First Children's Rights Scheme

2. The approach to be taken by Scottish Ministers to comply with the section 6 duty and secure better or further effect of the rights of children

Section 14(3) of the UNCRC Act specifies that the Scheme must include arrangements by Scottish Ministers to:

• Ensure that children are able to participate in the making of decisions that affect them with access to such support and representation (for example from children’s advocacy services) as they require to do so.
• Identify and address any situation where a child’s rights are (or are at a significant risk of) not being fulfilled.
• Raise awareness of and promote the rights of children.
• Promote complaints handling procedures that children can understand and use.
• Ensure that children have effective access to justice.
• Protect the rights of children in relation to their interactions with persons, other than public authorities, who provide services which affect children.
• Consider the rights of children in the Scottish Government’s budget process.
• Ensure that their actions contribute to any national outcome for children determined by them under Part 1 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015.
• Prepare and publish Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessments.
• Use, and promote the use of, inclusive ways of communicating that ensure that children are able to receive information and express themselves in ways that best meet their needs (in relation to speech, language or otherwise).

In addition, section 17(3) of the UNCRC Act specifies that Scottish Ministers must prepare and publish a CRWIA in relation to decisions of a strategic nature relating to the rights and wellbeing of children as required by, and in accordance with, the arrangements set out in the Scheme.

The Scheme need not be and is not limited to setting out only these arrangements, however, and so is not structured around these headings. Instead, the main body of this Scheme, set out in this section, is structured to help make clear that the arrangements in the Scheme reflect the principles of a children’s human rights Approach articulated in the Scottish Government’s non-statutory guidance (published in relation to the UNCRC Act) for public authorities. Those principles are:

• Embedding: putting children’s human rights at the core of planning and the delivery of services that affect children;
• Empowerment: giving children the knowledge and confidence to use their rights and hold organisations and individuals that affect their lives to account;
• Participation: listening to children and taking their views seriously;
• Accountability: taking steps to monitor children’s rights standards and provide remedies where there is failure to meet these standards; and
• Equality and non-discrimination: ensuring that every child has an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives and talents.

Annex B lists the arrangements in a way that demonstrates that arrangements are in place for all of the requirements specified in the UNCRC Act at section 14(3) and 17(3). Annex C highlights how the arrangements help to address some of the Concluding Observations from the UK’s scrutiny by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2023.

2.1 Embedding: putting children’s human rights at the core of planning and the delivery of services that affect children

Ensuring that the National Performance Framework promotes the delivery of children’s rights

The National Performance Framework (NPF) sets out the National Outcomes that describe the kind of Scotland that we are all working towards in the delivery of public services. The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 places a duty on all public authorities in Scotland to have regard to the National Outcomes in carrying out their functions. The intention is to align the whole public sector around a common set of shared outcomes.

The NPF currently includes a ‘Children and Young People’ Outcome: that, ‘we grow up loved, safe and respected so that we realise our full potential’ and a Human Rights Outcome, that, ‘we respect, protect and fulfil human rights and live free from discrimination’. However, none of the National Outcomes exist in isolation and all the National Outcomes are relevant to promoting the rights and wellbeing of children and young people. The Scottish Government has committed to a period of reform for the NPF to create a framework that better enables public sector reform and improves collaboration between national and local governments. During this reform, no immediate changes will be made to the NPF and the National Outcomes will continue to drive the work and priorities of the Scottish Government and its Executive Agencies.

• The Scottish Government will ensure that the statutory reviews of the National Performance Framework are informed by the views of children and young people, including through direct engagement with them.

Preparing and publishing child rights and wellbeing impact assessments (CRWIAs) and statements of compatibility

A CRWIA is a process, tool and publication through which the anticipated impact of any proposed decision on children’s rights and wellbeing can be identified, analysed and recorded, and can incorporate the views of children and young people in the decision-making process. The process should therefore assist officials to consider children’s rights in the development of policies and legislation.

