Do the Right Thing: children's rights progress report

1 Ongoing monitoring of the UNCRC in Scotland

What the Committee said:

"The Committee encourages the State party to adopt comprehensive plans of action for the implementation of the Convention in all parts of the State party, in cooperation with the public and private sectors involved in the promotion and protection of children's rights and based on a child rights approach... The Committee also recommends that the State party ensure adequate budget allocations and follow-up and evaluation mechanisms for the full implementation of the plans of action to regularly assess progress achieved and identify possible deficiencies. These plans should pay special attention to children belonging to the most vulnerable groups."

Progress to date

• We published 'Do the Right Thing' in 2009 to set out the Scottish Government's commitment to advance the rights agenda. This report is an update on that commitment.
• In November 2009 we jointly published 'Working Together, Achieving More' - a joint commitment by the four UK administrations to take action in response to the concluding observations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
• In partnership with Together Scotland and Scotland's Commissioner for Children and Young People, we have established the Scottish Children's Rights Implementation Monitoring Group. The group, which meets quarterly, has been tasked with developing a common understanding on progress to implement the UNCRC in Scotland as well as discussing emerging issues and, where possible, agreeing approaches and actions to address them. The group last met in April 2012.
• We have committed to annual meetings involving Ministers from each of the four UK administrations to discuss progress with implementing the UNCRC and to share examples of good practice. The last of these was held in February 2011. Meetings involving officials from each of the administrations are held quarterly, with the last discussion having taken place in March of this year.

Next steps

• We will commit to publishing interim reports during each subsequent reporting cycle in relation to the UNCRC.
• We will work with the other UK administrations to identify opportunities for progressing the actions set out in the joint commitment 'Working Together, Achieving More'.
• We will consider how other sources/methods can be used for gathering relevant information and monitoring progress on implementation of the UNCRC in a way that is consistent with the Scottish public sector context. Part of this work will involve further development of performance indicators which can be directly linked to children's wellbeing, in line with our Getting it right for every child approach to children's services, and linked with the planned inspection framework which the Care Inspectorate is currently considering.