Child poverty consultation

One in five children in East Lothian currently live in poverty. As a member of the East Lothian Partnership governance group, East Lothian Council is actively investigating their lives and experiences to support children and their families towards a stable and fulfilled future.

The council is focusing on what matters to families, specifically how services collect, measure, use, and share data that is meaningful to families in East Lothian.

Services are struggling to meet the growing needs of those living in poverty. This project will enable services to better meet the needs of children and families by measuring and analysing lived experience data and embedding this into the way services work.

The council recognises that services and strategies work better when listening and responding to the experiences of communities. While large amounts of quantitative data are collected to inform services and strategies, a more balanced, qualitative approach that values both equally is required.

“This is not just about running more efficient and effective services. The Children’s Services Inspection Report and the Child Poverty Action Report require these improvements to how lived experience is embedded. Child poverty cannot be tackled alone. All partners need to come together to address this at both an operational and strategic level,” said Lucy Higginson, Community Planning Officer (Children’s Strategic Partnership).

Data has been identified as a key area for improvement in many strategic and operational discussions. This survey will help establish what data is currently collected, how, when, and why it is collected, and how it can be better used. This is the first step of a wider test of change for managing data.

The survey is estimated to take up to 20 minutes to complete and can be downloaded here.