The Scottish Ministers are required, under section 17 of the UNCRC Act, to prepare and publish a CRWIA for:

• all bills for Acts of the Scottish Parliament that the Scottish Ministers intend to introduce;
• all Scottish Statutory Instruments (SSIs) other than those which bring a provision of an Act of the Scottish Parliament or an Act of Parliament into force;
• decisions of a strategic nature by the Scottish Ministers relating to the rights and wellbeing of children;
• any decision by the Scottish Ministers to restrict, for a reason relating to coronavirus, the delivery of in person education provision to children at schools; and
• any strategy, policy or criteria of the Scottish Ministers that is to be applied by an education authority in making a decision temporarily to remove or restrict the delivery in person of education provision to children at schools under the education authority’s management, regardless of the reason for the decision.

A list of CRWIAs published by the Scottish Government and its Executive Agencies from December 2015 onwards can be found on a dedicated page of the Scottish Government website.

In relation to decisions of a strategic nature by the Scottish Ministers relating to the rights and wellbeing of children, section 17(3) of the UNCRC Act provides that the Scottish Ministers must prepare and publish a CRWIA as required by, and in accordance with, the arrangements set out in the Scheme.

Scottish Ministers are required to prepare and publish a CRWIA for decisions of a strategic nature relating to children’s rights and wellbeing, which are any key, high-level decisions that Scottish Ministers take which may impact on the Scottish Government’s ability to respect, protect and fulfil children’s rights. Strategic decisions would normally include high-level decisions about: setting policy priorities; allocating resources; and policy delivery and implementation but would not normally include decisions which are operational or routine (such as, for example, many taken in the planning, consenting and licensing sectors). Decisions of a strategic nature are normally decisions that are made by Ministers but sometimes strategic, high level decisions are made on behalf of Ministers. In general, decisions of a strategic nature will be those which affect how the Scottish Government fulfils its intended purpose, of implementing laws and policy on matters that are devolved to Scotland, often over a significant period of time. However, it is recognised that strategic decisions can also be made over the short or mid-term, particularly when responding to urgent emerging circumstances. Strategic decisions are not always stand-alone and may need to be assessed as part of an overarching plan. The Scottish Ministers also intend to carry out a CRWIA for any changes to, or reviews of, these decisions.

A senior civil service group has been established within the Scottish Government to consider how requirements for completing all impact assessments (not just CRWIAs) are set, and to identify opportunities to strengthen or clarify process at a system level. This work might include the definition of “strategic decision”.

• The Scottish Government will conduct regular evaluations of its awareness raising and training on the Scottish Ministers’ statutory requirement in relation to CRWIAs for relevant legislation and decisions of a strategic nature related to the rights and wellbeing of children.
• The Scottish Government will maintain a quality assurance process to monitor the use of CRWIAs for relevant legislation and decisions of a strategic nature related to the rights and wellbeing of children within Scottish Government and Executive Agencies. To help us with this, we will invite feedback on individual CRWIAs from those who access them from our website.

While the duty to prepare and publish CRWIAs is one that applies only to the Scottish Ministers, other public authorities may choose to use CRWIAs at their own discretion. The Scottish Government has therefore produced a version of the CRWIA templates and guidance that can be used by public authorities and third sector organisations. We have also included some examples of externally published CRWIAs or Child Rights Impact Assessments (CRIAs), and examples of different templates in our external guidance. This aims to assist those wishing to develop their own CRWIA template and process in their organisation.

• The Scottish Government will encourage other public authorities to publish any CRWIAs that they prepare.

Considering the rights of children and young people in the Scottish Government’s budget process

The realisation of all human rights requires the mobilisation, allocation, and targeted expenditure of public funds. The Scottish Government’s budget therefore represents one of the most powerful tools from which to ensure children’s rights are adequately resourced and realised.

The Scottish Government has a well-established annual budget setting process, with formal scrutiny and legislation through the Scottish Parliament. Proposals about resource and capital expenditure, as well as income set out by the Scottish Government for Parliament’s consideration, are informed by both Scottish Ministers’ statutory responsibilities and key strategic priorities and outcomes, including those set out in the National Performance Framework. The Scottish Government budget will continue to be focused on the strategic priorities set out in the National Outcomes and the First Minister’s key priorities.

