Scottish Budget 2025 to 2026: child rights and wellbeing impact assessment

Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment

1. Brief Summary

Type of proposal

• Decision of a strategic nature relating to the rights and wellbeing of children

Name the proposal, and describe its overall aims and intended purpose.

The proposal is the Scottish Budget statement, which represents a decision of a strategic nature relating, in part, to the rights and wellbeing of children.

The Scottish Budget allocates public money but does not always direct how that money should be spent, given that a significant share of decision-making is devolved to local authorities. Local authorities have the autonomy to allocate budgets based on local needs and priorities.

Start date of proposal’s development:

The Budget process is continuous and year-round but is informed by medium term forecasts and priorities identified within the Programme for Government, which was announced in Parliament on 4 September 2024.

The Scottish Budget allocates public money but does not always direct how that money should be spent, given that a significant share of decision-making is devolved to local authorities. Local authorities have the autonomy to allocate budgets based on local needs and priorities.

Start date of CRWIA process:

26 September 2024

2. With reference given to the requirements of the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 (Annex 1), which aspects of the proposal are relevant to/impact upon children’s rights?

The realisation of children’s rights requires the mobilisation, allocation, and targeted expenditure of public funds. The proposed spend for each Ministerial portfolio will therefore impact on the extent to which children’s rights can be adequately resourced and realised for the purposes of the Scottish Ministers complying with Article 4 of the UNCRC requirements (as incorporated into Scots law) in terms of achieving sufficient public resources for the realisation of children’s rights.

Decisions about budget allocations have the potential to impact on all of the 42 substantive UNCRC Articles (as amended) that have been incorporated into Scots law as part of the UNCRC requirements. In addition, tax decisions as set out in the Budget Statement also have the ability to impact children and young people.

3. Please provide a summary of the evidence gathered which will be used to inform your decision-making and the content of the proposal

An assessment of impacts was sought from Scottish Government portfolios against each of their proposed budget lines, where portfolios considered budgets at Ministerial portfolio level (level 2) or Scottish Government Directorate level (level 3) to enable them to present an overview. Where a breakdown of budget allocation had been made within Directorates (at level 4, for divisions and units), they were also able to consider the direct impacts on children’s rights and wellbeing at that level.

As with all CRWIAs, this assessment represents a view at a given point in time and relied upon the evidence and analysis available to Scottish Government portfolios at that time.

Assessing the impact of the monetary value of the budget lines was likely to have resulted in a consistently positive assessment: any public spend that supports the delivery of services is likely to have a positive impact on children’s rights, compared with no spend at all. The decision which was assessed was therefore the impact of policy teams’ budgets increasing, decreasing, or remaining the same in real terms.

In addition, the Scottish Government has an ongoing commitment to making sure that the voices of children and young people are heard at the highest levels of Government.

This takes place in annual meetings between the members of the Children’s Parliament, Scottish Youth Parliament, the Scottish Government Executive Team (the senior leaders of Government) and Cabinet (the First Minister, Deputy First Minister and all of the Cabinet Secretaries). This year’s Cabinet meeting with children and young people took place on 19 November 2024, shortly before this CRWIA was finalised. At that meeting, members of the Scottish Youth Parliament highlighted as the key issues concerning young people: ending gender based violence; investing in and protecting youth work services; and increasing mental health training and support. Members of the Children’s Parliament highlighted as their ‘calls to action’: climate crisis education; vaping; and bullying and mental health in schools.

4. Further to the evidence described at ‘3’ have you identified any 'gaps' in evidence which may prevent determination of impact? If yes, please provide an explanation of how they will be addressed

There were no gaps in evidence that prevented the determination of overall impact of the Scottish Budget. However, as decisions are made about the delivery of the commitments that are relevant to children’s rights, further engagement with children and young people should be carried out and, as the details of the proposals develop, individual CRWIAs will be required in relation to relevant strategic decisions and proposed legislation at the appropriate time.

5. Analysis of Evidence

Scottish Budget

The evidence collected suggests that the Scottish Budget will have an overall positive impact on children and young people, which is likely to offset any minor negative impacts set out below.

Child poverty package

The £768 million package to support the Affordable Housing Supply programme is anticipated to have positive impacts against Article 12, respect for views of the child, and Article 27, the right to an adequate standard of living.

Social Security Scotland are now delivering Child Disability Payment and Adult Disability Payment, replacing Disability Living Allowance for children and Personal Independence Payment. Pension Age Disability Payment, which will replace Attendance Allowance, launched with a pilot on 21 October 2024 and will launch nationally in April 2025. In 2025-26, the Government’s investment in these benefits, including Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance, is forecast to be over £5.4 billion.

In the coming financial year, the Scottish Government will develop the systems necessary to effectively scrap the impact of the two child benefit cap in 2026. To that end, the Scottish Government has provided funding to develop the delivery mechanism in this Budget and will seek to accelerate the timetable if at all possible.

This new support could be worth over £3,500 per year to families hit by the cap and, once implemented, could help to lift thousands of children out of poverty in Scotland and reduce the depth of poverty faced by many more. This will positively impact Articles 6, 23 and 26.

The budget also provides £21 million of investment to ensure Early Learning and Childcare and Children’s Social Care staff in the private and voluntary sector areas are paid the real living wage, which is expected to have a positive impact against Articles 27, 28 and 29.

