Best Start Grant: business and regulatory impact assessment

Objective

Scottish Ministers want to make Scotland the best place in the world for a child to grow up. Early interventions and preventative work will target the earliest years of a child's life, to build strong foundations and reduce the number of adverse childhood experiences that we know have lasting impacts on our children and shape their lives as adults ^[4] .

The BSG is one of a range of measures aimed at giving children the best start in life and will pay qualifying families £600 at around the time of the birth of the first child and £300 on the birth of every subsequent child. An additional payment of £300 is payable in the case of a multiple birth. Qualifying families will also receive £250 around the time the child starts nursery and a further £250 when they start primary school.

BSG will contribute to fulfilling the Scottish Government's National Outcomes and will specifically contribute towards the following Outcomes:

• We grow up loved, safe and respected so that we realise our full potential
• We tackle poverty by sharing opportunities, wealth and power more equally
• We are well educated, skilled and able to contribute to society

Building on the Social Security (Scotland) Act's framework of a benefit that is founded on dignity, respect and a human based approach, Scottish Ministers are commited to assisting people in accessing their full entitlement.

The BSG pregnancy and baby payment represents a significant additional investment by comparison to SSMG. The additional spend is as a result of the extension of eligibility criteria for the BSG, providing payments for 2 ^nd and subsequent children and introducing 2 further payments during a child's early years.