You can't put a successful childhood in a schoolbag

The SNP is proposing to repeat the approach it took with Baby Boxes and replicate it with schoolbags. That's the problem. Baby Boxes were a misunderstanding of a preceding Finnish policy and so offering free schoolbags more or less repeats the same misunderstanding – you cannot achieve policy goals by handing out objects, objects must be part of a wider programme.

In 2017 Scotland introduced Baby Boxes. These are wooden boxes that can act as a crib in early years and which are filled with various items that new parents generally need, with the aim of ensuring that children get a proper start in life. The theory is that it supports parents at a crucial moment in their family life and helps to create behavioural patterns.

The problem is that this was never the theory on which the original policy was based – because there is very little evidence that providing people will objects which tend to be used in a certain way means that the person who is given those objects will continue to behave in that particular way once the objects are gone.

The Finnish policy did begin with Baby Boxes but that was in the context of a very high child mortality rate in what was an under-developed Finland in 1938, and that was only one conclusion from a wider review which put the emphasis on pre-natal support and universal healthcare.

Over time the original context (rural poverty in the pre-war era) changed and the emphasis moved heavily towards the pre-natal and post-natal support package. This began well before anyone was on the path to parenthood (it began with education in schools) but became a process of direct engagement with prospective parents from the moment they first visit their GP.

The policy involved a series of training courses and support initiatives which are available throughout the pregnancy and beyond. This was the key aspect; providing new and prospective parents with real, supported personal development to enable them to learn best-practice contemporary parenting approaches.

The existence of the Baby Boxes themselves is tangential – they became seen as something like an ‘inducement’ to encourage voluntary take-up of the parenting support. The Baby Boxes became a 'bribe' to encourage take up of the actual policy that the initiative was always about.

Common Weal is particularly aware of this issue because at the time of the introduction of Baby Boxes in Scotland we were engaged (on another policy issue) with one of the policy advisers in Finland who was responsible for the policy. He expressed bemusement at what Scotland was doing. He viewed it as unserious – not 'hard work then a reward' but instead 'a reward pretending to be hard work'.

The problem with all of this represents a fundamental failure of Scottish politics which we have seen repeatedly. Of course having a universally-provided Baby Box is better than not having one, because providing parents with a free pack of nappies is always going to be better for the parents than not providing them with a free pack of nappies.

So what it provides is a surface-level appearance of action on 'giving children a best start' without any of the actual action. It has taken the PR aspect of a wide-ranging policy to address a complex issue and dropped the rest. Now it is repeating the approach with a free schoolbag.

Again, the problem is not that the proposal lacks all merit – there is a real issue with poverty impacting education because parents can't afford essential equipment for their children. One in six children in Britain has missed schooling because they didn't have the necessary equipment.

The problem is that this is only a very small part of the educational and developmental problems facing parents and children in the 21st century. The Finnish Baby Boxes did help to end 'parenting poverty', but the context of rural poverty in Finland in the inter-war period. That context quickly moved on and in the long term what made the difference was the prenatal support package.

Free schoolbags provided outside the context of a proper wider plan are just a gimmick. Inside a wider plan they become a tool in a tool kit. Common Weal has published two major reports which set out the nature of what that plan should look like.

Saving Childhood looks at the challenges facing children in an internet age where structured and unstructured group play and activity is on the decline and Childcare or Caring for Children? sets out a more detailed analysis of what a truly effective coordinated early-years service would look like, with an emphasis on poverty and those with special needs.

Scotland fails to tackle big problems because too often the political objective is to be seen to tackle big problems without undertaking the complex and difficult work required. On their own, free schoolbags are simply a repeat of that failing approach.