An ‘Apprentice Ambassador’ promoted activity through participation at careers events • Two job coaches have provided enhanced support to young people in apprentice roles. • The first NHSGGC apprentice survey took place in Nov 2024 to gather feedback on experience and shape future priorities • An apprentice pathways event took place in February 2025, which was attended by 575 senior phase pupils. In addition, two Academy programmes were completed • An apprentice webinar with DWP during Scottish Apprentice week had over 100 attendees. Academy • Project Search continued with the annual intake of 12 young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, for a programme based at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. • Facilities and Admin service leads prmomoted NHS GGC Entry level roles at DWP job fairs Careers • Careers promotion continues in Get Ready format covering senior pupil access to nursing, podiatry, physiotherapy and medicine. This programme is led by profession educators with aim to give practical insight to career, study and entry routes • NHS GGC clinical and technical services supported STEM events for senior pupils during Scottish Careers week Nov 2024 and March 2025 for the Glasgow and West areas, with 1,100 pupils attending. • Online events were held by NHS GGC to support Scottish Apprenticeship Week • MCR Pathways mentoring continues.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 31 Plans for 2025/26 are to continue these three themes directed by workforce priorities in the NHS GGC workforce plan, Anchor Plan and engagement with partners through the LEPs. NHS GGC will also be exploring model of paid placements through LEPs and other partners. 4.5 Procurement In Renfrewshire, we are committed to maximising Community Benefits through Council procurement activities by including specific Community Benefit Clauses and targets within procurement contracts. These cover payment of the Living Wage as well as targeted employment and training opportunities. Fair work practices in areas such as zero hour contracts and worker representation are also scored. The Council’s Procurement Team has realised 162 Community Benefits this year. 27 of these were for communities, 84 of these are skills and training opportunities and 34 recruitment, with the rest being supply chain opportunities. Community Wealth Building (CWB) is a key priority and Community Benefits are evaluated as part of the tendering process and monitored on a quarterly basis. Ongoing and future work to improve processes and outreach: Our CWB Coordinator chairs the Council’s refreshed Community Benefits Forum and along with the Corporate Procurement Manager has put in place key terms of reference, strategic purpose and clear performance measures for the delivery of the council’s community benefits. This has included streamlining the monitoring of community benefits to help support better delivery. To help suppliers deliver benefits to those most in need across Renfrewshire, Community Benefit Forum membership has grown to include representation from a wider range of council services such as HSCP, Housing, ICT and Connected Communities as key partners which in turn widens our outreach in the community. The Community Benefits Forum is a key lever for the delivery of benefits from existing contracts and the group has now taken on a key role in strategic development of the community benefit approach in relevant contract strategies. This has enabled identification of new opportunities for the delivery of community benefits including building a range of social, economic, and/or environmental conditions into the delivery of council contracts from pre-tender stage to address local priorities. The Council now uses Cenefits, a community benefits tracking system which provides real time monitoring, reporting and evaluation of all procurement contracts with community benefit commitments. Cenefits provides the council with accurate reporting data to measure benefits by
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 32 type, location, impact and level of engagement from contractor, ensuring Renfrewshire Council’s community benefit delivery is now has a centralised evidence base. Ongoing work has also included supplier engagement with focus on Renfrewshire’s local and/or SME suppliers. This includes hosting events to support suppliers to better understand the needs of the Renfrewshire community and promote awareness of opportunities for our local supply base as well as upskilling suppliers to be enabled to access these opportunities. Suppliers are also being supported to better understand and utilise the Cenefits system- leading to better, more efficient delivery and monitoring of community benefit outcomes. NHS GGC is also a procurer and an affiliate member of the the Supplier Development Programme (SDP), which is a partnership of Local Authorities, Scottish Government and other public bodies that work together to bring free support in all aspects of tendering to Scottish-based small and medium enterprises. Membership of SDP is recognised as a community benefit to the public sector in Scotland. NHS GGC has continued to ensure procurement attendance at local and national "Meet the Buyer" events where appropriate. Further highlights from NHS GGC include work to increase partnership working between NHS GGC Procurement, Public Health (Health Improvement), Supplier Development Programme (SDP), Glasgow Council for Voluntary Sector (GCVS), and Third Sector Interface to improve awareness and use of Community Benefits Gateway (CBG). The CBG is a free and easy-to-use online service that connects NHS Scotland suppliers with third-sector community organisations within Scotland who are looking for assistance with community initiatives (needs). In collaboration with Public Health Scotland, the CBG helps improve the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of local areas and assists in the reduction of health inequalities across Scotland. During 2024/25, two bespoke CBG webinars were delivered by SDP: third sector organisation facing and supplier facing to raise awareness of the CBG, to demonstrate its functionality, and to cover the basis of writing successful community needs applications which meet the criteria. The NHSGGC Public Health (Health Improvement) team worked closely and proactively with all partners to: • Identify and resolve any issues with accessing the CBG portal by TSOs or suppliers. • Support third sector organisations to submit their community need application by offering guidance on criteria as well as practical support. • Supporting suppliers to identify community needs on the portal which they might be able to meet
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 33 4.6 Childcare Since August 2022, all eligible children receive 1140 hours at nursery, an approved childminder or a combination of both. This includes all children who are 3 and 4 and some 2 year olds. In Renfrewshire there are 38 Council ELC establishments, 36 approved funded provider establishments and 12 childminders delivering the ELC entitlement. Most of our nursery centres are open before and after the school day across the full year to support working parents. We have also been focussing on childcare within our holiday provision, trying to ensure this supports parents who need childcare while they work. The childminding workforce has declined in recent years during the expansion of early learning centres, and shortages of childminders are being reported with a decline of 41% in Renfrewshire since 2016. The Council, through RLEP, has funded a programme by the Scottish Childminding Association to recruit and train childminders in Renfrewshire to help raise the number of approved childminders. This started in 23/24 and will be ongoing in 24/25 with 5 women currently active on the programme, 2 of whom have submitted their applications to the care commission for registration, so hopefully being ‘open for business’ soon. Renfrewshire Council is committed to supporting the independent sector’s contribution to early years provision in Renfrewshire, through the allocation of funding to support a range of private and voluntary sector organisations which deliver services for families with young children. In 24/25 £83,838 was allocated to out of school care groups in the private and voluntary sector and for early years voluntary sector organisations, playgroups and toddler groups. 5 Theme 2: Maximising the support available for families to lead dignified lives and meet their basic needs Although this year some aspects of the cost of living crisis have eased, such as inflation rates, the effects are still being felt by households across Renfrewshire. Continued high costs are eroding living standards, reducing financial resilience and negatively affecting household debt affordability. We know some households have been disproportionately affected by these developments with low income families hit hardest. This year, Renfrewshire Council has targeted resources to support local households, working to ensure their income is maximised and outgoings are minimised. Our ongoing commitment to advice provision is illustrated in the number of services and projects the Council funds. With a General, a Legal and Welfare Rights advice service funded at Renfrewshire Citizens Advice Bureau,
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 34 as well as an embedded advice service for High and ASN schools, this is an investment of over £465,000 per year. This provision is in addition to our own Advice Works Team which provides general benefit and money advice to thousands of families every year. Advice Works also supports areas like housing, better-off calculations for employability and over the last several years has provided advice in Renfrewshire Foodbank. We have a team of 3 full time energy advocates who provide energy advice to households of all types and an Improving the Cancer Journey and Long Term Conditions Service for those who have received a diagnosis. Overall, Renfrewshire Council’s advice provision is considerable, and when advice funded, for example through Renfrewshire HSCP and external sources is added, this is a significant investment. In our partnerships with Renfrewshire HSCP, NHSGGC, the third sector and more widely, we have worked together to support families through embedding advice where possible and augmenting processes to encourage take up of advice. For the third year, over the winter period, we worked again with partners to deliver the Winter Connections programme - encouraging people to connect and participate in activities in warm and welcoming spaces across communities in Renfrewshire. Our Fairer Renfrewshire work includes projects and activities which help families living in poverty. Our Advice Partnership continues, with advice providers across Council Services, the third sector, HSCP, Social Security Scotland and most recently NHSGGC coming together to share information and work to reduce gaps and coordinate services. Our refreshed School Meal Debt process has support for families at its core and advice is offered to everyone applying for School Clothing Grants and Free School Meals. Our summer programme is not only free to families, but is targeted at those who may need it most. Our innovative affordable credit pilot has continued by attracting external funding; our digital initiatives bring together a range of partners working together to support the digitally excluded, and our housing strategies alongside our work to bolster administered funds and maximise benefits for families help make families’ money go further and help them avoid financial crises. Throughout Renfrewshire, across Council services, and with a variety of partners, our actions help families reduce their cost of living and lead dignified lives. 5.1 Income maximisation through advice Throughout 2024/25, income maximisation through advice has been a focus for the Council and its partners. The continued high costs of living have made it more important than ever that families
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 35 are supported to claim the benefits, financial support and benefits in kind they are entitled to, as well as manage debt. The Council’s Advice Works service continues to provide advice with regards to money, debt and benefits, as well as providing advice and representation at benefit appeals. Overall, the financial gain for clients this year from new claims to benefit was over £13 million, with an additional £0.56 million in mandatory reconsiderations and appeals. Advice Works have also helped clients manage £12.47 million in debt. The Advice Works service moved to a new computer system which allowed more accurate recording and reporting of figures. The Council-funded Renfrewshire Citizens Advice Bureau’s (RCAB) general service gave over 7,100 appointments and has gained £2.48 million for the people of Renfrewshire this year. This is in addition to the 342 people seen by the Legal Service, who had additional gains of over £3,400. The primary use of the legal service has been to avoid homelessness, liability for debt, and to reduce liability to increased financial expenditure which would not be recorded as client financial gain. The Welfare Rights service had 463 contacts resulting in 249 clients and £383,813 in financial gain for clients. New debt cases this year have led to over £9.36 million worth of debt currently being managed. Overall, between the two services, 6,518 clients fell into Child Poverty Priority families, with the disabled child/adult in a family being the largest category: 2,183 seen by RCAB and 1,120 by Advice Works. This year, Advice Works and RCAB have continued to work closely to ensure people are getting the benefits they are entitled to and the best money advice. They worked together on a benefit take up campaign, developed with partners and successfully launched during September 2024 primarily aimed at increasing Pension Credit take-up, with the broader aim of maximising income for low- income households. Further ‘Talk Money’ events were held during November 2024. We have continued to work closely with Social Security Scotland to ensure that referral between our clients and theirs is as simple as possible to maximise income for parents and parents to be.With both the Local Delivery Lead and Client Support Adviser Team Leader being part of our Advice Partnership, we can ensure relevant information is shared. Our Talk Money week event described at 5.8 was an example of a cross partner activity where Advice Works, RCAB and Scottish Social Security came together with our Energy Advocates and Invest in Renfrewshire to support maximisation of income, supported by third sector partners and our Skoobmobile to attract and entertain families.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 36 In our benefits take up work, we continue to cascade specifically designed marketing materials around benefits for parents, including Best Start Grants and Scottish Child Payment to maximise numbers coming forward to claim these benefits. 5.2 Family Advice and School Support Recognising the impact of dedicated income maximisation support for families with children, during 2023/24, work was undertaken to redesign current advice provision for families to increase the capacity and reach of our advice services and two advice pilots started – a family advice service within Advice Works and a school support service provided by RCAB. The Family Advice team works with families to maximise household income through income advice, but also seeks to increase take-up of wider supports provided by the Council for families, for example, free school meals, school clothing grants or employability support for parents. There were 331 referrals received to the Family Advice Service during 2024/25, with 227 clients engaging. This led to client financial gains of £82,417.21. The majority of clients who engaged fell under at least one of the Scottish Government Child Poverty Priority Family Types: 84 lone parents, 51 families with a child under one, 49 families that include a member with a disability, 35 ethnic minority families, 26 mothers under 25 years and 21 families with 3 or more children. The Family Advice Service is provided by the Council’s Advice Works and supports families with children in early years and primary school settings, complementary to the advice service for secondary schools that is provided by RCAB. In particular, Advice Works will collaborate with primary school office staff to address issues such as school meal debt more proactively. The service also supports pregnant women, and receives referrals from a number of sources including Health Visitors and other NHS teams. During 2024/25, the Renfrewshire HSCP Health Improvement Team refreshed their early-years financial inclusion pathway and delivered a briefing session to promote this with Health Visiting staff. The majority of referrals (55%) to the Family Advice Service were from the Health Visiting Team, with a number from Other Healthcare Staff, Social Work, Education, and Self-Referrals. In 2023, £100,000 was allocated to RCAB to support an embedded model of advice in all Renfrewshire secondary and additional support needs schools for a two-year period. The ‘School Support Service’ started in August 2023 and provides advice to: • all secondary and additional support needs school attendees, • their families and carers,