The CRWIA duties in section 17 of the UNCRC Act mean that:

• The Scottish Government will publish a Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment on the annual Scottish Budget, as required by our statutory obligations.

The Scottish Government is committed to delivering a budgetary process that is open, transparent and accountable. Transparency of the budget is key to effective participation. To assist transparency, each year, the Scottish Government publishes detailed information on its specific budget lines. Level 4 Data, which provides a breakdown of the budget lines within each directorate, is the lowest level for which the Scottish Government collects budget information. This is published on the Scottish Government website alongside the budget document. This includes budget lines specifically relevant to support for children and young people and their families, including, for example: the UNCRC implementation programme; expanding funded early learning and childcare; The Promise to care experienced children; the children’s hearing system; equalities, inclusion and additional support for learning; and support for families with disabled children.

• The Scottish Government will continue to publish annual budget lines that will allow the identification of spend to support children and young people and their families.

The Scottish Government has made a range of commitments to further embed equality and human rights within all stages of the Scottish Budget process, to ensure spend advances equality and human rights for all of Scotland's people. In a letter to the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee in December 2023, the Minister for Equalities, Migration and Refugees outlined the Scottish Government’s response to the Equality and Human Rights Budget Advisory Group recommendations, which included, for example, a commitment to ensure appropriate resource is provided to support officials to undertake robust equality and human rights analysis of both policy and budgets. Through Scotland’s Open Government National Action Plan commitment on fiscal openness and transparency, we will consider ways to further enhance transparency of information published on the Scottish Government’s budget.

In addition to the work to consider the rights of children and young people in the Scottish Government’s budget process, the non-statutory guidance published in relation to the UNCRC Act for public authorities on taking a children’s human rights approach included information to support other public authorities to consider taking a children's human rights approach to their budgeting.

• The Scottish Government will continue to look for opportunities to demonstrate and share good practice in child rights budgeting.

Ensuring that legislation is compliant with children’s human rights

Alongside the duty to prepare and publish CRWIAs, the Act introduces a new duty (in section 23) to publish statements of compatibility for most legislation. A member of the Scottish Parliament introducing a Public Bill in the Parliament must, on or before introduction of the Bill, make a statement in writing about the extent to which, in the member’s view, the provisions of the Bill would be compatible with the UNCRC requirements. For non-commencement SSIs, the Scottish Ministers must make a statement in writing about the extent to which, in their view, the provisions of a relevant instrument are or would be compatible with the UNCRC requirements as defined in the UNCRC Act. The CRWIA will inform the making of the statement and will be published alongside the narration of the statement and legislation.

• The Scottish Government will undertake awareness raising and training on the Scottish Ministers’ statutory requirement in relation to statements of compatibility for relevant legislation, as well as the requirements for CRWIAs.

The Scottish Ministerial Code (2024) makes clear (at paragraph 1.7) that Scottish Ministers have a duty to comply with international law and treaty obligations. This duty applies regardless of the scope of the section 6 duty in the UNCRC Act. However, it will be necessary to stay abreast of adjudication under the UNCRC Act to ensure the ongoing compatibility of existing legislation with the UNCRC requirements.

• If there is existing legislation in an area that is devolved to the Scottish Parliament that may not be compliant with the UNCRC requirements, Ministers will seek to address this.
• Nonetheless, the Scottish Government will ask relevant public authorities, at least annually, i) if they are aware of any legislation which, in their view, may be incompatible with the UNCRC requirements and how this is affecting their service delivery, and ii) where they may require to rely on the exemption set out in Part 2 of the Children (Withdrawal from Religious Education and Amendment of UNCRC Compatibility Duty) (Scotland) Bill.

