Human Rights Tracker Scotland: Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment (CRWIA)

Conclusion

7. As a result of the evidence gathered and analysed against all UNCRC requirements, what is the potential overall impact of this proposal on children’s rights?

Access to information through the Tracker is likely to have a positive impact on rights relating to expression and access to information. We also anticipate that the ability to strategically view and act on relevant recommendations will enhance implementation efforts thereby having an indirect positive impact across children’s rights more broadly.

8. If you have identified a positive impact on children’s rights, please describe below how the proposal will protect, respect, and fulfil children’s rights in Scotland.

From the evidence gathered, the development of this Tracker has the potential to increase all children and young people’s ability to understand and engage with their rights, as well as strategically enhancing implementation efforts across Scotland.

By offering accessible information through an intuitive interface, the Tracker could support children to understand human rights issues and relevant action taken. In doing so, the Tracker promotes transparency, participation, and equality, helping children to become informed rights-holders who can voice their views and influence decisions that impact them.

9. If a negative impact has been identified please describe it below. Is there a risk this could potentially amount to an incompatibility?

No negative impacts on children’s rights have been identified through the CRWIA process, however digital exclusion remains a risk for some user groups.

To mitigate this risk, national initiatives such as Connecting Scotland have delivered devices, connectivity, and digital skills to over 61,000 people since 2020, while the Digital Inclusion Alliance coordinates cross-sector efforts to tackle systemic barriers. Research on Minimum Digital Living Standards further informs policy by setting benchmarks for essential digital resources. Connectivity improvements through programmes like R100 and Project Gigabit aim to reduce geographic inequalities, while social tariffs help address affordability for low-income households.

Alongside these national initiatives, the Tracker will conform with accessibility guidelines and be accessible on both computer and mobile devices to support ease of use across different technologies and user preferences. An accessibility audit and user testing with organisations that represent children and young people will help to inform further improvement, including the potential for child friendly interpretations of the recommendations in Phase 2.

Mitigation Record

Issue or risk identified and relevant UNCRC requirement

N/A

Action Taken/ To Be Taken

N/A

Date action to be taken or was taken

N/A

10. As a result of the evidence gathered and analysed against all wellbeing indicators, will the proposal contribute to the wellbeing of children and young people in Scotland? (Guidance Section 2.3.2, pages 20-22).

Safe: Not Applicable

Healthy: Not Applicable

Achieving: Not Applicable

Nurtured: Not Applicable

Active: Not Applicable

Respected: Yes

Responsible: Yes

Included: Yes

If yes, please provide an explanation below:

The Tracker can support children and young people to know and claim their rights.

11. How will you communicate to children and young people the impact that the proposal will have on their rights?

Organisations that represent children and young people have been involved in the Tracker design and will be invited to help promote the tool to children and young people. We will listen to the views of children and young people in monitoring and improving the Tracker, including the option to include child friendly interpretations of recommendations in future.

This CRWIA will be published on gov.scot so those wishing to access it can do so. The CRWIA in so far as possible has also been written using accessible language so those wishing to access it should be able to understand its content and the potential impact on their rights.