EXCL: The SNP has been accused of spurning evidence-based policy after striking a £56m deal to renew its flagship baby box scheme two days before the pre-election recess - and before an independent evaluation of the initiative has been completed. Thread👇scotsman.com/news/politics/…
The baby box is a widely popular and inclusive policy, but it’s sold as more than a feel-good initiative. The problem is there’s no evidence of how it’s helping address child health, poverty, inequality, or engagement with hard to reach families.
The SNP continues to claim that the Finnish baby box model - the blueprint for the Scottish scheme - reduces infant mortality. There is not a fleck of evidence to support this claim. 
There are also Qs around what the SNP is - or isn’t - doing to gather this evidence. It signed a new £56m deal to renew the baby box until at least 2027, *before* a £170,000 evaluation it commissioned has been completed.
The evaluation is being conducted by a market research firm. It’s not clear what, if any, health outcomes it will scrutinise. But experts in child health have expressed misgivings.
Peter Blair, professor of epidemiology and statistics at the University of Bristol, and an expert on sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), told me the Scottish Govt turned down his suggestion for an observational study.
So this isn’t a story about the baby box being ‘bad’. It’s about a government flagship policy being renewed despite the fact its outcomes remain unproven, and a curiously persistent reluctance to establish what evidence-based impacts it is having.
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