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 37 • school staff who may approach the service about a pupil/pupil’s family, • school staff who may approach the service about their own concerns. The advice provided by the project covers the following areas which support families to maximise their income: • Welfare Benefits including Social Security Scotland Benefits • Money and debt • Free School Meals, School Clothing Grants, and other benefits in kind, also collaborating with secondary and ASN school office staff to address issues such as school meal debt more proactively • Benefits that come directly to young people, such as free bus travel and Education Maintenance Allowance. RCAB work with school staff, including guidance, pastoral and home link staff to reach families who are struggling with money issues and ensure swift, proactive, and where possible, preventative support is provided. Where appropriate, the support provided is complemented by existing RCAB general and legal advice services. During 2024/25, there have been 263 advice appointments/contacts made and the service has helped 138 families with a client financial gain of £415,884. More than half of the client financial gains related to Universal Credit, although a significant proportion related to disability benefits. The ‘School Support Service’ was initially a 2 year pilot to establish the most effective way to support young people and their families to maximise their income through utilisation of school premises and staff. The decision has been made to extend the service, with £50,000 allocated for 25/26. 5.3 Improving the Cancer Journey Our Improving the Cancer Journey and Long-term Conditions services help people to get the support they need – whether that’s physical, emotional, practical, medical, or financial. The services are a partnership between Macmillan Cancer Support, Renfrewshire Council, and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. The Improving the Cancer Journey service has continued to offer holistic advice for those with a cancer diagnosis. With money worries highlighted as the main issue for service users, in the last year, £220,423 has been gained for 483 clients. In addition, a service for those with Long-term Conditions commenced last year, with 215 clients gaining £29,048.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 38 Although these services are universal, many parents have gained from them, with the majority of clients living in SIMD 1 and 2 areas. Both services bringing much needed income and other support into households affected by illness. 5.4 NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde – Advice in Hospitals Although the Royal Alexandra Hospital (RAH) in Paisley is attended by patients from the West of Scotland, it sees most of those in need of hospital care from Renfrewshire. The Support and Information Service aims to be the first port of call for all non-clinical health & social care enquiries. The information Hub in the RAH provides information about money and benefits, income maximisation support and help with energy bills as well as information and support for carers and patients. It also provides a food supply on discharge for those who need it, in partnership with Renfrewshire Foodbank. The Health Improvement Lead with responsibility for the service, is part of Renfrewshire’s Advice Partnership. In the Royal Hospital for Children, the Money & Debt with advocacy service supports any families who have a child as an inpatient or who attend the hospital as an outpatient. This service sees families from all 6 target groups as identified in Best Start, Bright Future Scottish Government Child Poverty Delivery Plan (2022). The service works closely with families who often experience major life changing circumstances due to a child being born with a medical condition, a child suddenly becomes unwell, or they are diagnosed with a lifelong or life limiting illness. These Parents often become Carers, and they are faced with increasing and additional costs of caring for a child with a disability or lifelong or life limiting illness. 14 families from Renfrewshire were supported this year. The Money & Debt with advocacy service was successful in securing funding for the 2025/26 financial year through a competitive application to the Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity. This funding is a positive step forward and reflects the value and impact the service continues to deliver to children and families. However, despite this success, the current allocation does not fully cover the operational costs required to sustain the service throughout the entire year. As a result, work is actively ongoing to identify and secure additional funding sources to address this financial shortfall and ensure the service can operate at full capacity for the duration of 2025/26. In line with its established approach, the service will continue to engage and collaborate with all key stakeholders through its dedicated multi-disciplinary steering group. This group includes representatives from the Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity, internal staff across departments, external professionals, and—crucially—the families who access and benefit from the service. This
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 39 collaborative model ensures that a wide range of expertise and lived experience informs service planning, delivery, and ongoing improvement. Central to the service’s ethos is a commitment to placing the voices and experiences of families at the heart of everything it does. The insights and feedback gathered from the children and families supported by the service will continue to play a pivotal role in shaping priorities, guiding enhancements, and ensuring that the service remains responsive, compassionate, and effective in meeting the needs of its users throughout 2025/26. Stronger Start is an embedded Money Advice and Advocacy Service offered to women who engage with the Blossom Maternity Service across Renfrewshire, Inverclyde and West Dunbartonshire. Stronger Start staff are co-located within the outpatients department at the RAH Maternity Hospital, Paisley, Vale of Leven Community Maternity Unit, Alexandria and Inverclyde Community Maternity Unit, Greenock and offer a person centred wrap-around service involving money advice and advocacy provision which is flexible and tailored to individual need. Stronger Start aims to support at-risk women to maximise their income, increase financial capability, increase resilience for the future and increase health and wellbeing. In turn, this may prevent homelessness, and will tackle debt issues, as well as addressing other health and poverty-related issues. This service was developed through a Stronger Start Steering Group established and chaired by Renfrewshire HSCP Health Improvement team and consisting of key partners, including from Council services across Renfrewshire, Inverclyde and West Dunbartonshire. The Steering Group worked closely with Renfrewshire CAB, to support them in being awarded funding from the Improving Lives National Lottery Fund to run the Stronger Start Pilot for a year and has led on the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Pilot. The pilot was launched on 13th February 2024 and following a successful first year, an additional £190,434 in funding was secured in January 2025, extending the programme through to January 2027. The service received a total of 135 referrals during the first year, with 105 of these referrals coming from the RAH, Paisley. A total of 98 women received both advice and advocacy support during the first year, with 85 of these women being initially referred via the RAH. During the pilot year there was £150k of financial gains, with equates to an average financial gain of £1500 per woman who received support. Stronger Start staff have provided support on a variety of issues including benefits, debt, finance and charitable support, housing, immigration, asylum, and tax as well as food bank and fuel bank referrals. The most sought-after advice topic is benefits. The second most sought after advice is finance & charitable support. Clients are assisted to apply for Best Start
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 40 grants, crisis grants, council tax reductions, and Universal Credit. Clients are also supported with housing issues such as rent arrears, homelessness and threatened homelessness. All people referred to the service fall within the six child priority family types that face additional barriers to moving out of poverty. Ongoing monitoring and evaluation will be undertaken by the Renfrewshire Health Improvement team and the Steering group partnership with Renfrewshire CAB to assess outcomes, enhance service delivery, and inform long-term sustainability planning. In addition to Stronger Start, NHS GGC also have a Maternity Matters Debt and Advocacy Service for women and, where appropriate, their families who are accessing the Blossom Maternity Service in Glasgow. The service is designed to assist women experiencing multiple vulnerabilities, including those with disabilities, from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, single parents, and pregnant women from priority groups identified in Best Start, Bright Futures and the Scottish Government’s Child Poverty Delivery Plan. Providing a similar service to Stronger Start, the Glasgow based service does see a small number of women from Renfrewshire who have complex needs. The service has a holistic, person-centred approach, addressing the wide-ranging needs of the women it supports. Every individual accessing the service receives a comprehensive benefits and welfare rights assessment, alongside an income maximisation check. Support is provided for managing debt, accessing energy assistance, and securing direct grants to prevent disconnection from essential utilities such as heating and lighting. In addition, the service offers tailored support for housing challenges, access to emergency food and Foodbanks, and guidance in applying for relevant grants. For women who are ready, the service also provides pathways to education, training, and employment opportunities supporting long-term financial security and independence. Stronger Start Case Study Client C completed a benefits check with the Stronger Start Team which identified that she would be entitled to Universal Credit when she went onto maternity pay. She was awarded £681.87 per month and also applied for Best Start Foods and Best Start Pregnancy and Baby Payment. She said “They helped me understand my rights to support and that they are there to advctae for myself. I feel this is a necessary service for women in the area as often we are too scared to ask for help or don’t know where to start”
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 41 The service will be fully funded by Public Health for the 2025/26 financial year and will continue to collaborate with partners through the established multi-disciplinary steering group, which includes representation from Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity, Money Matters, maternity staff, and critically pregnant women and their families. 5.5 Pregnancy, Maternity and Early Years Staff Resource The Pregnancy, Maternity and Early Years Staff Resource is designed to support staff working with families affected by the cost of living. Developed by the Renfrewshire HSCP Health Improvement Team in partnership with Engage Renfrewshire during 2022/23, the resource provides up-to-date information on a wide range of support services. It includes details on eligibility, what support families can receive, and how to access it through referral or application. Launched in May 2023, the resource is available online, with shortened PDF versions covering five key categories for ease of use. The resource is now included on the newly launched NHSGGC Health Visitor App, Happy Healthy Tots, to further improve staff access to information and contribute to efforts to reduce child poverty. The app, which is free to download, can support parents from pregnancy until their child goes to school. 5.6 Cost of the Nursery Day Cost of the Nursery Day (COND) is a pilot project delivered by the Renfrewshire HSCP Health Improvement Team during 2024/25. This project supports early-years establishments through upskilling staff to become a ‘Cost of the Nursery Day’ champion. These champions: • Attend two one-hour training sessions and share learning with the rest of their team. • Work with their team to develop actions they can implement to support their families with the cost of living and/or reduce financial pressures. • Become part of an email distribution list to allow the Health Improvement Team share key information, events and opportunities relating to the cost of living with their establishment. This training utilised learning and good practice from Glasgow City HSCP Health Improvement Team, who piloted a project of the same name during 2018/19. The project content was revised to localise content to Renfrewshire and account for the post-pandemic landscape/cost of living crisis. Training sessions were shortened due to reduced capacity from staff across early-years
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 42 establishments. Lived experience input for the training sessions was gained through focus groups with Home-Start Renfrewshire and attending the Fairer Renfrewshire panel. COND aims to help families through action on the three key drivers of poverty outlined in the Scottish Government’s Best Start, Bright Futures: Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2022 to 2026: • Costs of Living: early-years establishment practices and increased knowledge of money advice service and referral route. • Income from Social Security and Benefits: increased knowledge of money advice service and referral route. • Income from Employment: increased knowledge of employability service and referral route. Training was delivered between February and March 2025. There were 32 sign-ups to the pilot project. 25 staff attended the training, with 18 attending both of the sessions. The majority of attendees (90%) stated they were “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with the following: delivery of training; training materials; breakout room discussion’ relevance to role; overall experience. Attendees also reported increased knowledge of the causes and consequences of poverty, increased confidence raising the issue of money worries and increased knowledge of support available in Renfrewshire. 5.7 Tackling food and fuel insecurity Support around food and fuel has had an increased focus since the Cost of Living Crisis. While we recognise that inflation rates and fuel costs have decreased since the height of the crisis, costs are still much higher than they were before the crisis, and work is taking place across the Council
