Scotland's children's services plans 2023-2026 review: improving outcomes for children, young people and families

11. Children’s Rights

This chapter discusses the extent to which Children’s rights and the UNCRC were embedded in Children’s Services Plans for 2023-2026 to meet the review criteria that a Children’s Services Plan should describe how children’s rights have informed the plan’s structural, procedural and outcomes framework.

Children’s Rights (Criterion 9)

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act received royal assent in January 2024 and all of the provisions were commenced on or before 16^th July 2024. Work to prepare for implementation of the UNCRC in Scotland began during the 2020-2023 CSP cycle and is continuing in 2023- 2026.

CSPs are key to ensuring that local services support the rights of children and young people. The statutory guidance sets out that explicit values based on children’s rights and wellbeing are essential to the effective local leadership of children’s services planning. It also highlights opportunities through Children’s Services Planning to articulate children’s rights in practice, by outlining actions to be taken over each three-year period; as well as opportunities for local authorities and health boards to fulfil children’s rights reporting requirements through integration of rights reporting within CSP annual reports.

Most 2023-2026 Children’s Services Plans described how children’s rights informed the Plan, as shown in Figure 11.1. Twenty-four CSPs fully met this criterion and five CSPs partially met this criterion. This represents a slight decline in the number of Children’s Services Plans which fully met this criterion since the last review.

CSPs which fully met this criterion described how the CSPP is promoting children’s rights, gave examples of youth participation and involvement and referred specifically to the UNCRC and relevant articles within it. CSPs which partially met this criterion either did not include a reference to the UNCRC, or did not provide enough detail about youth participation, delivery or improvement actions related to children’s rights and children and young people’s involvement in decision-making at all levels.

Children’s Services Plans provided many examples of how children and young people have been involved in local strategic planning and service design; the most common type of activity taken to embed children’s rights in CSPs. Other activities discussed in CSPs included: facilitation of youth forums and pupil councils; schools signing up to the Children’s Rights Respecting School Award; opportunities for children and young people to develop their citizenship skills (e.g. active democratic participation opportunities); and activities to help children and families understand their rights under the UNCRC and how to access them.

Twelve Children’s Services Plans included children’s rights as a strategic priority or key area for action, demonstrating a commitment to promoting children’s rights as a key focus for children’s services in their area. For example, one of the priorities in North Ayrshire’s CSP focuses on ensuring that the rights of children and young people are promoted and protected, including an action to carry out an Equalities and Children’s Rights Impact Assessment on new policies that affect the lives of children and young people. Falkirk’s CSP has a specific workstream which centres on the UNCRC and children’s rights. Fife’s aims include working with young people in a rights-based way, with inclusion of a Child’s Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment in policies as one way of evidencing this.

Children’s Services Plans do not always state if children’s rights will be promoted within children’s services specifically or within other services more widely. However, for example, North Ayrshire’s CSP indicates that the voices of children and young people will influence the work of the Community Planning Partnership as a whole. Fife aims to “ensure that there is active and meaningful engagement of children and young people in decisions that affect them and the planning and delivery of services across Fife”. Shetland CSPP intends to share learning about children’s rights with other services to help them take action and “understand the need for rights respecting practice in their own service areas”. This includes, for example, work with staff that support people who use alcohol and other drugs.

Almost two thirds (18 out of 30) of Children’s Services Plans referred directly to at least one of the UNCRC Articles; the most frequently mentioned was Article 12: Every child has the right to express their views, feelings and wishes in all matters affecting them, and to have their views considered and taken seriously.

An example of good practice is where CSPs provided a table that clearly link strategic priorities, services delivered or improvement actions with relevant UNCRC article(s) they address. For example, Aberdeen City, West Dunbartonshire and West Lothian clearly map their CSP priorities and activities against UNCRC articles.

Examples of good practice

Renfrewshire: Section 5 (pp. 9-19) discusses Renfrewshire’s Child’s Rights Approach; this sets out how Renfrewshire’s Children’s Services Planning Partners work together to raise local awareness of the UNCRC, adopt a rights-based approach to working with children and young people, and provide routes to enhance youth participation in decision-making processes. Examples of this in the Children’s Services Plan include: Renfrewshire Youth Voice, a local charity supported by Renfrewshire’s Youth Services; young people co-designing the Personal and Social Education school curriculum; and delivering a virtual participatory budgeting programme on the Celebrating Renfrewshire platform in 2020 to include young people’s voice in local decision making.