Expanding free school meals to children in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment for children in P6 and P7, ensuring access to a nutritionally balanced meal and supporting healthy habits, supports Articles 6, 24, 26, and 27.

Other spending decisions

The following section sets out further decisions with notable impact on children and young people.

Multiple areas within health and social care will experience a range of positive impacts. A small increase in the mental health budget is anticipated to result in positive impacts against Article 2 (the right to non-discrimination); Article 3 (the principle that the best interests of the child are a primary consideration); Article 4, (Scottish Ministers’ duty to take all appropriate measures to implement the rights under the UNCRC requirements); Article 6 (the right to life, and to survival and development (to the maximum extent possible); Article 23 (the right to support for children with a disability); Article 24 (the right to access healthcare and health services); and Article 25 (the right to a periodic review of the treatment of a child in care).

Within the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture portfolio, funding is expected to have positive impacts against UNCRC articles, with the decision to increase funding to support Creative Scotland and cultural organisations across the country likely to have a positive impact on children and young people’s Article 31 rights to access leisure, play, and culture.

In the Deputy First Minister, Economy and Gaelic portfolio, an increase in the regeneration budget to £62 million from £61 million could have positive impacts against Article 26, which relates to the right to benefit from social security (where appropriate, taking into account the child and their parents’/guardians’ resources and circumstances); and Article 31, which relates to the rights of children to take part in leisure, play and culture.

Overall, the budget allocations reflect the priorities of the government. Not all budget measures primarily benefit children. For example, the decision to provide an additional £100 Pension Age Winter Heating Payment to pensioner households could have a small positive impact on children and young people’s UNCRC rights for households with both children and pensioners, specifically Article 26 (the right to benefit from Social Security (where appropriate, taking into account the child and their parents’ or guardians’ resources and circumstances); and Article 27 (the right to an adequate standard of living). However, as a benefit directed towards those of pension age, it will primarily benefit this older group.

Tax

Tax decisions will have negligible impact across all UNCRC requirements. Decisions to freeze tax thresholds may negatively impact some specific groups, such as 16-17 year olds who pay income tax. However, distributional analysis published alongside the Budget shows this age group will be less affected by tax rises announced in the Budget Statement, as their incomes are generally lower than for the tax base as a whole.

These decisions may have positive and negative impacts on parents and guardians’ income, depending on their tax band, and so affect children’s Article 27 rights (to an adequate standard of living), with impacts likely to be positive or negative depending on their parents’ or guardians’ tax band.

Pre-Budget Fiscal Statement

On 3 September, the Scottish Government delivered a pre-Budget Fiscal Statement.

This statement set out a mix of non-recurring and recurring measures, with recurring measures linking directly to some of the decisions taken in this Scottish Budget.

The following overview analysis considers and gives regard to the Children’s Rights and Wellbeing implications of the reductions outlined in the Fiscal Statement.

The reductions to the Visit Scotland budget of 0.8 million, may have indirect negative impacts on children and young people, specifically the right to take part in cultural activities (article 31 of UNCRC requirements).

The £20 million savings generated from COVID-19 programmes winding down, including vaccinations, could impact Article 24 of the UNCRC requirements, the right of access to healthcare services. As with other considerations, the operational reductions to reprofile spend into future years or to reduce programmes where demand has reduced are likely to have neutral impacts.

Reductions outlined by the Net Zero and Energy Portfolio of 23.4 million focus on operational decisions to either re-profile projects into future years or to reflect external changes and market conditions in the decarbonisation industries. Impacts on Children and Young People are unlikely to be direct.

Decisions within the Social Justice portfolio are largely operational in nature and therefore have no impacts directly on children.

Reprofiling of existing resource budget forecasts of 0.7 million for the Cladding Remediation Fund will result in negative impacts on children and young people under the age of 18 that live in, rent, or own properties within the scope of the programme, along Articles 3, 6 and 27 of UNCRC, (the principle that the best interests of the child are a primary consideration, the right to life and to survival and development, and the right to an adequate standard of living respectively) mitigated by the fact the reprofiling ensures that there will be no reduction in forecast programme activity.

On housing, there is a potential negative indirect impact on Scottish Ministers’ ability, in cases of need and in accordance with national conditions and within their means, to provide assistance and support programmes regarding housing (article 27 of UNCRC requirements).

Halting the development and delivery of a marketing campaign focused on reducing stigma associated with Funeral Support Payment, Job Start Payment and Young Carers Grant uptake could impact upon Article 26 and 27, (the right to social security and an adequate standard of living respectively) due to potentially fewer applications being made on behalf of eligible children or their families.

In the Transport portfolio, the reductions in active travel budgets are expected to have a negative impact on Article 6 of UNCRC requirements, the right to development (to the maximum extent possible) and Article 24, the right to the highest attainable standard of health.

Across all these savings, the Scottish Government will monitor these impacts and, where possible, put in place mitigations as required.

6. What changes (if any) have been made to the proposal as a result of this assessment?

Ministers considered potential savings options through the usual Cabinet process. Monitoring and evaluation of existing policies will be carried out during policy implementation, with new evidence and adaptations considered as necessary.