Embedding relevant skills and knowledge within public authorities

We will continue to deliver a UNCRC National Improvement Programme to support public authorities to take a children’s human rights approach to delivering and improving their services. To do this:

• The Scottish Government will ensure that all staff within the Scottish Government and its Executive Agencies have access to guidance and training on children’s rights and taking a children’s human rights approach.
• The Scottish Government will implement, maintain and review the Children’s Rights Skills and Knowledge Framework to support public authority workforces to understand children’s rights and take a children’s human rights approach within frontline practice, service development, and strategic planning and decision-making.
• The Scottish Government will ensure that public sector leaders are supported to understand and promote the value of a children’s human rights approach on outcomes for children and young people, and all of society.
• The Scottish Government will co-ordinate a Child Rights Regulation and Improvement Action Group to support scrutiny bodies such as regulators, inspectorates and ombudsmen to embed children’s rights considerations into their practice and the practice of the organisations they reach.
• The Scottish Government will source and share good practice examples of taking a children’s human rights approach, to support peer learning across public authorities.

Protecting the rights of children and young people in relation to their interactions with persons, other than public authorities, who provide services which affect children

The section 6 duty in the UNCRC Act does not apply to bodies that do not have any functions of a public nature or to acts which are wholly private. This recognises that the obligations under the UNCRC (as with other human rights frameworks) are placed on the State Party and not persons generally. However, as stated in its General Comment 16, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child adopts the widely held view on international human rights that States Parties have an obligation to protect the rights of children when they interact with private businesses. In this respect, the UN Committee states that “inadequate oversight, inspection and monitoring of these bodies can result in serious violations of children’s rights, such as violence, exploitation and neglect”. A range of existing legislation places restrictions on the activity of private businesses in order to protect children - for example, public health restrictions, employment law and food safety requirements (some of which is legislation in reserved areas and over which the Scottish Parliament has no devolved authority).

The recent commencement of the provisions in the UNCRC Act means that our current priority has to be to deliver a proactive culture of everyday accountability for children’s rights across public services in Scotland, including where these are delivered by the private, voluntary and independent sector in arrangement with a public authority. (Section 6(5) of the Act makes clear that, for the purposes of the Act, the term “public authority” applies to those who are delivering relevant public functions that are carried under a contract or other arrangement with a public authority and that this is not limited to functions that are publicly funded.)

However, there are some strands of work that will help to protect the rights of children and young people in relation to their interactions with persons other than public authorities (as defined by the Act), who provide services which affect children and young people. As already stated in the section of embedding relevant skills and knowledge within public authorities, we will continue to encourage scrutiny bodies such as regulators, inspectorates and ombudsmen to embed children’s rights considerations into their practice and the practice of the organisations they reach. In addition:

• The Scottish Government will highlight the benefits of CRWIAs to both public authorities and private, voluntary and independent organisations, should they choose to use them, by continuing to provide guidance and templates.

All Scottish Government grants have a mandatory clause which is that the grantee must comply with the law in force at the time of the grant.

• The Scottish Government will continue to provide optional wording for grant letters to all organisations (including those who are not subject to the section duties in the UNCRC Act) on promoting, respecting, protecting and fulfilling the rights of children and young people, which grantees may choose to accept.

Supporting Scotland’s Children: Core Knowledge and Values is an interactive resource outlining the essential knowledge and values that everyone who works with children or young people should have, whether they work in social care, social work, education, health, justice or communities, and whether they are a professional, student, trainee, or volunteer. It contains information about the cornerstones informing Scotland’s legislation and policies around supporting the Scottish Government’s vision that Scotland will be the best place in the world for children and young people to grow up. This includes the UNCRC, Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) - Scotland’s framework for promoting, supporting and safeguarding the wellbeing of all children and young people, and The Promise, Scotland’s commitment to care experienced children and young people that they will grow up loved, safe and respected.

• The Scottish Government will ensure that Supporting Scotland’s Children: Core Knowledge and Values (formerly The Common Core) for all of those working with children and young people, continues to emphasise the importance of understanding children’s rights and taking a children’s human rights approach.

2.2 Empowerment: giving children and young people the knowledge and confidence to use their rights and hold organisations and individuals that affect their lives to account

Informing children and young people and their parents/carers of children’s rights

Promoting awareness and understanding of the rights of children and young people is one of the duties of the Scottish Government. It is also one of the statutory functions of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland.