Fife: A Children’s Services Participation and Engagement Strategy and a Youth Empowerment Panel have been established to gather children and young people’s views. Fife has a Children’s Rights Oversight Group of stakeholders which oversees the CSPP’s approach to participation of children and young people and engagement activity.

Shetland: Each secondary school has a young person’s participation forum; a Peer Education Network aims to ensure the voices of children are considered by children’s services and another group has been created to ensure the views of care-experienced children are considered when making changes to services. Additional Policy and Engagement Context Children’s rights form the basis for Scotland’s national policy approach to safeguarding, supporting and promoting child wellbeing - Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC). Fulfilling children’s rights is also critical to our commitment to #KeepThePromise and to eradicate child poverty.

Additional Policy and Engagement Context

The intent behind the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024, which received royal assent in January 2024, is to deliver a proactive culture of everyday accountability for children’s rights across public services in Scotland. We have already been using the UNCRC as a framework to ensure that we consider children's rights whenever we take decisions, and to help provide every child with the best start in life, and a safe, healthy and happy childhood.

The UNCRC Strategic Implementation Board was established in July 2021, and currently meets bi-monthly to provide strategic vision and oversight of a comprehensive and joined-up implementation programme. The Board is supported by the UNCRC Implementation: Embedding in Public Services Group (previously known as the Guidance Reference Group) which has widened its remit to provide support to the Embedding Children's Rights in Public Services strand of the UNCRC Implementation programme.

The purpose of this working group is to assist in developing guidance and support materials for public authorities and those undertaking functions of a public nature to implement the UNCRC. The Children’s Services Planning Strategic Leads Network has had the opportunity to provide feedback and influence development of a range of supports which have been developed to support public authorities to take a children’s right approach in the design and delivery of their services.

The Getting Ready for UNCRC framework and non-statutory guidance on taking a children’s human rights approach aims to support this shift by introducing how public authorities can build on existing practice to secure better or further effect of the rights of children. Statutory guidance will be issued shortly to help public authorities implement their new duties, including supporting listed authorities:

• to understand and fulfil duties under section 6 of the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 (to not act incompatibly with the UNCRC requirements defined by section 1 of the Act), and to secure better or further effect of children’s rights (Part 2: statutory guidance)
• to deliver on the provisions of the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 to fulfil requirements on child’s rights reporting, including suggested reporting formats, and information on inclusive communication and child friendly reports (Part 3: statutory guidance)

Feedback from the Children’s Services Planning Strategic Leads Network has highlighted children’s rights as indivisible from strategic service planning and delivery. The Children’s Rights statutory guidance will set out opportunities for local alignment of children’s rights reporting with other statutory plans or reports, highlighting its connectivity with Part 3 (Children’s Services Planning). Where two or more listed public authorities choose to report jointly on children’s rights, or where children’s rights reporting requirements are being fulfilled through their inclusion in another plan or report, public authorities must ensure this is clearly communicated to make the public aware of the children's rights report, and to ensue this can be accessed easily.

The Scottish Government’s Initial Response to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s Concluding Observations was published in March 2024. This report sets out the progress made in relation to children’s rights in Scotland since the publication of the Position Statement of November 2022, which was prepared ahead of the UK’s state party scrutiny by the UN Committee which took place in May 2023.

Section 14 of the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 requires a ‘Children’s Rights Scheme’ to set out the arrangements that Ministers have made, or propose to make, to ensure they comply with the duty to act compatibility with the UNCRC requirements and to secure better or further effect of the rights of children. It is anticipated that the first Children’s Rights Scheme will be laid before the Scottish Parliament before the end of 2024.

The Children and Families National Leadership Group (C&F NLG) have retained a clear focus on children’s rights, holding a deep-dive session on Participation in December 2023. This identified opportunities to embed a more joined-up and strategic approach to: participation and engagement activity with children and young people; and to ensure (local and national) the views of children and young people continue to inform the group’s priorities as well as directly influencing wider strategic decision-making through effective opportunities for their participation.

C&F NLG recognised that the review of Children’s Services Plans (2020-2023) showed a wide range of innovative practice and local improvement activity, both by individual organisations and collective CSPPs (e.g. peer surveys; raising awareness of rights, participatory budgeting initiatives, youth participation networks) with significant opportunities to strengthen connectivity between local and national participation work, and a key role for Children’s Services Planning Partnerships within this.