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 43 NHSGGC Public Health team and partners to support low income families who are struggling with increased food and fuel bills. Fair Food Renfrewshire Renfrewshire’s food partnership, Fair Food Renfrewshire, continues to evolve, with the steering group meeting quarterly, working towards developing a food strategy for Renfrewshire and achieving their four key priorities: • Ending food insecurity and the need for foodbanks. • Increasing access and availability of growing grounds in every town and village within Renfrewshire. • Widening access and availability to educational opportunities regarding nutrition and cooking skills, and wider use of ‘home economics’ type classes within education, health, and community settings. • Encouraging individuals and businesses to buy local food, and also encourage organisations to place more emphasis on the better value of using local food suppliers within a procurement policy context The food partnership brings together key stakeholders from right across the local food system including the local authority, Renfrewshire HSCP, Health Board, third sector and community groups, public sector establishments and food growers to develop a healthier, fairer and more sustainable food system locally. Last year, Fair Food Renfrewshire became a member of Sustainable Food Places, giving the partnership access to additional support and expertise from regional and national partners. Partnership coordinators meet with Nourish Scotland and other local food partnerships on a regular basis to share updates and best practice. This year too the partnership joined forces with the Waste and Resources Action Programme to support Food Waste Action Week 2025, encouraging individuals and families to buy loose fruit and veg to reduce food waste and save money. Fair Food Renfrewshire has established a food support working group made up of representatives from local emergency and community food providers such as Renfrewshire Foodbank and community larders and pantries. The purpose of the forum is to identify and solve issues for those suffering from food insecurity and those providing emergency and community food, exploring opportunities for collaborative working, knowledge sharing and identifying key priorities, including ensuring culturally appropriate food is available and healthy food is promoted. The group is working to develop a new, sustainable model of food provision in Renfrewshire to support those experiencing food insecurity with an improved holistic approach.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 44 Community Food Framework The HSCP Health Improvement team secured funding from NHSGGC Public Health team in January 2024 to implement a Community Food Action Plan within Renfrewshire that aligns with Fair Food Renfrewshire principles and Community Wealth Building. The plan aims to support healthy eating through community-based awareness-raising and skills development activities with a view to help improve diet, support a healthier lifestyle and reduce health inequalities. The funding enabled: • Provision of free train the trainer community food training. The training was provided to 11 local community chefs to help develop community food literacy and deliver cookery programmes to local organisations and families.The delivery of free cookery classes which include ingredients for families to take home and cook themselves. • Delivery of 9 free cookery classes which included ingredients for families to take home and cook themselves. The classes were delivered in partnership by Pachedu and Tannahill Centre. • A small grant fund, which supported 10 local organisations to begin, or continue developing, healthy community food provision/growing that promotes dignity and resilience within Renfrewshire. • Helping organisations that support 27 participants from ethnic minority backgrounds to target health and food activity and increase access to healthy foods. • Providing training opportunities to 14 3rd sector organisations to support employability opportunities relating to food. Through the delivery of the Community Food Framework 384 participants had access to additional food sources through community cooking classes and community growing. 249 of the participants were under 18, 83 were at risk of type 2 diabetes, overweight and/or obesity, 20 had additional support needs and 70 reported long term conditions. In collaboration with NHSGGC Public Health team, Health Improvement continue to monitor, report and evaluate on the Community Framework activities. A refreshed framework will be developed following further funding allocation from NHS GCC Public Health team. Nourish Nurseries Renfrewshire HSCP Health Improvement piloted Nourish Nurseries within 4 pre five centres. The Health Improvement team worked closely with Renfrewshire Council Education to scope and agree the appropriate nurseries to take part in the pilot based on the most recent child poverty statistics.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 45 The Nourish Nurseries pilot began in March 2024 and ran for six weeks, with each nursery receiving a weekly delivery of fresh vegetables from local provider, Barnhill Farm. This ensured that produce was fresh and ready to use upon arrival. The pilot was designed to be non-prescriptive, allowing nurseries flexibility in how they decide to use the vegetables according to their needs and preferences. This approach encouraged creativity among staff while promoting a positive relationship with vegetables among children. The model aligns with Setting the Table and the Peas Please initiative, both supporting the integration of fresh produce into early years settings and healthier eating habits from a young age. The pilot has been received positively and an evaluation report is being developed to highlight the outcomes and support future funding. Emergency Infant Formula Pathway Directive from NHSGGC Public Health Maternal and Infant Nutrition Group identified the need for all HSCP areas across the Health Board to develop and implement an Emergency Infant Feeding Pathway. This pathway is based on guidance published by UNICEF and the Scottish Government. Pathways from NHS Grampian, Glasgow and Inverclyde were also utilised, further developed and localised to Renfrewshire HSCP. Within NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, health practitioners escalated concern that if families were experiencing extreme, sudden financial hardship this resulted, at times, in inappropriate referrals to Social Work for access to short-term financial support (through Section 22 monies) where no other child care need or risk had been identified. Renfrewshire’s Family Wellbeing Service offer support on a wide range of issues that may be affecting family health and wellbeing. To provide a cash-first, stigma-free approach, families are referred to the Family Wellbeing Service, who will process for provision of funds through Section 22 monies and provide ongoing health and wellbeing support. The Renfrewshire HSCP Health Improvement Team, Social Work and Family Wellbeing Service delivered staff briefing sessions ahead of the launch of the pathway in September 2024. The pathway and related documents (referral form and Standard Operating Procedure) can be accessed on the Pregnancy, Maternity and Early-Years Staff Resource webpage. Since the launch in September 2024, six referrals were received (one returning). The majority of referrals (67%) were from the Health Visiting Team, as well as Home-Start and the Family Wellbeing Service. Follow-up phone calls were made to ensure funds were received and if further health and wellbeing support was required.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 46 Food for Thought Education Fund This year 3 Early Learning Centres and 2 primary schools received funding from Education Scotland’s Food For Thought Education Fund, with grants going to: • Bridge of Weir Primary School - £2,935 • Moorpark ELCC - £2,941 • St Charles ELCC – £3,000 • St John Ogilivie Primary School - £1,062 • Williamsburgh ELCC - £2,289 The grants were used for a variety of purposes, including weekly family cooking sessions, purchase of child friendly cookery equipment, seeds and a polytunnel and other food growing supplies and developing school allotment spaces. Moorpark ELCC used the grant to purchase all the necessary equipment to implement our ‘Stay and Play’ sessions which focused on families coming into the nursery and engage in cooking sessions with their children. Using a weekly delivery of fresh vegetables from local supplier, Barnhill Farm enabled the ELCC to offer opportunities for families to come in and learn how to make soup with their children and they have reached out to other local shops and business to hope to source other ingredients. Children are now being offered more opportunities within the playroom to cook a range of food and help prepare snack and have been involved in cooking traditional Scottish dishes such as Cranachan and haggis neeps and tatties to celebrate Burns night and a Chinese stir fry to celebrate Chinese New Year. In addition to the ‘Stay and Play’ sessions a group of 10 children and families were identified who have lower incomes, and invited for a 10 week block of cooking. The benefits reported were not just through food provision. Through these targeted weekly sessions with families, the ELCC was able to see progress in parent and carer’s confidence, at the beginning they were very quiet and observed to be nervous and by the end of the block they were all engaging and talking to each other, supporting each other giving advice about sleep and eating problems they are facing. One parent built up friendships with other parents through these sessions and reported that she was supported by another parent in the group at her at an appointment for her son who has additional support needs. The sessions also allowed identification of parents and families who are requiring further support to engage and interact with their children who were then signed up for ‘Incredible Years’ which is a parenting support programme.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 47 Energy support Supported in part by Fairer Renfrewshire funding, Renfrewshire Council’s Energy Management Unit comprises a team of three who provide advice to anyone struggling with energy costs and advocate for clients with energy companies. The advisers can also access available funds to support clients reduce bills/access emergency fuel. Overall, client financial gain for this service in 24/25 was £120,442, this included £13,574 of debt written off or works done. There were 617 referrals to the service, with 520 clients actively supported and of those, 66 had children under the age of 16 in the household. In total, 123 children under the age of 16 lived in households that were given support. Energy Advocates have also been out in the community, attending events around costs of living, for example in Community Learning and Development locations. Looking ahead, they are examining working with the Fuel Bank Foundation, which would allow then to provide fuel vouchers to those in emergency situations and have discussed the practicalities of this service with Renfrewshire CAB who are already partners of the Foundation. 5.8 Affordable Credit Engage Renfrewshire, our Third Sector Interface has led an affordable credit initiative under the banner of Renfrewshire Affordable Credit Alliance (RACA –www.RACA.org.uk) for a number of years. Funded by Trading Standards Scotland over the last year, the initiative employs an Affordable Credit Officer (ACO) who is jointly managed by Engage Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire Council. The ACO works within Renfrewshire communities covering two priority areas; promotion of affordable credit options in Renfrewshire, and the prevention/reduction of people using illegal money lenders. Over the past year, the ACO has engaged with organisations, including several Renfrewshire Housing Associations and organisations supporting those with mental health issues and caring responsibilities. She has also engaged with groups supporting child poverty priority groups such as lone parents, ethnically diverse families and those with a health condition or disability. Work has also been carried out with young people, speaking about safe borrowing, budgeting and other money concerns. In May 2024, RACA hosted a successful partnership Networking and Information Session, bringing together over 50 delegates to explore ways to strengthen financial resilience across Renfrewshire. The event was attended by credit unions, organisations from across the 3rd sector and RSL
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 48 representatives. The session fostered strengthened partnerships and reinforced the shared commitment to improving financial wellbeing across Renfrewshire. A highlight of the event was the launch of The Good Guide to Credit. The Good Guide to Credit was developed last year in response to the increase of short-term borrowing, including Buy Now Pay Later and concerns raised by Citizens Advice Scotland that money advisors were at capacity dealing with complex debt issues. The Good Guide to Credit is an educational resource for anyone who has ever borrowed money or is thinking about borrowing money. The booklet introduces the concept of credit and signposts to local credit unions and wider affordable credit provision. The Guide has been distributed around Renfrewshire, including to food pantries, local community groups and to local housing associations. The Guide is also available digitally for organisations to attach to their websites and send to service users, it also appears on the front page of every library digital device. This resource has been well received and has helped to inform families across Renfrewshire to make the right choices regarding credit. As part of Talk Money Week 2024, RACA, in partnership with Active Communities and Invest in Renfrewshire, hosted a breakfast event in Gallowhill. The aim of this event was to promote the uptake of benefits in a community setting. This was a family friendly event for all ages with activities such as smoothie making, bingo and a mindfulness session. Over 20 organisations came together to support financial resilience, including several representatives from Renfrewshire Council, advice services, community learning and the Skoobmobile. The event was a success with over 100 residents attending and it being featured on BBC 1’s ‘Morning Live’ show. RACA recruited and trained 32 Community Champions last year. The role of a community champion is to signpost and inform others about affordable credit, taking a zero-tolerance approach to loan shark use. The Community Champions are embedded within Renfrewshire, working and volunteering in a range of teams across Renfrewshire including Community Learning and Development and Family Wellbeing. 5.9 Digital For specific groups of people there remain real barriers to accessing digital which exacerbate existing inequalities. Digital exclusion can broadly be considered in terms of connectivity, access to a device, skills and positive and accessible online experiences. Renfrewshire has a strong reputation nationally in relation to the partnership approach to tackling digital exclusion and has carried this through 2024/25. Audit Scotland ‘Tackling Digital Exclusion” Report