To help inform children and young people and their parents/carers of children’s rights:

• The Scottish Government will work with our grant-funded and other partners to develop and implement a comprehensive UNCRC Awareness Plan in collaboration with the UNCRC Awareness Raising Communications Network, who will also be engaged annually in reviewing progress. The Plan will include content directed specifically to children and young people (who will be involved in designing this) and well as parents and carers, and to the early years, with consideration given to how this can be integrated into educational settings.
• The Scottish Government will identify particular groups of children and young people whose rights are most at risk and for whom we need to develop more targeted awareness-raising about their rights.

2.3 Participation: listening to children and taking their views seriously

Engaging children in policy development

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that the views of children and young people are a primary consideration in decisions that affect them. This principle of meaningful participation is central to the adoption of a children’s human rights approach.

• The Scottish Government will continue to ensure that children and young people have the opportunity to, and are supported, to represent the views of their peers in their annual meetings with the Scottish Government Cabinet and Executive Team and to hold the Scottish Government to account on a rolling list of six ‘calls to action’ chosen by the children and young people.
• The Scottish Government will support its policy teams to adapt their processes and to commission meaningful and high-quality engagement with children and young people, through the Children and Young People’s Participation Framework Agreement, where this is the most appropriate approach. (The aim of the Framework Agreement is to ensure a broad range of children and young people are involved in the wider work of the Scottish Government, including those identified as being seldom heard, furthest from their rights or vulnerable because of factors related to their personal development, features of their family life, or because of wider influences that impact on them within their community.)
• By sharing and amplifying participation guidance and best practice, the Scottish Government will support policy teams across the Scottish Government to strengthen their knowledge and skills to meaningfully engage with all children and young people.

Using, and promoting the use of inclusive ways of communicating with children

To ensure that children and young people are able to receive information and express themselves in ways that best meet their needs:

• The Scottish Government will continue to produce child friendly and accessible versions of guidance and reports to ensure children and young people can receive information about their rights, and the duties on Scottish Ministers and public authorities in relation to their rights.
• Through its funding to Young Scot, the Scottish Government will ensure that children and young people have access to inclusive digital communication from a trusted source about a range of policies and support that is available to them.
• By including, in its guide to using the Children and Young People’s Participation Framework Agreement, a section on accessible and inclusive communication the Scottish Government will ensure that policy teams using the Framework promote and use inclusive communication.

To try to encourage other public authorities to ensure that children and young people are able to receive information and express themselves in ways that best meet their needs, the Children’s Rights Skills and Knowledge Framework and the non-statutory guidance on taking a children’s human rights approach includes advice, resources and practice examples relating to inclusive communication.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the effectiveness of the Public Sector Equality Duty framework in Scotland, and we have committed to a phased improvement programme. As part of that programme of work, we have commissioned an inclusive communications toolkit to help duty bearers to ensure that inclusive communication is embedded proportionately across their work and to make improvements for those with different communications needs in Scotland, which should help them to meet their general equality duty.

• The Scottish Government will consider the need for child friendly communication tools and approaches for all, including children and young people, as part of its programme of work on inclusive communication support to Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) duty bearers.

2.4 Accountability: taking steps to monitor children’s rights standards and provide remedies where there is failure to meet these standards

Identifying and addressing any situation where child’s rights are (or are at a significant risk of) not being fulfilled

The Concluding Observations from the UK’s scrutiny by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2023 provide a helpful basis for identifying situations where action may be needed to fulfil children’s rights over the years to come. In March 2024, the Scottish Government published its initial response to these Concluding Observations.

• The Scottish Government will provide an update on progress in addressing all of the Concluding Observations for the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child that are relevant to Scotland in 2026 (midway between the UK’s last constructive dialogue session with the UN Committee and the estimated date of the next session).

However, our focus will not be limited to these:

• The Scottish Government will maintain a compiled list of children’s rights issues that children and stakeholders have highlighted, in published sources, are a concern to them and invite the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland (CYPCS), the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC), and Together to review this on a regular basis.
• The Scottish Government will share a compiled list of children’s rights issues that are concerning stakeholders at least every 6 months with relevant Scottish Government policy teams.
• The Scottish Government will include, in our update on progress in addressing the Concluding Observations, an update on the Scottish Government’s consideration of other key children’s rights issues that stakeholders have highlighted in other published sources, as appropriate.

