Child Poverty Action Group

The Early Warning System (EWS) was set up by CPAG in Scotland to collect and analyse case evidence about how welfare changes are affecting the wellbeing of children, their families and the communities and services that support them.

To date over 3,000 case studies have been gathered from frontline workers, including welfare rights advisors, housing officers and support workers.

The Early Warning System (EWS) gathers information and case studies about the impact of welfare reform on children and families across Scotland.

CPAG in Scotland set up the EWS to help us to get a better understanding of how changes to the benefit system like the introduction of universal credit, the benefit cap and changes to tax credit entitlement will affect the lives of children living in Scotland and their families.

Information and anonymous case studies are being collected from:

Themes emerging from our conversations with our families

This series of mini reports by Morag Treanor from the University of Edinburgh distils some of the information from discussions with our twelve families over the last two years. The report themes are:

Our Early Warning System project has produced the following resources based on their findings:

What is welfare reform and how is it affecting families

CPAG in Scotland has developed a new resource and timeline for midwives highlighting some of the practical steps they can take to maximise a family’s income and increase financial security. These steps include:

Administrative problems

• Policy update: Delay and mandatory reconsideration (May 2014)

Benefit cap

• Early Warning System findings on the impact of the benefit cap (January 2018)

Briefings for Scottish Parliament

• Parliamentary reception briefing (