NEW REPORT Being Bold: Building Budgets for Children’s Wellbeing

Carnegie UK Trust have announced the publication of a new report Being Bold: Building Budgets for Children’s Wellbeing, by Dr Katherine Trebeck, with Amy Baker.

This work was commissioned by CUKT in collaboration with Children in Scotland and early years funder Cattanach. The report is focused on Scotland but we believe has applicability for governments across the UK and Ireland.



Being Bold makes a series of calls focused on redirecting finances to tackling root causes of inequality and poverty as Scotland emerges from COVID-19. Key recommendations include:

• A post-COVID-19 spending review, with all spend proposals assessed against evidence of impact on children’s wellbeing
• Training of the civil service to ensure effective budget development and analysis, and moving to multi-year budgeting aligned with wellbeing goals
• Establishing an independent agency, modeled on the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, to support activity and scrutinise effectiveness of delivery of wellbeing budgeting by the government
• An overarching change to the ways of working in the Scottish Government budget process to ingrain greater transparency; cross-departmental working; and a participatory approach involving the public and the diversity of children’s voices.

The report focuses on the first few years of a child’s life: getting things right here will mean things go well elsewhere. At the same time, the experience of a child’s early years is shaped by a plethora of different factors and dynamics. This focus thus also constitutes a lens to look at the wider economy and how it is shaped by the policymaking process.

You can join the conversation on twitter using the hashtag #WellbeingBudget or following the report commissioners and authors @CarnegieUKTrust @cisweb @cattanachSCIO and @KTrebeck