There are almost 200 Concluding Observations that are relevant to Scotland. In addition to reporting on consideration of the full list, we aim to find a way of prioritising some key areas for closer engagement with stakeholders. As already mentioned, as part of their annual meetings with the Scottish Government Cabinet and Executive Team, children and young people are already being supported to articulate six ‘calls to action’ for the Scottish Government, on which we will report directly back to them on progress. In addition to this:

• The Scottish Government will invite the CYPCS, Together, UNICEF UK and the SHRC to keep the Scottish Government informed of the children’s rights issues that are most concerning them and use this information, alongside other internal and external sources, to help determine Ministerial priorities for the year ahead.
• The Scottish Government will use the annual update on the Children's Rights Scheme to set out the issues Scottish Ministers have prioritised for action and any progress that has been made, as well as use this to provide an update on progress with the six calls to action that children and young people raised in their meetings with the Scottish Cabinet.

Monitoring and evaluating the extent to which children’s rights are being upheld

The Scottish Government has developed a Monitoring and Evaluation framework in partnership with the UNCRC Strategic Implementation Board. This framework has been designed to be manageable and sustainable for public authorities and others involved in supporting the delivery of the new duties under the UNCRC Act.

In developing this framework, we considered what would be required to develop robust national indicators that provide meaningful measures of each of the 42 substantive articles in the UNCRC. Recognising the scale and complexity of the work involved in developing indicators for all of the substantive rights in the UNCRC requirements, the UNCRC Strategic Implementation Board agreed that the development of indicators should focus initially on UNCRC requirements which our stakeholders believe need to be monitored particularly closely.

• The Scottish Government will scope the development of indicators that can be used to measure the extent to which children in Scotland are accessing rights in the UNCRC requirements which stakeholders consider are of particular risk of not being fulfilled for all children. We will start by focusing on articles 37 and 40 which relate to children’s interaction with the justice system. Learning from that, we will then consider whether it is feasible to extend the development of indicators to other articles in the UNCRC requirements.

Another approach to evaluating the extent to which children’s rights are being upheld is to consider whether the sum of the collective actions taken by public authorities is improving the lives of children and young people in Scotland. To help us to understand this, we will draw on data collected through the Children, Young People and Families Outcomes Framework, which has been developed to provide an overarching understanding of children and young people’s wellbeing in Scotland and to complement the National Performance Framework. It includes a set of overarching Wellbeing Outcomes (based on SHANARRI) and Shared Aims (based on the ecological approach of the Getting it right for every child My World Triangle) as well as a set of 21 Core Wellbeing Indicators. The latter, although not an exact match, are connected with relevant UNCRC articles, and capture the perspectives and lived experiences of children and young people and their families. They have been substantially informed by what children, young people, and families have told us matters most to them about wellbeing.

• The Scottish Government will continue to use the Children, Young People and Families Outcomes Framework, amongst others, as a measure of whether the sum of our collective actions is improving the lives of children and young people in Scotland.

With relevant partners, we intend to explore what would be required to allow us to assess whether we have in place each of the mechanisms of change identified in the Theory of Change for Making Rights Real published by Observatory of Children’s Human Rights Scotland, Matter of Focus and Public Health Scotland. This would help us to assess the extent to which we are delivering the wider cultural change required and the conditions required to empower children and young people to claim their rights. We will start by paying particular attention to the mechanism of change, “children’s rights are integrated across policy areas”. Our priority will be to explore the extent to which children's rights are being considered in policy-making and driving decisions in some key areas.

• We will develop a case study approach to explore the extent to which children's rights are being considered in policy-making and driving decisions in some key areas.

