Chamber and committees

The recent consultation on the proposed Rights of Children and Young People Bill did not propose to place a duty to have regard to the UNCRC on public bodies. The consultation closed on 1 December and the responses are currently being analysed.

Scottish Government officials have held, and will continue to hold, discussions with Welsh Assembly Government officials on the Rights of Children and Young People (Wales) Measure which placed a similar due regard duty on Welsh ministers to that proposed in our consultation document.

The recent consultation on the proposed Rights of Children and Young People Bill did not propose to fully incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The consultation closed on 1 December and the responses are currently being analysed.

Scottish ministers are already taking forward a range of activity, including Getting It Right for Every Child and the Early Years Framework, to implement the UNCRC.

The Rights of Children and Young People Bill is to underpin this progress and also ensure that all relevant Scottish policy and legislation takes proper account of the rights of children and young people. The bill will demonstrate a clear commitment by government to recognise and respect these rights and ensure that service delivery takes account of the UNCRC in a robust and appropriate manner.

The bill will also improve transparency, parliamentary scrutiny and accountability by introducing a duty on Scottish ministers to publish periodic reports focussing on compliance for consideration by the Scottish Parliament.

The consultation on the Rights of Children and Young People Bill proposed that Scottish ministers in conducting any of their functions should:

Identify the relevant rights and duties in the UNCRC and its Optional Protocols;

Consider whether alternatives exist which would better promote those rights and duties;

Consider whether any aspect of the decision might run counter to those rights and duties, and

Make their decision based on a proper assessment of the impacts of all the alternatives, taking account of all other requirements on them when making decisions.

The mechanism for best demonstrating this has still to be agreed. However, it is likely that the Scottish Government will develop specific tools and approaches to support the assessment of policies and legislation against UNCRC provisions.

The recent consultation on the proposed Rights of Children and Young People Bill did not propose to place a duty on either Scottish Ministers or public bodies to raise awareness and understanding of the UNCRC. The consultation closed on 1 December and the responses are currently being analysed.

Through its child-centred approach, which is one of the three key principles of the child poverty strategy.

The Scottish Government is considering examples of good practice from other countries in taking forward our Rights of Children and Young People Bill.

National outcome 15 is not an outcome of the Making Justice Work Programme but one of the outcomes in the National Performance Framework which has been in place since 2007. This outcome aspires to public services are high quality, continually improving, efficient and responsive to local people’s needs. The Making Justice Work Programme is designed to contribute to the delivery of this outcome by making improvements to the structures, systems and processes of the justice system. In doing so it will consider the needs of a range of users of the justice system, including children.

Each of the Making Justice Work projects contains a range of workstreams. While no specific strands of work at the moment directly relate to children, their needs are considered along with the wider set of users of the justice system. For example, within project 2 work is going forward on “Getting People to Court” which is considering the needs of vulnerable witnesses and victims such as children.