National events strategy 2024 to 2035: children's right and wellbeing impact assessment - stage 1 and 2

CRWIA Stage 2 – Assessment of Impact and Compatibility

1. What evidence have you used to inform your assessment? What does it tell you about the impact on children’s rights?

The evidence used to make this Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment has come from:

• The National Event Strategy Review public consultation analysis.^[4]
• Evaluations of events. This includes the 2018 Year of Young People^[5] and Scotland’s Year of Stories.^[6] It also includes the 2014 Commonwealth Games,^[7] 2018 European Championships^[8] and 2023 UCI World Cycling Championships.^[9]
• Quantitative data from, for example, the Scottish Household Survey.
• Meetings with organisations –on Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion – to inform this Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment

Partner engagement

The Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture hosted a roundtable with stakeholders including Youth-link Scotland, BEMIS Scotland, and LEAP Sports. This supported the National Events Strategy Review public consultation by discussing the strategy’s potential to boost diversity, equality, and inclusion. Scottish Government/VisitScotland officials and Youth-link Scotland had a follow up meeting on children and young people more specifically. Points highlighted at this meeting included:

• the importance of focused and effective engagement with young people that gives something back;
• there are hidden costs and benefits to young people being involved in event planning and delivery. These need considered, building on learning from the Year of Young People;
• Scottish Government and VisitScotland could consider engaging the Scottish Work Leaders Forum^[10] on the strategy review and implementation;
• robust mechanisms to measure participation and wider impacts of events on young people are essential;
• the importance of the refreshed events strategy linking into other strategies and frameworks. This included the draft National Youth Work Strategy.^[11]

Evidence base

The evidence base currently available provides a basis to undertake this Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment. We do not believe any additional evidence needs to be gathered at this stage.

Key considerations on data limitations are as follows:

• We did not ask the age of those responding to the National Events Strategy Review public consultation on-line survey. That means we are unable to tell whether anyone participating was aged 18 or under. As far as we are aware, no organisations specifically focused on supporting children and young people responded to the on-line survey or attended the engagement workshops. However, many of the organisations represented by the 222 people attending the workshops will engage with children and young people as part of their wider remit. We expect this will have influenced their responses to the public consultation.
• Significant qualitative evidence is available from evaluations of previous major events and initiatives delivered across Scotland. This includes activity to engage children and young people through event attendance, volunteering and as part of the team delivering the event.
• There are some proxy measures available to support this Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment. This comes from the Scottish Household Survey and other quantitative data. But information around events is limited.
• Scottish Government officials directly engaged with YouthLink Scotland as part of the National Events Strategy Review. Other partners attending the roundtable such as LEAP Sports and BEMIS Scotland also work closely with children and young people.

Quantitative data confirms that 15.2% of Scotland’s population is aged under 15. There is no available data for the population aged 18 and under. But data shows 5.5% is aged 15 to 19. In 2021, 1.13 million (20.8%) people in Scotland were aged 0 to 19.^[12]

As there are many different types of events, the National Events Strategy 2024-2035 could positively impact on all children and young people across Scotland. It could also positively impact on visitors to the country in this age group. This includes young people who are:

• engaging in events as spectators;
• taking part in the planning and delivery of events, for example, as volunteers; and
• hosting an event in their neighbourhood.

The evidence suggests that there are no negative impacts of the strategy on children and young people. The key opportunity is around maximising the many positives. These include wellbeing, inclusion, community empowerment and local pride, and inspiring them to help tackle the climate emergency.^[13] They also include fair work, volunteering, skills development, and attracting young people to consider a career in events.

2. Evidence from public consultation, major event evaluations, statistics, wider survey data and research.

National Events Strategy Review – public consultation

On 24 March 2023, the Scottish Government launched a 14-week public consultation to seek views on the National Events Strategy.^[14] There was an online survey, nine face-to-face workshops and one online workshop. The workshops took place between April and June 2023. In total 222 participants attended.

There were 102 responses to the online survey from a range of individuals and organisations.

There were no questions in the online survey specifically for young people. Many of the questions included the interests of young people in their scope. These included:

Question 5: To what extent do you agree or disagree that events in Scotland are: accessible; affordable; inclusive; welcoming.

Question 9: How could the benefits of events be increased for local communities?

Question 16: Do you think there are sufficient opportunities to do each of the following?

• learn about what it is like to work in the sector
• gain the skills and experiences you need to work in the sector
• further a career in the sector
• learn from the lessons and good practice of others in the sector.