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 49 Community empowerment, wealth and wellbeing are reflected in the strategic priorities underpinning the Council Plan and the council has worked collaboratively to deliver a place-based approach to digital exclusion, with work being recognised in the joint Accounts Commission and Auditor General report on digital exclusion in 2024. Digital Strategy Renfrewshire Council's recently approved Digital Strategy, which includes a dedicated strategic theme on Digital Inclusion, represents a significant step towards addressing child poverty in the region. By prioritising digital inclusion, the Council aims to bridge the digital divide that disproportionately affects children from low-income families. This priority aim to ensure that all everyone has access to the necessary digital tools and skills, thereby enhancing their opportunities and future prospects. The strategy includes measures such as promoting affordable internet access, distributing digital devices, and offering digital literacy programs. These efforts are crucial in mitigating the impact of poverty and overall well-being, ensuring that everyone in Renfrewshire can thrive in an increasingly digital world. Strengthening our approach to collaboration Our Citizen Voice and DigiRen Forums continue to promote multi-sector collaboration with Public, Third and Private sector to enable digital equity and minimise the number of people digitally excluded and to maximise the opportunity for everyone, regardless of their background, to have equal access to the benefits and opportunities of digital. DigiKnowVember – Renfrewshire’s Digital Inclusion In November 2024, DigiRen hosted Renfrewshire’s inaugural Digital Inclusion Week, known as DigiKnowVember, aimed at addressing digital exclusion among local families. This initiative, held from the 4th to the 8th, featured a series of free events and workshops designed to enhance digital skills and awareness. The week was a collaborative effort involving various local and national organisations from the DigiRen Network and Citizen’s Voice Forum, offering sessions on topics ranging from basic digital literacy to online safety and employability support. By providing accessible and practical digital education, DigiKnowVember played a crucial role in empowering families, particularly those affected by child poverty, to navigate the digital world more confidently and effectively. This initiative not only highlighted the importance of digital inclusion but also laid the groundwork for future efforts to bridge the digital divide in Renfrewshire.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 50 DigiZones A key priority and success during 2024/25 was the creation of DigiZones across 21 venues in Renfrewshire. This project was co-designed with a range of partners and those with lived experience, including the Fairer Renfrewshire Panel, and provides a consistent approach and branding, offering digital support, free access to devices and WiFi or signposting. During National Get Online Week, in October 2024, DigiZones launched across our network of 12 Libraries, 6 CLD Adult Learning Centres, 4 CLD Youth Venues, Station Seven in Johnstone (with 3rd sector partners Active Communities) and a mobile library (The Skoobmobile) was transformed into a mobile DigiZone. An evaluation framework was co-produced and is demonstrating considerable positive impact with the following 1st information based on Q4: • Over 100k visitors; • 236 training sessions delivered; • Over 208 hours of digital champions support delivered; • 14 devices loaned as part of device lending library; • Over 8.7k public devices accessed; and • Over 10.7k public access WI-FI sessions. Wi-Fi Project Renfrewshire is regarded as one of the best connected regions in the UK in terms of its connectivity infrastructure and Renfrewshire Council recognises Connectivity as a critical enabler for effective digital inclusion. The successful full rollout of the WI-FI project in November 2024 has resulted in free public access WI-FI being broadcast from up to 180 Council, Cultural, Leisure and Community venues across Renfrewshire and in 3 town centres. Furthermore, WI-FI is also available ‘to and through’ our Children’s Homes and Care Homes, in communal areas in the Council’s Sheltered Housing complexes and across various social care settings. Significant increased bandwidth across our learning estate allows faster access to learning resources. WI-FI is broadcast both within and in areas outside classrooms, meaning our children and young people are able to continue their learning online in areas within the school grounds. In addition, 29 of our schools received the Digital Schools Award Scotland (DSAS), 6 schools gained the new Digital Wellbeing Award and in May 2024 Rashielea Primary School gained the Digital
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 51 Endorsement Award, 4 years after gaining the DSAS and 26 schools have internationally certified RenSafe Online Ambassadors. Device Recycling Project With £10,000 budget secured from Fairer Renfrewshire funding, Citizens Voice Forum has also been working with a local third sector organisation with the aim of developing a Community-Led Secure Device Recycling Project. Once operational, devices can be donated via libraries, passed for refurbishment and refurbished devices being targeted to digitally excluded families and individuals including at larger families where children need to share devices. This work is expected to gather pace over the coming 12 months. Digital Champions Project The Council has continued to develop a Digital Champions network in partnership with OneRen and £80,000 has been allocated to this project to employ a Digital Champion Coordinator who has been in place since May 2023. This initiative, in partnership with Mhor Collective has built a network of volunteers and staff, capability and capacity across local third and community organisations, so that more local people can be supported to access and use digital technology. This work builds on Renfrewshire’s established place-based to digital inclusion model by further developing a model of best practice for use across Scotland. In the last year, 16 volunteers have been recruited, 780 people supported with 1,050 hours of volunteer support provided, expanded provision from 2 to 7 libraries and supported over 160 low-income households to access data from their Databank. The Digital Champions Project was externally evaluated by the Mhor Collective and University of the West of Scotland (UWS) during 2024/25 and the Report evidences that Digital Inclusion is much more than getting people online and the project has demonstrated whole-system benefits from tackling loneliness and isolation, supporting mental health and wellbeing and has played a key role in helping at least 4 digital champion volunteers back into employment. Broadband ‘Social Tariffs’ There is recognition that Broadband ‘Social Tariffs’ remains a barrier to helping people and families get online, both in terms of cost and also awareness. These are cheaper broadband and phone packages for people claiming Universal Credit, Pension Credit and some other benefits. The latest OfCom figures reveal that only 8% of eligible families across the UK actually take up Social Tariffs. The Council’s Digital Participation Officer has been working through DigiRen, Digital Citizens and other fora including the Advice Partnership to increase awareness about these tariffs to those who may be eligible. Furthermore, a dedicated webpage was created on the Council’s website with the aim of further promoting Social Tariffs across our Renfrewshire communities.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 52 5.10 Winter Connections The Winter Connections programme has been running during the winter months since November 2022. The programme has been delivered in partnership with local organisations and aims to encourage people to connect and participate in activities in warm and welcoming spaces across communities in Renfrewshire. Local community and voluntary organisations can apply for small grants of up to £2,000 to support with the additional costs of making venues, activities and sessions open as part of the programme. Items eligible for funding include equipment, food, energy costs, and rent. The programme has been evaluated each year and has positively contributed to Renfrewshire Council’s continued wider response to the cost-of-living crisis. As a result, in June 2024, £75,000 of funding was allocated from the Fairer Renfrewshire programme to support the delivery of a third year of Winter Connections for 2024/25. The programme continues to attract new organisations bidding for funding, with this year’s programme being delivered by a mix of organisation that have received funding before, and those new to Winter Connections. Funded activities needed to fit the criteria of Winter Connections and be: • Open, free and easy to access • Inclusive, welcoming, respectful, and safe • Able or willing to provide connections to other services and supports • Able to offer warm drinks/snacks/food along with activities, where possible The assessment panel consisted of Council, HSCP and 3rd sector representatives to ensure a transparent cross sector approach, and 42 projects were funded across Renfrewshire, with funding allocated to One Ren to support the programme by provide hot drinks, soup, and snacks in all Renfrewshire libraries and for families using the SkoobMobile service at their community stops. Winter Connections branded materials, including posters and stickers as well as leaflets with advice on where to find support with financial worries were also distributed to organisations participating in the programme along with free period products. A wide range of activities were provided as part of the programme, some of which were tailored to the age of those attending. Some projects were targeted specifically at older people or younger people, but many aimed to be intergenerational and to attract families. Activities included: • Youth club • Basic cooking class • Retro gaming
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 53 • Arts & crafts • Homework/after school club • Fun events for Halloween/Christmas Evaluation has shown that over 2,500 people benefitted from the programme which had a number of benefits, including the provision of free food alongside activities ensuring that the programme discretely supported families who are continuing to experience financial hardship. We offered a wide range of activities to bring young people together. These included creative activities such as art and craft, ceramics and jewellery making, creative writing, dance and singing, as well as provided snacks, drinks and a warm, welcoming space where young people can meet friends and get advice from supportive adults. CREATE Paisley It has created a safe and welcoming space for young people and new Scots to interact and socialise, helping to prevent isolation. The provision of warm food and valuable information has been immensely helpful to many of the young people, ensuring they feel supported and connected. Pachedu 5.11 Summer of Fun In May 2024, core funding of £100,000 was allocated through the Fairer Renfrewshire programme to support the development of a summer holiday programme, with a focus on providing support over the holiday period to low-income families. This built on the previous year’s Summer of Fun, where the programme was developed using funding provided by the Scottish Government. The Fairer Renfrewshire Lived Experience Panel played a key role in directing how funding for summer activities could be used. Initially it was agreed that £50,000 funding would be allocated to support a small grants programme for local community groups and organisations to operate for Summer 2024. This aimed to deliver free activities over the summer holidays which could reach communities that might be underserved by mainstream activities, particularly low-income families. The fund was very quickly oversubscribed and at the start of June 2024, a further £10,000 was allocated to support the programme. Utilising the remaining £50,000, Renfrewshire’s Community Learning and Development team developed a programme of activities for children and young people through a summer camp model in partnership with Street Stuff, and with the provision of a healthy meal. Work was undertaken to
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 54 prioritise access to camp bookings to families with low incomes, especially in the child poverty priority groups and through referrals from Childrens Services before opening up access more widely. The funding was used to deliver a varied programme of activities for children, families, and young people, along with youth work provision, a youth voice and participation programme, sports activities and an Adult & Family Learning programme. Summer Additional Support Needs (ASN) provision was across two sites, Mary Russell School and Riverbrae School. The provision at Mary Russell, a new Playtime service, was provided through Klas Care, who were funded to provide this programme as part of wider work through the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund. In addition, One Ren delivered a summer programme in the libraries and with the Skoobmobile team. Funding through Fairer Renfrewshire was provided to OneRen to provide activities in libraries in particular areas where there were no other activities and to provide drinks and snacks for young people and families across all Renfrewshire libraries. 21 organisations received funding through the small grants programme. The range of engaging activities on offer was aimed at different ages and often included trips to places of interest, resulting in a successful programme that afforded children and young people the opportunity to try new activities in an inclusive and supportive environment. Children were able to maintain their friendships from school as well as making new friends and memories with their families. The programme ensured that there were no financial barriers to participation. This was important for families who may have been reluctant to sign up for sessions because of concerns around additional costs, for example lunches, snacks and entrance fees to attractions. All projects agreed to the following principles • Activities must be free, with no hidden or additional costs • Healthy snacks should be provided, or lunch if full day activities • Activities should be inclusive, welcoming, respectful and safe • Compliant with requirements around safeguarding, child protection and food hygiene as appropriate • Able or willing to provide connections to other services and supports Following on from last year’s successful programme, Renfrewshire’s Community Learning and Development team decided to continue with a summer camp model offering places to children and young people. The holiday camps were held in 6 venues across Renfrewshire with a focus on reaching families most in need of the free provision.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 55 A programme was developed offering several core activities targeted to young people aged 5 to 14 years from low-income families, along with youth work provision, a youth voice and participation programme, sports activities and youth bus delivered by Street Stuff. Care was taken to work closely with services such as Children’s Services, Social Work, Education and other partners to identify families and young people that would particularly benefit from organised summer activities and to signpost them towards and sign them up for universal activities. The aim was to develop a programme of integrated provision to address the barriers and isolation faced by people in the most deprived areas, but at the same time open to families across Renfrewshire, concentrating on the Scottish Government’s child poverty priority groups. Street Stuff continued to deliver their core programme of activities in the evenings from Monday to Saturday for young people aged 8 to 16 throughout the summer holidays which also included the provision of healthy food funded by Fairer Renfrewshire. For children with additional support needs attending activities at the Mary Russell and Riverbrae schools, the aim was to provide activities that focussed on inspiring conversation and understanding others, prompting kindness and friendship. Children were involved in deciding which activities to do. For example, at Mary Russell school children identified that they wanted to go and explore their surroundings in a physically active way and this promoted an increase in positive mental health. Delivering activities in a school for ASN children allowed for a free flow indoor and outdoor space, giving a full and rich environment that was both challenging and safe. Outdoor leaning played a huge part with the children who were encouraged to be creative with their play and were given the tools to achieve this. The Riverbrae camp, which offered provision for for children and young people with complex additional support needs, also offered free transport to and from the venue to maximise opportunities and support for families during the summer holiday period. Places in the Adult and Family Learning Programme were offered to families of learners that face multiple barriers and who are already engaged with the service. Participants commented on the friendliness of the groups, the inclusivity of the programme and the opportunity it provided to get kids out of the house away from computer games. Parents enjoyed seeing their children mixing with other children, enjoying the activities and they also benefitted from meeting other parents. Renfrewshire Libraries ran their own summer programme using some of the equipment and games that had been previously funded by Fairer Renfrewshire as well as their own resources. OneRen was
