Fair Work Action Plan 2022 and Anti-Racist Employment Strategy 2022: child rights and wellbeing impact assessment

7. Conclusions

The overall assessment of the Fair Work Action Plan and Anti-Racist Employment Strategy suggests an overall positive for children and young people. It is recommended that the Scottish Government continue with the delivery of the RAP and ARES.

Where children and young people are in employment themselves,^[45] the direct positive impacts of actions increasing fair work across Scotland is clear. Children and young people could be better protected from insecure working conditions and poor pay, as well as having their voice more effectively heard and listened to in workplaces. These impacts would be felt most acutely by particular groups of young people who face intersectional labour market inequalities, such as disabled young people and those from racialised minorities. The actions in the Fair Work Action Plan and Anti-Racist Employment Strategy would help to address the barriers which these groups face.

Children and young people are also likely to feel indirect positive impacts of the increased provision of fair work, where a parent or guardian sees increased security of work or pay. Child poverty is directly linked to household income and outcomes such as increased payment of the real Living Wage, reduced labour market inequalities and increased effective voice and collective bargaining for employees could create higher incomes for many families with children in Scotland.

However, there are some actions where impact has not been possible to assess at this stage. As a result, it will be important for a continuous monitoring and evaluation framework to be mindful of capturing the direct and indirect impacts on children and young people.

In addition, due to limited timeframes and capacity of external stakeholders, the engagement captured for this impact assessment was limited in scale. While many stakeholders spoke about the impact of the actions on young people and children, the engagement from young person's organisations and young people themselves was very limited. This lack of lived experience has provided a limitation to this assessment and, where possible, continued engagement with young person's organisations and children and young people should be considered during the implementation and evaluation stages of the Fair Work Action Plan and Anti-Racist Engagement Strategy up to 2025.