Supporting children and young people to seek a remedy for a rights concern

The amendments that had to be made to the UNCRC Act to address the Supreme Court judgment mean that the section 6 compatibility duty applies to a much narrower range of public authority functions than originally hoped. This means that if children experience a potential rights breach in the delivery of services conferred under an Act of the UK Parliament, even in a devolved area, they are not able to bring proceedings against the public authority under the powers in the Act. While children and young people and their representatives will still be able to raise a complaint directly with the public authority, in some cases the options for seeking redress through the courts will not be extended by the provisions in the UNCRC Act. This makes it all the more important that there are accessible non-judicial routes to seeking a remedy for a rights concern. This is why we have recently published accessible guidance for children and young people and their representatives to help them understand how to raise a concern and seek support when they have a concern about their rights. We also funded the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) to promote, within the public authorities under its jurisdiction, complaints handling procedures that children can understand and use. The complaints handling process is not limited to issues and disputes relating to powers covered by the section 6 duty under the Act. Public authorities have been able to access support from SPSO with implementing the guidance. In addition:

• The Scottish Government will collect data to help understand children and young people’s experiences of raising an individual rights issue to identify if and where children and young people encounter barriers and gaps in support, information, and services that they need to claim their rights. We will use this to consider where additional investment may be required, including, for example, the provision of advocacy support.
• The Scottish Government will provide grant funding: to support the continued external and independent provision of legal information for those who provide advocacy and other support to help children and young people to access their rights; and to support the continued external and independent provision of free child-centred legal representation to help empower children and young people to enforce their rights.

There is also more which could be done to extend the reach of the section 6 duty and hence the circumstances in which children and young people and their representatives can seek remedy through the courts. Repealing key provisions in devolved areas that are in Acts of the Westminster Parliament and re-enacting them in Acts of the Scottish Parliament, for example, would bring more public authority functions into scope for the powers in the Act and strengthen access to justice for children and their representatives. During the Scottish Parliament Reconsideration Stage for the UNCRC Act, Ministers therefore agreed to commission a review of UK Acts in devolved areas to identify any key provisions that interact with children’s rights to such an extent that it may be worth re-enacting them in this way. However, before we undertake such a review, we will explore with the UK Government whether there might be a more straightforward and effective route to extending protection for children’s rights in Scotland, which would mean that re-enacting legislation as Acts of the Scottish Parliament may not be necessary.

• The Scottish Government will progress engagement to explore the removal of any legislative restrictions that currently limit the Scottish Parliament's ability to enhance human rights protections across all areas devolved to Scotland.
• If, by November 2026, the Scottish Government considers that progress in finding a more straightforward and effective route to extending protection for children’s rights has not yet been sufficient, we will also commission a review of provisions in UK Acts in devolved areas to identify any key provisions that interact with children’s rights to such an extent that it may be worth re-enacting them in Acts of the Scottish Parliament to bring them into scope of the compatibility duty. The purpose of the review would be to make available a list of provisions to support consideration of re-enacting them when the content of relevant Bills in future legislative programmes is being decided.

2.5 Equality and non-discrimination: ensuring that every child has an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives and talents

The Scottish Government is committed to making impactful and lasting progress in embedding equality into everything we do. By mainstreaming equality and human rights, we aim to address systemic inequalities and foster cultural change while fulfilling our duties under the Equality Act 2010 and other relevant legislation. Mainstreaming equality is central to our daily processes and decisions, and runs through our Programme for Government.

We are developing a Mainstreaming Strategy which will support Scottish Government, and the wider Scottish Public Sector, to focus on mainstreaming equality and human rights. After extensive engagement with internal and external stakeholders throughout 2022-2025, the main themes of the Strategy will be:

• strengthening leadership;
• developing accountability and transparency;
• ensuring effective regulatory and policy environment;
• utilising evidence and experience;
• enhancing capability and culture;
• improving capacity.

These six key drivers of change form a framework to improve how to centre equality and human rights in all Government policies, decisions and spending.

• The Scottish Government will launch a Strategy for mainstreaming equality and human rights into everything it does, with a supporting action plan and toolkit, in line with the commitment in the 2025/26 Programme for Government.

Additionally, in April 2025, we published a new set of equality outcomes, which cover the period from 2025-2029. We have adopted a new approach to setting equality outcomes for this reporting period. These three outcomes should act as enablers of system-wide change. They are focused on improving the use and awareness of equality evidence, improving how we are informed by lived experience and participation, and strengthening relevant impact assessments.