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 56 also allocated £1,800 through Fairer Renfrewshire to provide healthy snacks and drinks such as popcorn, cereal bars, juice and hot chocolate in all 12 Renfrewshire libraries, which were really appreciated by families. Over the summer holidays they delivered 249 events for children and families in their libraries. This allowed a coverage of activities in areas where no Summer of Fun activity was proposed. A total of 1,353 adults and 2,948 children attended these events, including 1,535 children taking part in the Summer Reading Challenge. In addition to activities in libraries, the Skoobmobile provided access to library services to families as well as fun activities for all. This was particularly important in areas where there was no other local provision, either through Camps or the grant funded programme. Feedback from the small grants programme suggests that the programme benefited around 577 adults and 1,939 children by providing inclusive, safe environments for children to participate in activities, make friends and create lasting memories with their families. In addition, there were 2,776 attendances at the holiday camps and 2,221 at Street Stuff, while the Adult and Family Learning team supported 54 families in Renfrewshire. ASN provision at Riverbrae supported 193 families and 309 bookings were made for Mary Russell. Evaluation of the programme found that the wide variety of activities were well spread out across Renfrewshire and reached many families who would not normally be able to afford to attend a summer programme. The Summer of Fun programme provided a range of benefits for children and their parents/carers including: • providing free fun activities that low-income families could access • supporting working parents with childcare costs, particularly single parents • providing a safe environment for children to socialise • having a positive impact on parents and children’s mental health • encouraging new people to engage with services • helping to reduce financial costs for families. It also provided access to food, activities, clothing and advice, providing support in a dignified manner which reduced the potential for stigma. I feel the whole project worked well. We had great positive feedback from our young people, their families and the local and wider communities. We help to prevent the young people engaging in anti-social behaviour and youth disorder. We alleviated food poverty due to the cost of living crisis by providing a snack or lunch depending on the length of time the
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 57 session ran. We also helped to prevent the escalation of mental health within our young people. And we help alleviate financial pressure on low income families. Feedback stated the majority of the families could not have afforded such luxuries if the project had not taken place and our services helped to offer respite to the parents and guardians of the young people who attended. Johnstone Castle Learning Centre Reaching Child Poverty Priority Groups By their nature, the ASN holiday provision was attended only by those families with a disabled child, so all falling within that priority group. For summer camps, families receiving School Clothing Grants were advised of the camps by text message and we able to book places first, before the camps were opened to wider bookings. This ensured they were targeted at low income families. Attendees of the camps were as follows: Category Yes Responses % of Families Lone parent families 374 out of 843 44.4 Families with 3 or more children 316 out of 871 36.3 Families with a disability 187 out of 843 22.2 Black and minority ethnic families 73 out of 874 8.4 Families with a child under 1 55 out of 874 6.3 Families with parents under 25 16 out of 874 1.8 The aim of the small grants programme overall was to provide a range of activities that would be accessible to low-income families across Renfrewshire, in particular supporting families in the six child poverty priority groups, who are at higher risk of living on a low-income as well as Care Experienced young people. All 19 small grants funded projects that provided feedback responded that they had managed to reach these families through their activities. Just over a quarter of projects
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 58 (26%) were able to reach families in all of the child poverty priority groups and those with care experience, whilst 79% of projects were able to reach families in four or more of the six child poverty priority groups. Almost 37% of projects managed to reach six of the seven priority groups. Projects were most successful at reaching the following families: • families with three or more children (100%) • lone parents (84%) • families where someone in the house has a disability (84%) • families where parents are under the age of 25 (74%) • black and minority ethnic families (74%) Just over two thirds of organisations managed to reach families with a child aged under one year old (68%) and 63% of organisations reached care experienced children and young people. 5.12 Street Stuff Utilising £182,000 of Council funding, St Mirren Football Club delivers our Street Stuff programme, which provides free multi-sport, gaming and Youth Club activities for children aged 8 – 16 across Renfrewshire 6 evenings a week and at weekends throughout the year. Street Stuff buses have free Wi-Fi to ensure young people aren’t digitally excluded and provide PS4 games consoles, iPads and a seating area for young people to sit and chat. This gives young people across Renfrewshire access to exercise and social activities, including football, basketball and dance, that they may otherwise not have the chance to take part in. They also provide/support school holiday programmes for ages 5 – 14 which includes the provision of a healthy meal. Street Stuff services are regularly reviewed to ensure they are provided in the areas most at need and the buses are also used for small group work sessions and informal youth work intervention. The sessions are a great way for young people to get out, take part in sport and meet new friends in a safe and positive environment with the opportunity to access volunteer and employment pathways. Street Stuff supports young people to move from participation to volunteering and into employment. We also work with Invest to support traineeship opportunities for different age groups where possible.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 59 5.13 Period Products This year, the service providing period products within communities and the service providing products in schools have come together to coordinate and promote provision across Renfrewshire. Although schools are provided with products, through stigma, there can be a reluctance for young people to use this service. To ensure widest distribution of products to young people, all community groups engaged with young people, including scouts, guides and YMCAs have been sent details of our period product ordering, and invited to bulk order for their service users/members. We have also promoted reusable products such as period pants with these groups, inviting them to bulk pick up at othe offices of our 3rd sector interface, Engage Renfrewshire. As part of a wider promotion of reusable products, we have carried out a number of ‘Reusables Roadshows’ at leisure venues and events across Renfrewshire, including at the Health and Wellbeing network event and the Celebrating Renfrewshire 5 year anniversary celebration. We have also ensured our Youth Services team and Community Learning and development venues have supplies of products. This is in addition to our general provision of sanitary products in libraries, leisure centres and town halls, and our targeted provision in 3rd sector organisations who work with families such as Home- Start. We also continue to provide products to Early Learning Centres in areas of high deprivation, for mothers and other carers and family members to pick up what they need. We have also continued provision of products, single use and reusable, at Renfrewshire’s Foodbank and community pantries. As last year, all of our Winter Connections and Summer of Fun venues were offered free products and many have now signed up to keep a permanent supply for their service users or the wider public. At the end of 24/25, we developed a campaign, including social media and a radio advert, as well as new promotional materials, with early signs showing an increase in uptake of products. We will continue to monitor the impact of this promotion, as well as look for opportunities for extending provision within our communities. 5.14 Cash-first approaches to supporting families Scottish Welfare Fund and Discretionary Housing Payments
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 60 Locally, we continue to administer both the Scottish Welfare Fund (SWF) and Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP). Families in need of emergency support are encouraged to apply for crisis grants where appropriate, rather than other, non-cash supports. Over 24/25, Advice Works staff were located in Renfrewshire Foodbank to help clients resolve issues which led them to use the Foodbank, and also direct to crisis or other grants where available. Winter Clothing Payment For the fourth year running, funding was allocated to provide a £50 payment per child for winter clothing for children in receipt of School Clothing Grant. At the Council’s 2024 Budget meeting, £300,000 was allocated to these payments and paid in October 2024. This payment has been well received and will be repeated in Winter 2025, with again, £300,000 allocated in the 2025/26 Budget. We have also administered cash payments of £2.35 per day, per child for free school meals for the periods of times children have been on school holidays. The payment is made at a flat rate regardless of age and is paid before the start of the summer holidays. 5.15 National Entitlement Card and Free Bus Travel Approximately 87% of eligible under 22s in Renfrewshire have access to free bus travel via the NEC scheme and 68% of eligible 5–10-year-olds have a Junior NEC with free bus travel, saving families money on transport costs. Barriers to access have been removed for targeted groups of young people by setting up application agreements with partners such as Invest, Blue Triangle, Kibble, Good Shepherd, Social Work, Family and Wellbeing Teams, Resettlement Team, and Housing. This removes the burden from young people and the need for them to collect documentation and pay for a passport photo in order to apply for their card. In general, where possible, we have removed the cost burden of applying for proof for anyone in school. Instead of families having to pay for required proofs to apply, (e.g. full birth certificate extracts), we use their school record to verify their details, simplifying and poverty proofing the process. Extra support has been put in place to help boost uptake of the Junior NEC, offering parents a manual form to complete within primary schools. Youth Services, who support sign up for the NEC and free bus travel have provided direct support to our ASN schools. Both Riverbrae and Mary Russell have received direct support for all pupils to access the Junior or Young Scot card with free bus travel. We have also provided each school with information on applying for a Disabled NEC which can sometimes include a companion. While we
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 61 can’t provide this type of card locally we have made sure that parents of pupils who need this card type get clear information and instructions from the school. The Young Scot National Entitlement card can be used as part proof for opening a bank account with some banks, is accepted by Renfrewshire Council’s Housing service for tenancy agreement proofs and will be an accepted form of proof for voting under the new legal requirement. It is also used in our local ‘Celebrating Renfrewshire’ participatory budgeting fund where people aged 12 – 25 have a direct say on which projects are funded in their local area. 5.16 Housing Renfrewshire’s Housing Strategy, approved in October 2023, has five strategic priorities. Each priority has a range of actions that will support delivery over the next five years. The five strategic priorities are: 1. The supply and delivery of housing is increased across all tenures to meet the housing needs of different groups and create attractive and sustainable places. 2. People live in high quality, well managed homes in sustainable neighbourhoods. 3. Address the challenges of the climate emergency, delivering homes that are warm, energy efficient and fuel poverty is minimised. 4. Prevention of homelessness and providing support for those in housing need. 5. People can live independently for as long as possible in their own home and the different housing needs of people across Renfrewshire are being met. The actions underpinning the priorities include: • continuing to provide good quality fuel poverty advice, income maximisation and information to Council tenants, owners and private tenants. • continuing to strengthen the approach to prevention and repeat homelessness by providing holistic wraparound support to households in Renfrewshire. • ensuring new build homes are energy efficient, and retrofitting existing social rented homes with measures to improve energy efficiency , which will support reduction in energy bills as well as emissions, and • working towards meeting national fuel poverty targets. In 24/25, the number of service users supported via a Housing First approach has been upscaled to 75 at any one time, from 13 at Year 1 in 2019. In addition, Renfrewshire’s Alcohol & Drug Commission Programme Board have provided funding since 2022 for a My Life Ahead (MyLA) project which provides holistic support for families/ individuals affected by alcohol and drugs and who may be in danger of losing their home.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 62 Building on the concept that in order to have good health, you need a good home, MyLA now supports 25 – 30 service users at any one time and is delivering exceptional outcomes in terms of sustaining settled housing, and supporting service users to access the help they need. Over 500 Ukrainian Displaced Persons now resettled in Renfrewshire since 2022 and a further 18 families from the Afghan / Syrian / Somalian programme. A programme of community integration events and activities has been established and new specialist posts created to support greater participation and integration opportunities. Housing Services have been instrumental in providing settled accommodation to over 200 UDP households and, as of March 2025, our Refugee Resettlement Team are currently supporting 233 households across Renfrewshire, with a small increase in Afghan national arrivals as well as people from Syria and Somalia. There is now a strong focus on health and wellbeing initiatives and events by the team, as well as a continuing programme of integration-based projects. Many of the Ukrainians who resettled in Renfrewshire will be eligible to apply for an 18-month visa extension over the coming months. Housing Led Regeneration and Renewal Programme Through Renfrewshire Council’s Housing Led Regeneration and Renewal Programme, we are taking forward a £100m investment programme to help improve council housing within Renfrewshire by creating modern, affordable, high-quality, energy-efficient council homes with eight regeneration areas identified. This programme is being taken forward as a key Council priority, designed to deliver maximum benefits for residents and with the active involvement of services across the Council and Community Planning partners, to deliver modern, high quality, energy efficient, affordable Council housing that will not only significantly enhance the Council’s housing stock but will also contribute to the wider transformation of communities across Renfrewshire. The programme will make major improvements to existing buildings, but it is about much more than that - we will also consider how to improve the wider environment, including outside and communal areas, and how to keep fuel bills down by making homes more energy-efficient. As well as improvements to existing homes, we are building around 350 new council homes across four areas. Each regeneration area has a dedicated Housing Regeneration Officer and Development Officer with responsibility for the delivery of key actions, including the effective communication with tenants, residents, and private owners. The Council’s website has a dedicated Housing