On 22 September 2023, the Scottish Government published: an independent analysis of responses to the public consultation;^[15] its response to the analysis; and associated papers.^[16] Things which could positively impact on children and young people feature across the consultation. For example:

• Views on whether event organisers make connections between events and delivering broader positive impacts for society. This included providing training and development opportunities (in particular for young people).^[17]
• Views from the workshop in Oban that “Young people don’t see a future in the sector. Fair work is a move to address this.”^[18]

Previous major events and initiatives

The biggest sport and cultural events largely include adult professionals as participants or performers. However, there are some which are specifically aimed at children and young people, for example the Youth Olympic Games^[19] which Scotland made a bid to host in 2018. BMX events at the 2023 Cycling World Championships also included younger age groups.^[20]

The biggest events, such as the 2014 Commonwealth Games, have engaged young people as volunteers. This has helped secure a social legacy of events. It has brought people of a range of backgrounds together. It has strengthened civic pride and helped develop shared identities. It has built the skills and confidence of young people.

The 2014 Commonwealth Games had a range of national and city employability legacy initiatives. By 2015, it was estimated that over 11,000 young people across Scotland had benefitted from these initiatives. Final evaluation in 2018 estimated that Glasgow City Council’s use of the Games to contribute to employment legacy outcomes had benefited over 8,200 people (7,000 of which were aged 16-24) in Glasgow between 2009 and November 2017.^[21]

In 2018 Scotland hosted the Year of Young People. This provided a nationwide opportunity to celebrate the talents and achievements of young people in Scotland. This included the creation of a high-impact events programme. It put young people at the centre of its development and delivery. It created new and valuable experiences for young Scots, their families, and visitors alike.

The Year of Young People funded 110 events across 3 programmes, with an additional 232 events signed up via the partner programme. Events were hosted in 31 Local Authority areas. There were 756,000 attendees at funded events, including 264,000 young attendees. It had a 797 million PR reach.^[22]

The Year of Young People was created through a collaborative design process with young people at its heart. For young people and event organisers alike, this was often the first time they had worked in such a collaborative way. The process revealed significant opportunities to involve young people in planning, decision making and delivery. Young co-designers benefited hugely from working as equals with older people. There was also a significant impact on adults. Many gained a new-found understanding of issues affecting young people, and respect for their views, capabilities and professionalism.

SMG (2020) evaluated the Year of Young People in Scotland.^[23] It reported significant increases in the general satisfaction with life, happiness, and the feelings of self-worth of those who engaged in the year. Young people felt their lives overall were better for having participated in the programme. Analysis of before and after survey results showed sizeable increases in the proportions of young people reporting: their life is going well; their life is just right; and they have a good life.

The Glasgow 2018 European Championships was able to contribute to the Year of Young People 2018 in several ways. This included providing young people with opportunities to see elite sporting competition or international quality culture. It also included learning about health lifestyles and meeting the Glasgow 2018 mascot and ambassadors during school visits. Young people were also able to participate as volunteers, or work as trainees or graduates with Glasgow 2018 and their partners.

A third of all people attending the Glasgow 2018 European Championships were families with children under 16. The highest share of families with children under 16 was at Glasgow Green (56%).

Young people’s perspectives were an important part of the Glasgow 2018 European Championships evaluation. In recognition of this the Research and Evaluation team pilot a young people’s evaluation of the event. They worked with Glasgow Connected Arts Network and their youth arts committee (the Bold Collective) to do this. The pilot focussed mainly on Festival 2018 as this was the team’s main area of interest and knowledge. A standalone case study was prepared on the work of the youth evaluators. This is provided as an annex to the full event evaluation.^[24]

Quantitative Data

15.2% of Scotland’s population is aged under 15. There is no available data for the population aged 18 and under. But data shows 5.5% is aged 15 to 19. In 2021 1.13 million (20.8%) people in Scotland were aged under 19.^[25]

We are not aware of any data on event participation by age.

The Scottish Household Survey figures shows that in 2022, 85% of people aged 16 to 24 had attended a cultural event or place of culture, including the cinema, compared to 44% of people aged 75 or over. When cinema is removed the difference is smaller (71% and 41% respectively).^[26]

90% of 16- to 39-year-olds attended a cultural event compared to 68% of those aged 60 and over.^[27]

The Scottish Household Survey shows overall cultural participation was broadly similar for all age groups in 2019. However, participation decreased with age when reading was excluded from the measure.^[28]

The Growing up in Scotland study presents high level findings relating to young people’s experiences across a range of life domains. This report does not cover cultural and sporting events specifically but it does provide useful contextual information. This includes information on social media usage and activities and life satisfaction which can link into events.^[29]

3. Evidence from children and young people

Evidence has not been gathered directly from children and young people to inform this Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment. This was not thought to be necessary given the advisory nature of the refreshed strategy. Available quantitative and qualitative information, particularly related to the 2018 Year of Young People, has been used for this assessment. In implementing the strategy, lead partners may need to gather further specific evidence directly from children and young people. This would be to support development of work they are leading on to implement the strategy. This will be for the partner leading the piece of work to decide on. It will depend on the work being considered and whether robust evidence related to it is available.