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 63 Regeneration and Renewal section, and this is updated regularly to ensure that residents can access current and up to date information as and when they require it. A new approach to Community Neighbourhood Renewal is being established with community representatives, across Council Services and with third party partners to operate in parallel with the physical regeneration plans. The neighbourhood renewal approach will be tailored to the needs and circumstances of each area, going beyond housing and the immediate external environment, and taking account of broader issues such as links to health and wellbeing, access to outdoor space and sustainable travel and employment or training opportunities that maximise the benefits achievable for local residents. This approach aims to strengthen community voices and improve place-based decision making across all regeneration areas in Renfrewshire to enhance and measure the offering and impact of the programme. Council Officers have carried out extensive consultation with tenants, owners and local groups which included public engagement events, local drop-in surgeries, newsletters and frequent text and calls, giving them opportunities to comment and feedback on the regeneration of their area and address any concerns they had. This pro-active approach was recognised at the Scottish Homes Awards on 13 June 2024, at which – unusually – the project won first place in two separate categories: Housing Regeneration Project of the Year; and Large Affordable Housing Development of the Year. These awards celebrate the best in Scotland's new residential projects in the private, voluntary, and public sectors Rent Collection Our approach to rent collection ensures that Officers have continued to proactively contact tenants where there has been missed rent payments or changes to rent payment patterns to offer advice on accessing benefits and other support services as appropriate. In 23/24, support was increased, including more advice provision and in addition a Tenant Support Fund was launched in October 2023, which has continued into 24/25. The Tenant Support Fund, is intended to supplement the current rent collection process to alleviate existing and emerging financial stress, prevent and reduce escalating rent arrears and contribute to sustaining Council tenancies in Renfrewshire. The Fund is intended to support tenants experiencing financial difficulty, through no fault of their own, where it has been identified that financial challenges exist due to a change of circumstances including, but not limited to: • Increase in household costs / cost of Living (eg. energy, food, fuel, rent). • Reduction in income (eg. loss of employment, reduced hours, loss of a household member). • Changes to Welfare benefit, Housing Benefit and/or Universal Credit.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 64 As part of our existing rent collection process, tenants are encouraged to engage with the housing team at the earliest opportunity if they are experiencing difficulties in paying rent. A wide range of advice and support is available to help tenants to meet their rent payment responsibilities and to manage household budgets that will be under increased pressure at this time. In recognition of these continuing pressures, in addition to the introduction of the Tenant Support Fund, as part of the budgetary process on 2 March 2023, Council agreed to fund additional service provision in the form of Specialist Income Advice to allow for exclusive support to tenants in hardship. Apart from benefits checks and support when an application to the Scottish Welfare Fund or for a Discretionary Housing Payment should be made, the specialist Income Advisors and Housing Staff are able to make a referral to the local Housing Team to consider the appropriateness of making a payment to a tenant’s rent account from the Tenant’s Support Fund. A decision on the award of Tenant’s Support Fund is made as soon as possible following engagement with the tenant and payment is made directly into the tenant’s rent account. Income maximisation assessments are carried out to support tenants to meet their long-term rent payment responsibilities. In 2024/25, 294 Tenants have been referred for Tenant Support Fund assessments, which have the added value of full income assessment and advice provision and 201 qualified for assistance from the fund to a value of approximately £41,287. Through the additional advice, several sources of additional assistance have been accessed which include Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, Disability Benefits, as well as food vouchers for those in a crisis situation. In monetary terms this equates to £8,579,000 between April 2024 and 31 March this year. 5.17 Family Friendly Working To support employees with families at risk of child poverty both Renfrewshire Council and NHS GGC have a range of family-friendly working policies and supports. Council staff have access to support around wellbeing and financial wellbeing, with a dedicated online employee wellbeing hub, regular newsletters and a series of webinars covering varied topics, including advice and affordable credit. Flexible working and work-patterns across the Council support those with childcare responsibilities, and there is also support for those with caring responsibilities as well as a Carers Connected Forum. Throughout 2024/25 NHS GGC Staff have had access to the following:
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 65 • Staff Hardship Fund • Delivery of 10 Home Energy Scotland (HES) sessions, which were attended by 73 staff members, and covered different topics around managing energy costs • Delivery of 12 Credit Union sessions, which were attended by 66 staff members • Access to the All About Money webpage which provides a wealth of information and resources around money management, addressing money worries, and financial inclusion support available for both staff and patients. • Development of Money and Advice app for staff, in partnership with the Right Decisions Development service. Link for app has been added to the ‘All About Money’ webpage. • Promotion of activities and resources via core brief, Staff Hub, staff events, leaflets, posters. This took place throughout 2024/25, however more intensely during Staff Money Worries Campaign in Oct 2024. • Training in ‘Supporting Staff Financial Wellbeing- What you can do to help’ delivered to NHS GGC HR staff in November 2024. • Quarterly Payslip messaging about money advice support During 2025/26, NHS GGC plan to continue delivering the above as well as looking to deliver Managing Your Money Better & Financial Resilience sessions for staff and ‘Supporting Staff Financial Wellbeing- What you can do to help’ sessions to NHSGGC Payroll managers. 6 Theme 3: Supporting the next generation to thrive 6.1 Fairer Renfrewshire Programme Renfrewshire’s Fairer Renfrewshire programme now also includes what was previously our Tackling Poverty programme, supporting a number of projects which help our young people thrive and help break down some of the barriers to attainment. The programme: • Provides £75,000 Cost of the School Day funding which is used by head teachers as discretionary spend to meet the needs of their pupils
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 66 • Provides funding for Breakfast Clubs in schools in some of our most deprived areas, relieving financial pressure on low-income families, but most importantly, making sure that children start the school day ready to learn. • Funds the Peer Health project in partnership with Active Communities, working with young people in secondary schools across Renfrewshire to identify key health priorities in their school and developing young people to lead their own activities to improve health and wellbeing, with a focus on mental health. • Supports Summer of Fun holiday activities via Community Learning and Development summer camps and a small grants programme, along with the provision of free healthy meals. • Ensures the Skoobmobile continues to provide a children’s mobile public library service, including play sessions directly to children and families in communities • Supports dedicated income maximisation and welfare rights advice for families with children of all ages as well as pregnant women. Breakfast Clubs are part of a number of schools, some of which are funded through the Fairer Renfrewshire Programme and others through other means or organised by individual schools. In 24/25, 68,754 free breakfasts were provided to children. Breakfast Clubs support parents with their working schedules and with the family budget. Breakfast Clubs have also been found to have an impact on children’s learning, with teaching practitioners recognising impacts, such as children being ready to learn and improved concentration and focus in those attending breakfast clubs. Skoobmobile The Skoobmobile provides a children’s mobile public library service directly to children and families in communities. This service aims to help improve children’s life chances by encouraging a lasting interest in reading, literacy, physical activity and learning. This year, Skoobmobile has provided a full programme of library access, book based activities, and play sessions for schools and communities that promote reading and playing together, with more intensive engagement taking place within areas of deprivation. The service has been involved in bringing play sessions to communities as part of our Winter Connections and Summer of Fun programmes as well as supporting primary schools storytimes and access to library digital resources and learning activities. The service also supports areas with no library during the school holidays.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 67 Public Wi-Fi has been installed onboard, and the Skoobmobile is now part of the DigiZone offering in Renfrewshire. In addition the Skoobmoble took part in the Whole Family Wellbeing Service launch and has made useful links with third sector organisations, which will lead to increased community outreach in the year ahead. Skoobmobile also reached 5706 primary school pupils in 185 sessions, 1550 pre-5 children and 337 adults were reached in 129 sessions. 2,591 books were borrowed and 91 children became members of Renfrewshire libraries. A further 2758 children and 1,553 adults attended 162 outreach sessions. Great fun wee session. My fussy son tried haggis – total achievement. Looking forward to more like this. Parent at Burns themed play session The Skoob bus is my favourite place and I love to read books Summer visitor to the Skoobmobile Peer Health Hearty Lives is our ambitious and innovative partnership project which delivers a peer-led approach to promoting mental health and wellbeing across all Renfrewshire High Schools. The project is managed on the ground by third sector organisation, Active Communities, delivered by teachers and pupils across our high schools and in the community by youth workers. It is a unique partnership which promotes mental health and wellbeing for young people in Renfrewshire and aims to tackle poverty through a peer education approach, focused on tackling inequalities and improving health. In 2024, 252 Peer Educators were recruited and trained, an increase of 29% from the 196 last year. The Peer Educators, engaged with 3969 peers, an increase of 15% from last year. Hearty Lives is driven by the core values of Active Communities whose mission is to empower local people by inspiring, supporting and enabling them to improve their health and wellbeing. Hearty Lives teachers are following this same mission for the pupils in their school. Key issues being addressed by the project included bullying, exam stress, worry, anxiety, self-care, resilience and promoting positive mental health and schools train their peer educators, with examples being: • Basic Mental Mealth Awareness (Trinity High) • Mindfulness (Paisley Grammar)
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 68 • Antibullying (Gryffe) • Communication and leadership Development (Mary Russell) Schools are linking their Hearty Lives projects to: Saltire Awards, SCQF Mental Health and Wellbeing, PDA Level 6, and Duke of Edinburgh Awards. The Peer educators develop their own initiatives, which are very varied, and respond to pupil needs, for example visiting linked primary schools to provide dance classes and presentations around worries for P7s transitioning to high school; running drop ins to support positive mental health and making a film about the impact of discrimination on others within the school community and beyond. The project has a community arm which is an extension of the schools work and is delivered by Active Communities at a lunchtime youth drop in in Linwood High and at Station Seven in Johnstone after school on Wednesdays. Haerty Lives also supports the Create Club in Station Seven on a Tuesday, and Games and Gub for P5 – P7 of St Margaret’s Primary, where pupils come along straight after school to play games, do arts and crafts and have a warm 2 course meal. The community project also tackles wider social issues and is increasingly addressing basic needs of young people such as providing healthy food, toiletries, period products, access to free condoms and clothing. Having Hearty Lives funding in Johnstone High School allows pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds to gain opportunities that they don't get at home or outwith school. An example of this is my 'Mindfulness Club.' JHS mental health mentors run this club every week and deliver various activities such as ceramic painting, making slime, biscuit decorating, bracelet making, diamond art and pickleball sessions. A high number of pupils that attend come from a low SIMD area and their involvement in the club allows them to experience fun activities like other peers their age, allowing them to feel included in the school and community." Johnstone High Project Leader Being Part of Hearty Lives has helped me develop as a person, especially my confidence and self-belief – I Never thought I’d be able to deliver at an assembly! I loved being a mentor at school and hopefully I can continue to help others next year. Peer Educator
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 69 6.2 Attainment In Renfrewshire, there is a relentless focus on closing the poverty related attainment gap while raising attainment for all. As a result, there has been an increase in attainment across almost all curricular areas and stages. Attainment is now in line with or ahead of pre-pandemic levels. Renfrewshire is ahead of national figures across all stages and curricular areas in 2023-24. This has been a consistent trend in almost all stages and curricular areas, however the decreases in Renfrewshire’s data post pandemic were greater than national, resulting in very close alignment with national figures in 2021-22. The 2023-24 data illustrates that Renfrewshire has made greater progress over the previous 3 years and is now comfortably ahead of national figures. Attainment gaps remain larger than pre-pandemic levels and there are still improvements to be made. Pupils living in SIMD 20% most deprived areas were most significantly impacted by the pandemic and the 2020-21 figures demonstrated decreases in attainment. Attainment has improved across both groups and gaps are reduced since 2020-21. However, attainment of pupils living in 20% most deprived areas remains below pre-pandemic levels and as a result attainment gaps are wider than in 2018-19. Schools continue to utilise Pupil Equity Fund (PEF) to support the needs of children and young people and reduce the impact of poverty on learning. Through our PEF impact visits, there is evidence of effective planning and practice which is having a positive impact on attendance, health and wellbeing and literacy and numeracy. A few schools have designed an equity strategy which will be implemented this academic session. The aim of the strategy is to establish approaches to equity and closing the poverty related attainment gap as part of the schools’ core business. The impact of this work will be evaluated over the course of the session. The Scottish Government has committed to this funding until 2025/26, ensuring ongoing support for disadvantaged students. A “No Poverty of Aspiration” conference was hosted in April with over 100 delegates attending. The conference was focused on keeping equity of the agenda supporting schools and early years establishments to consider ways to embed equity in their improvement planning. Dr. Neil Spiers from Edinburgh University delivered a keynote on “The inequalities our pupils experience inside and outside of the classroom” which challenged Heads to refresh their approaches to equity in the classroom. A film was launched which has reflections of our staff, children and young people on the progress made on achieving equity in Renfrewshire. The film can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/II86la9QBSg There has been a focus on delivering the target schools programme which aims to close the poverty related attainment through bespoke literacy and numeracy approaches in 10 priority
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 70 schools. Feedback from schools has been positive and children are engaging with different interventions to support literacy and numeracy. The "Grow Your Own" Modelling and Coaching (MCO) programme is progressing well. The aim is to develop teachers knowledge, confidence and leadership skills in numeracy with the aim of improving attainment in their own establishment. Headteacher observations and teacher feedback also demonstrate the impact in terms of more consistent approaches to planning and numeracy pedagogy. Our early years programme of Talk for Writing has grown in session 24/25 to include almost all early years classes, all early years centres and a significant number of early years partner establishments. Data shows consistent improvements in writing attainment again in session 23/24 at all primary stages. There continues to be a focus on the development of our digital strategy and the reach of the digital work in schools is significant with over 1000 unique visitors to the DigiLearnRen blog. 4 schools have been supported with planning your school’s digital strategy this session and 100% either agreed or strongly agreed that their confidence, knowledge and skills had increased and 100% were planning to implement what they had learned and share with colleagues. Online Safety Ambassadors have been trained this session, bringing the total to 26 schools. The first Renfrewshire Employability Week was held delivering over 200 engagements for young people across Renfrewshire with support from the Local Employability Partnership. The Career Ready coaching programme has now been upscaled to include 25 young people from across 4 secondary schools for session 2024/25. 22% of the cohort are care experienced young people. 50% of the mentees will be paired with a Career Ready coach from Renfrewshire Council supporting workforce planning across the local authority. Very good progress is being made towards the target to achieve 100% positive post school destinations by 2028. The Pathfinders employability programme was established in August 2024 to meet the needs of school leavers who had not yet managed to sustain a positive destination. 18 young people joined the programme, to date 16 are positively engaged with employment, training or further education. 6 school leavers were successfully recruited into SoftFM positions within the authority, and the programme's success is expected to lead to its continuation in the future. 42 young people have benefitted from enhanced support between school and college with feedback from young people, schools and carers being unanimously positive. This session, health and wellbeing continues to improve in our children and young people. This has been achieved through our sector leading training and curricular development.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 71 Our CEOP (Child Exploitation Online Prevention) Ambassador Training team now delivers a half day training each term. This is in response to continuing concerns around the safety of our children and young people and what we know in relation concerns from our partners in Police Scotland. MVP (Mentors in Violence Prevention) has been expanded and is now being delivered across all Renfrewshire secondary schools. In September, we worked with Education Scotland to deliver MVP pilot training for Early Years and Primary staff which will support the developing work around gender-based violence within the authority. To support staff and parents/carers around internet safety, self-harm, suicide prevention, anxiety and using CBT approaches, a suite of “How to Have a Conversation About…” digital resources has been developed. These are available to staff post-training or via the termly newsletters and Glow Blog. Following research conducted by the Child Poverty Action Group, we know that food poverty has an impact on wellbeing and learning. Cost of the School Day (COSD) funding has been allocated to ensure meals are provided to fuel for children’s learning but also reduce stigma in the lunch hall, improve home-school relations (because worries about dinner money debt evaporate) and encourage good eating habits among children. The Fairer Renfrewshire COSD funding is directly allocated to schools to alleviate financial barriers to education. The recent Children at Risk of Harm Inspection identified major strengths in Renfrewshire with the overall grade of “very good”. Three areas of good practice were also highlighted in the National Thematic Inspection conducted by Education Scotland. In Renfrewshire, we continue to work together to get it right for children, families and communities – protecting, learning, achieving and nurturing. Renfrewshire is still the first and only local authority in Scotland to provide a universal programme of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, with £100,000 of recurring annual funding agreed at the Council Budget meeting in 2025. We are the largest programme in Scotland and one of the largest in the UK. To date more than 162,000 Imagination Library books have been gifted to children in Renfrewshire aged 2-5. Our approach ensures the programme is inclusive and meets the needs of all learners as children can receive books that are age appropriate and/or suitable to their individual stage of development. Parents/carers are supported to register children in a number of ways including online, via paper registration forms, with support from their child’s nursery, via local libraries or with support from Health Visitors. We are proud to offer the Imagination Library to refugees and to families via the Unaccompanied Asylum Seeker Team to support early English and literacy development.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 72 We have formed a range of partnerships to support the wider implementationand development of the Imagination Library, including with nurseries, third sector organisations, council services and health visitors as well os One-Ren Libraries. In addition, each year, S5 and S6 pupils from high schools across Renfrewshire are given the opportunity to gain work and volunteering experience by becoming ‘senior readers’. Visiting early years settings on a weekly basis, they read Imagination Library books with children ensuring each child hears the book they receive at least once, and support play-based learning activities linked to these. Over the past 3 years, more than 100 young people from 9 secondary schools have volunteered as positive reading role models for their younger peers. We have established a network of over 100 Imagination Library programme Ambassadors from early years settings and partner agencies across Renfrewshire. Recent evaluation undertaken with them showed: - 91% of Ambassadors indicated that Imagination Library books are used as a vehicle to support wider learning, where appropriate; - 100% of establishments who responded ensure that Imagination Library books are read to the children each month; - 100% of Ambassadors find Imagination Library a useful tool to support family learning and engagement; ‘This is a fabulous initiative and we are very grateful to be part of it. It provides all children with a level playing field regardless of their circumstances in life. Thank you for making this possible.’ Parent/carer feedback A number of initiatives take place across Renfrewshire schools to support pupils into positive post- school destinations. The first Renfrewshire Employability Week was held in September, delivering over 200 engagements for young people across Renfrewshire with support from the Local Employability Partnership. The ‘Get Started’ event, hosted in partnership with SDS and Invest in Renfrewshire, provided targeted support for school leavers. The Local Employability Partnership’s School Transition Group has been re-established to promote effective cross-sector collaboration and ensure seamless transitions for young people. The DXC Digital Futures programme engaged 14 participants from Castlehead High School and Renfrew High School, offering valuable digital skills training.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 73 The Career Ready coaching and mentoring programme was upscaled to include 25 young people from across 4 secondary schools for session 2024/25. 22% of the cohort are care experienced young people. 50% of the mentees were paired with a Career Ready coach from Renfrewshire Council, supporting workforce planning across the local authority. This programme aims to work with employers and education to help young people get a kickstart towards their career ambitions. The two-year programme includes a series of skill masterclasses and meeting mentors who share their skills and knowledge to support young people towards their career future. Pupils have been overwhelmingly positive about the experience. One pupil said, "My favourite part was meeting with employers and seeing just how many opportunities are out there for young people. I learned about different career paths that are now available to me.” Very good progress is being made towards the target to achieve 100% positive post school destinations by 2028. The Renfrewshire Pathfinders employability programme was established in August 2024 to meet the needs of school leavers who had not yet managed to sustain a positive destination. 18 young people joined the programme, to date 16 are positively engaged with employment, training or further education. There is scope to increase numbers and frequency of the programme. All schools now have regular future pathways meetings, PT Pathways is invited to participate in these and feedback from schools is positive. 6 school leavers were successfully recruited into SoftFM positions within the authority, and the programme's success is expected to lead to its continuation in the future. 42 young people have benefitted from enhanced support between school and college with feedback from young people, schools and carers being unanimously positive. Good progress is also being made towards widening access and participation to further and higher education. Since the PT Pathways post was established, drop out rates of the school’s vocational programme has decreased by 40%. By Christmas 2023, 70 students had dropped out, compared to 42 by the same time in 2024. 9 out of 11 Renfrewshire secondaries are now confirmed as participating the in Top Up programme in association with Glasgow University. This is a preparation course for higher education for pupils who are currently applying for, or are considering applying for, Higher Education courses in university or college and are from backgrounds of socioeconomic disadvantage and underrepresented groups.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 74 17 primary schools have actively participated in the WCS school science programme. Collaborative working with WCS has successfully resulted in the first International Business Event being held for 110 S3 pupils from 11 secondary schools. The Developing the Young Workforce Engagement Officer is working with 30 young people on My Future Pathways curriculum offer. This includes pupils from senior phase Flexible Learning Resource. The Engagement Officer is also collaborating with primary schools to engage vulnerable learners as part of an early intervention programme. Community Benefits programmes have provided senior-phase pupils from all 13 secondary schools with valuable industry exposure, including site visits, work placements, and industry awareness activities. On average, 12 opportunities are offered to each school monthly. The work placement model is currently being refreshed to ensure all learners, particularly the most vulnerable, have access to relevant work- based learning opportunities. Between August and December 2024, 324 work placements were completed by young people across Renfrewshire schools. Currently 8 secondary schools are actively participating in Young Enterprise Scotland with the support of the DYW Engagement Officer. 6.3 Whole Family Wellbeing Nationally, the Whole Family Wellbeing approach is an important element in relation to Children’s Services Planning which is Scotland’s legislative approach to collaborative local strategic planning and delivery of services and support to improve outcomes for children, young people and families living in each area. The aim is to ensure a whole systems approach is in place across public and third sector partners to: promote wellbeing; shift resources to early intervention and, where possible, prevention; and to make best use of local assets, workforce and budgets across partners, with support to families at the core of this. The Scottish Government have recently published their year 2 report of the impact of Whole Family Wellbeing nationally, and Renfrewshire’s use of the FORT system as a platform to support improved data sharing and case management was referred to in this report and subsequent briefings as an example of good practice. The recommendations for Children’s Services Partnerships included the alignment of case management systems as well as increasing visibility and promotion of available supports for parents; and developing a collaborative culture for the provision of holistic family support. Although the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund was initially for a 4 year period, the Scottish Government have recently announced a further year’s funding until 31/03/2027 to allow Children’s
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 75 Services Partnerships the opportunity to plan for sustainability and further embed the work of transformed children’s services. Progress in 2024 - 25 Since the Family Wellbeing Service began in January 2024 there have been a range of notable developments which has put the service at the forefront of early intervention and partnership working to support families and communities in Renfrewshire. These developments have included: • Family wellbeing service development day in January • Family wellbeing multi-agency launch event in May • Families with ASN multi-agency partnership group • Family wellbeing space developed in St David’s primary and Castlehead secondary • Joint community and schools team P7 summer transition programme • Family support framework linked to stage intervention process • Continued development of Sleep work and increased number of Sleep Counsellors • Increased number of Non Violent Resistance (NVR) parents groups and first NVR dads group • Successful system proof of concept ( FORT) • Additional ASN summer playscheme in Mary Russell school • Third sector support network meetings • Emotionally Based School Avoidance focus and training • 4 locality family launch events in November 2024 Development of partnership with third sector organisations The Renfrewshire Whole Family Wellbeing Service has funded through a grants process 15 third sector organisations who have worked across Renfrewshire to provide a range of additional supports and added value to our work with families. This partnership has built valuable capacity and added diversity to our work. The organisations we funded between 2023 and 2025, detailed below, have had their projects evaluated and we are about to move into a new phase of funding for the third sector during 2025-26.below.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 76 Planning for the future Whole Family Wellbeing sits across two of our Children’s Services portfolio planning groups. As we move forward we aim to look at ways that we can link and integrate the work going on within the Family Wellbeing Service within key related workstreams to avoid duplication. We will do this at departmental level by linking in with the key portfolio areas of development within Children’s Services where at a strategic level we set out our priorities for how to improve outcomes for children young people and families. When we look wider at the community planning level it will be important for the Family Wellbeing Service to articulate with developments going on under the Connected Communities banner. Our colleagues in Community Learning and Development and tackling poverty are working to similar agendas to us so it is crucial that we have that wider context where everything fits together, to avoid duplication and maximise impact. Following on from our 4 successful family launch events last year that the Family Wellbeing Service continues to listen to and respond to the voices of children, young people and families as we plan
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 77 for the future. The work of the ASN Family Wellbeing Partnership group is a good example of how we are working with parents with lived experience of additional support needs within their families. As key members of this group, these parents are working in partnership with a wide range of agencies including Education, Social Work, Health, CAMHS, OneRen and the third sector to raise awareness of opportunities for families with children with additional support needs, and to build further capacity and create new opportunities where there are gaps in provision. We have created a new post of ASN Family Wellbeing Co-ordinator to support the work of this group and to manage our much valued and expanding holiday ASN playscheme. 6.4 NHS GGC Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Maternity Support In the NHS, interpreting, continuity of carer, birth planning, stillbirths, alongside maternity unit use trends are now regularly analysed by ethnicity and SIMD. This analysis is demonstrating that further concerted efforts are required to meet the needs of pregnant BME women and BME women living in poverty. Where negative trends are found, improvement plans are put in place. For example, NHS GGC has found a relationship between a number of factors, including lack of interpreting and stillbirths. There are a wide range of actions in place to improve maternity services approach to interpreting. A new maternity communications group has been set up, which reviews how accessible information is in NHS GGC and addresses accessibility of innovations. Leadership training on anti-racism has covered poverty issues and frontline staff training is planned. NHS GGC aims to deliver the following actions to address structural barriers in the maternity pathway for the BAME community and those living in poverty, during 2025/26: • issuing and marketing a patient interpreting code to ensure access to the telephone triage system • development of a simple step by step guide to NHSGGC maternity services • review of patient facing materials, including the maternity app, in community languages • improvement plan for areas of care not meeting the needs of BAME women (e.g. birth plans) • improvement plan for patient engagement • developing a staff training plan
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 78 The review of NHSGGC’s Maternity Strategy offered an opportunity to review the maternity pathway for BME women and planning is underway to carry out a suite of Equality Impact Assessments to ensure the pathway is accessible to all. 6.5 The Promise Renfrewshire’s Community Planning Partners have demonstrated a strong commitment to The Promise and the Renfrewshire Promise Strategic Oversight Group oversees the implementation of The Promise, ensuring alignment with key strategic drivers such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC), and the National Trauma Transformation Programme. Activities related to The Promise are coordinated across Children’s and other Council services and with various partners such as the Renfrewshire HSCP, the Police and the third sector. A Promise Mapping Tool is used to track progress and inform decision-making. The Promise Manager and Ambassador in Renfrewshire provide support to teams and services within the council to raise awareness about The Promise and assess how they can best support Care Experienced individuals and implement The Promise effectively. The Promise team also engage with the Care Experienced community to ensure their voices are heard and their needs are met in service design and delivery and they can contribute to the development of policies such as the Renfrewshire Language Policy, which promotes the use of positive, inclusive language when referring to Care Experienced individuals. The Promise Champs programme, led by Youth Services, empowers Care Experienced young people to voice their needs and drive change. Activities such as leadership training, summer clubs, and festive events foster a sense of belonging and community among participants. Additionally, the Promise Arts and Culture Programme provides creative opportunities for Care Experienced young people, helping them build social and cultural capital. A cornerstone of Renfrewshire's approach is the Promise Keeper Network, comprising, by end March 2025, over 362 local champions from various services, including social work, education, and the third sector. These Promise Keepers are empowered to enact changes within their services, share knowledge, and promote positive, non-stigmatising language as outlined in the Renfrewshire Language Policy. Several initiatives support the workforce in delivering The Promise, including the Promise Human Library, which matches Care Experienced young people with professionals in their field of interest, and the development of a Care Experienced Staff Network. This network provides a safe space for
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 79 staff with Care Experience to share their views, seek peer support, and access learning and development opportunities. A Care Experienced Data Dashboard has been developed to track and monitor progress in relation to The Promise. This dashboard consolidates data on attendance, exclusions, attainment, and wellbeing, providing valuable insights for decision-making. The Promise Progress Framework, adopted in 2025, will further enhance the understanding of progress and the impact of initiatives aimed at Keeping The Promise. Our achievements in 24/25 are illustrated below In 2025/26, we aim to expand the Promise Keeper Network by recruiting more local champions and increasing visibility and awareness of The Promise across various services. We will also further enhance workforce support by expanding initiatives such as the Promise Human Library and the Care Experienced Staff Network. These initiatives will provide more opportunities for Care Experienced individuals to connect with professionals and access learning and development opportunities. The introduction of guaranteed interviews for Care Experienced individuals will be fully implemented, aiming to address barriers to employment and promote equality. Community engagement will continue through the Promise Champs programme and the Promise Arts and Culture Programme. We will continue to empower Care Experienced young people to voice their needs and drive change, fostering a sense of belonging and community. Additional activities and events will be introduced to provide more opportunities for creative expression and social interaction. The Care Experienced Data Dashboard and the Promise Progress Framework will be enhanced to provide more comprehensive insights into progress and impact. We will continue to track and
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 80 monitor key indicators such as attendance, exclusions, attainment, and wellbeing, using data to inform decision-making and drive improvements. Renfrewshire’s Promise Team will drive an ambitious programme of change across Renfrewshire, ensuring that the needs of Care Experienced individuals are at the heart of all services and that The Promise is effectively implemented and sustained. 6.6 Community Learning and Development Community Learning and Development reaches out to children, young people, adults and families, including those who face barriers and experience disadvantage, and takes a preventative and asset-building approach to working with people, families and communities. The Renfrewshire Community Learning and Development Partnership Plan for 2024 - 27 was published last year and sets out our priorities. Community learning and development work in Renfrewshire has many strands and reaches many people. We recognise that our learners and our communities are at the heart of what we do, and as an initial priority of the new Partnership Plan, we will be looking at how we further strengthen local voice and lived experience in developing and shaping future activities and programmes of work. Priority 1 - Provide a programme of high-quality lifelong learning, accessible to all. Priority 2 - Build strong, connected communities where people can participate and influence in their local area. Priority 3 - Deliver targeted opportunities to reduce barriers and tackle inequalities. Priority 4 - Strengthening our CLD Partnership and developing our local workforce. These four priorities are aligned to our existing Community Planning Themes and the Plan also includes a specific action to Provide support that allows families to live dignified lives and respond to the cost of living crisis. Over 24/25, the CLD Adult and Family Learning team continued to work actively in partnership with a nember of organisations and services. They offer courses for adults including literacy, English language, crafting and mending, equalities, money management, parenting, personal development, life skills, wellbeing, women's history and work clubs which include digital skills. Over the last year they also supported the Multiply programme which aims to help transform the lives of adults aged 19yrs + across the UK, by improving their functional numeracy skills.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 81 CLD work with young people includes universal and targeted actions such as community-based youth work to build strength and capacity amongst young people. Contributing to tackling child and youth poverty, Youth Services has developed a number of targeted and inclusive programmes that reduce costs of participation, increase access to services travel and digital tools and promote wellbeing, engagement, and attainment for vulnerable and care-experienced young people. Young people engaging in Youth Services activities can access free food, period products and digital devices and connectivity as a matter of course. Working with young people gives the service insight into their issues and priorities and ensures the responses are appropriate. This year the activities included: • A Love 2 Care event co-designed with young people who are care experienced. A pop-up shop allowed attendees to choose wellbeing items (tote bags, toiletries, self-care goods and one4all experience, fashion or restaurant vouchers). 44 young people attended the event and an addtitonal 22 received vouchers and goods after the event. • Free Duke of Edinburgh Award places to targeted groups, including young carers, New Scots and pupils attending ASN schools and well as childrens houses and LGBT SafeSpace. Appropriate kit is also supplied free for schools and groups to help ensure pupils who would not normally be able to afford to participate and purchase kit can complete the award programme with their peers. • Evolve groups for those aged 13-16 in local communities during school time with transport provided where needed. Young people who are likely to benefit from a social personal development programme are referred by schools or social work. In many cases they fall within the attainment criteria and are more likely to be experiencing poverty. Participants learn key skills such as shopping on a budget and creative cooking on a budget and food is provided at all sessions. Many participants also receive a free 3 month One Ren gym pass and kit to help them access leisure facilities when the cost would be prohibitive. Personal hygiene items are also provided. This year there were further Evolve activities aimed specifically at young Ukrainian refugees, who also each received a reconditioned bike and training in bike maintenance. • Supporting care experienced young people to take part in a range of arts based activities, with all materials, transport and refreshments provided free. This included for 3 care experienced young people who were invited to join the Jupiter+Orbit collective sessions and London trip supported by Youth services staff. • Supporting the Promise Champion Present Drive, which provided Christmas gifts to 304 care experienced young people organised by the Promise Champions youth group who are care experienced young people who meet weekly to discuss issues that affect care-experienced young people and their views on support and care they have received.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 82 • Fund Your Fun in partnership with Children’s services, supporting young people who are Looked After At Home, and enables them to access experiences and goods to improve their wellbeing. Looking forward, the service will again deliver Easter and summer camps targeted to low income families via messaging to those in receipt of School Clothing Grants. They will also continue Youth Voice Development for Care Experienced young people through the Promise Champions. 6.7 Thrive Under 5 Renfrewshire HSCP’s Health Improvement team secured funding to pilot Thrive under 5 in Johnstone. The programme aims to reduce child poverty, increase healthy eating, physical activity, and reduce likelihood of diabetes in the under 5s working with partners Active Communities and Renfrewshire Citizens’ Advice Bureau. To meet the referral criteria families must have at least one child under the age of 5, live in Johnstone and meet one of the risk factors for poverty. The pilot ran from May 2024 to March 2025 providing the following support for families: • Support to apply for Best Start Grant and Best Start Food, Grants and Scottish Child Payment • Applications to wider grants and benefit entitlements to maximise income including fuel support • Meal packs for every family twice a week for 8 weeks • Access to local food pantry with free membership and 12 free shops for families • Free Cooking classes and provision of cooking equipment as required for every family • Physical Activity Opportunities for whole family • Onward referral to partner organisations such as Invest or any others based on family’s needs. • Additional food shops for families during school holidays and following the end of programme A total of 42 families including 75 children took part in the programme.
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Local Child Poverty Action Report Renfrewshire 2024/2025 83 241 meals packs and 516 pantry vouchers were provided during duration of the pilot. All families were provided with cooking equipment and were provided with weekly fruit and vegetables worth £11.74. 9 families were supported by Renfrewshire CAB resulting in over £1,700 in financial gains. The pilot is currently being evaluated by the Health Improvement team. A funding bid has been submitted and has the potential to ensure sustainability for the next 5 years in Johnstone and another neighbourhood in Renfrewshire if awarded. 6.8 Celebrating Renfrewshire In 24/25, the Celebrating Renfrewshire Fund celebrated five years of supporting youth projects across Renfrewshire. Launched in 2019, Celebrating Renfrewshire is a fund designed by and for young people, where those aged 12-25 will have a direct say on which projects are funded in their local area. The fund process empowers young people to make decisions that will benefit and enhance their local communities. Over the last five years, Celebrating Renfrewshire has supported 417 projects from 133 groups, totalling over £890,000 spent on projects for young people across Renfrewshire. Projects include access to industry standard music or filming equipment, training kits and team clothes, alcohol and drugs awareness training and free sports and day trips. One example of a funded project is Glenvale AFC, which received funding from Celebrating Renfrewshire in 2024 to run accredited awareness training in the dangers of drugs, alcohol and gambling for their senior members. Over 50 young people benefited directly, with more throughout the club benefiting from the training and knowledge being passed down from player to player. Renfrewshire Effort to Empower Minorities also received funding to help the group establish a youth club for young people in the diverse minority ethnic community. The fund is facilitated by Renfrewshire Council’s Community Planning and Community Learning and Development teams who support a steering group of young people. The group represent the voices of young people across Renfrewshire and provide an essential role in shaping the guidance for the fund each year. Organisations bid for funding in each Local Partnership area and young people then use their Young Scot card to vote for what they think is most needed and to make a positive difference to their own, and their friends, lives.
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