UNCRC Implementation Embedding in Public Services Group minutes: 08 December 2025

Attendees and apologies

 

• Lyndsey Saki, Scottish Government (Chair) – LS
• Ezhilarasi Mahadevan, Scottish Government (Minutes and item 8) – EM 
• Luiza Leite, Scottish Government (Minutes) – LLe 
• Aqeel Ahmed, Scottish Government (item 4) – AA 
• Joe Smith, Scottish Government (item 6) – JS
• Saleem Umar, Scottish Government (item 8) – SU
• Elaine Park, Scottish Government – EP
• Rebecca Henderson, Scottish Government – RH
• Alyson Lambert, Police Scotland – AL
• Chelsea Stinson, Police Scotland – CS
• Darren Little, Dumfries and Galloway Council – DL  
• Denise Rooney, Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA)  – DR 
• Felicia Szloboda, The Improvement Service – FS  
• Fiona Morrison, University of Edinburgh (item 3) – FM
• Katelin O’Neill, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)
• Katrina Reid, Public Health Scotland (PHS) – KR
• Mary Campbell, Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights) – MC
• Maxine Jolly, Education Scotland – MJ 
• Nick Targontsidis, NHS Education for Scotland – NT
• Rebecca Spillane, The Improvement Service – RS

 

Apologies 

• Joanna Smith, NHS Education for Scotland (NES)
• Liz Levy, Scottish Government 
• Laura Conachan, Children’s Hearings Scotland 
• Michelle Cuningham, SQA 

 

Items and actions

Welcome and introductions

LS welcomed members and noted apologies received.

Minutes and actions from previous meeting

LS went through the actions from the meeting on 22 September 2025, these were shared with members ahead of the meeting.

Ongoing action:

Action 1: Members to contact LS with suggestions of resources or case studies to be included in the Children’s Rights Skills and Knowledge Framework.

Completed actions: 

• members interested in the ‘menu’ of training options to contact LS
• LL to have a separate discussion with FS and KR on work to develop indicators of children’s rights – LLe arranged a call for LL to update on progress on 10 December 2025
• embedding team to present AI analysis results of 2020–23 reports at the December meeting – item 8

No amendments were required to the September meeting notes. These were agreed and will be made available on the group page.

UNCRC reporting: reflections from Fiona Morrison, Observatory for Children’s Rights, University of Edinburgh

Fiona Morrison (FM) from the Observatory for Children’s Rights presented on children's rights reports completed under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 for 2020 to 2023.

FM highlighted the following:

• challenges in locating the reports and their accessibility, noting public reporting on children’s rights was still very new. A list of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests was sent to all public authorities
• a student completed an initial review, giving an overall picture of the reporting
• there is a danger of providing previous reports with children’s rights added. It would be helpful to consider the purpose of the children’s rights reports and target audience
• there was an uneven focus across the reports in terms of rights, some rights had more focus than others and there is a challenge around data and evidence
• there were some common themes, including lists of activities and programmes, descriptions of services and aspirations
• it would be helpful to see how reports could track progress. There was a lack of: evidence of what changed for children; retrospective analysis of progress over time; learning from past successes and failures; and data showing improvement, stagnation or decline
• children’s rights indicators would be helpful. It was acknowledged that this is a huge ask and would require additional analytical capacity from listed public authorities. It would be good to map what existing data is already held and identify where the gaps are

FM welcomed questions and feedback from members. KR asked for the slides to be shared.

Action 2: LLe to send Fiona Morrison’s presentation slides to members.

KR asked if this process was a one off or could be repeated. FM said this was the first round but the Observatory would be keen to continue the process, resource allowing.

MJ highlighted that as well as reporting the positives, it’s helpful to report when things aren’t working. NT agreed it would be helpful to build progressive realisation if public authorities could acknowledge next steps to address challenges. The analysis of the reports could help surface some of these gaps.

LS highlighted that the reports reviewed were from 2020-2023 under the 2014 Act. The UNCRC Act reporting duty is different.

FM welcomed emails from members wishing to discuss this further.

Update on support to public authorities

AA gave an update on the Regulation and Improvement group which was due to meet on 9 December 2025. The group will continue discussions around how the scrutiny bodies consider children whose rights are most at risk and how the Scottish Government (SG) can support that.

AA updated on the peer network for listed authorities (14 Executive Non-Departmental Public Bodies). A meeting is planned to discuss reporting challenges, share resources and exchange good practice.

LS highlighted that the Children’s Rights Scheme was published on World Children’s Day (20 November 2025). The Scheme outlines how SG will comply with the UNCRC compatibility duty to secure better or further effect children’s rights.

Insights from Katrina Reid, Organisational Lead (Prevention Across the Life-course), Public Health Scotland

KR gave an overview of how Public Health Scotland (PHS) data and programmes can support children’s rights reporting and broader implementation.

KR highlighted how children’s rights are being used as key levers for prevention and tackling health inequalities within PHS. This aligns closely with the recently published Population Health Framework, which promotes prevention, collaboration, equity and evidence across five pillars that correspond with UNCRC articles. KR also noted significant inequalities faced by children and young people in Scotland and stressed the importance of addressing rights at risk, while tackling these inequalities.

KR outlined two key PHS programmes. Firstly, the Public Health Approach to Learning – a collaborative programme involving PHS, Police Scotland and the Edinburgh Futures Institute. This aims to improve health, wellbeing and attainment through multi-agency partnership working centred around schools and wider learning communities. PHS is developing a data dashboard linking education and health data (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service referrals, prescribing, Accident and Emergency use) and community-level data (such as the locations of vaping outlets, sports facilities). Work is in early development with one learning community in Edinburgh before future piloting and scale-up. Mapping of linked data and engagement insights to UNCRC articles is planned to help articulate partners’ contributions to children’s rights.

Secondly, the Child Poverty Prevention Dashboard is launching next week. The Dashboard will support local, strategic, child poverty planning, monitoring and evaluation through 72 national indicators. It draws on SG, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), National Records of Scotland (NRS), Office for National Statistics (ONS) and PHS data on local population context, priority families and drivers of child poverty. There are future plans to include UNCRC and Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) indicators.

Children (Withdrawal from Religious Education and Amendment of UNCRC Compatibility Duty) (Scotland) Bill

JS had spoken to members earlier in the year about the proposed changes to the UNCRC Act through the Children (Withdrawal from Religious Education and UNCRC Act Amendment) Bill.

Part 2 of the Bill adds an exemption to the section 6 compatibility duty under the UNCRC Act. The exemption would apply when a public authority is required under an Act of the Scottish Parliament to act in a way that is incompatible with UNCRC requirements.

Public authorities and courts must still interpret legislation in a way that is compatible with UNCRC requirements wherever possible. The exemption would only apply where that is not possible, where there is a clear statutory requirement to act incompatibly and there is no discretion.

JS explained the exemption is necessary to avoid public authorities being placed in a difficult position. Without it, there is a risk that a public authority might feel it must pause or disrupt essential services if it believes it cannot deliver them in a UNCRC compatible way.

The exemption avoids that by allowing services to continue while any legal uncertainty is resolved. If the exemption applies, the issue lies with the legislation itself, not with the actions of the public authority. This reflects a similar safeguard in the Human Rights Act.

JS noted that while the Scottish Government (SG) does not believe any current Acts of the Scottish Parliament require incompatible action, this is to ensure future-proofing, as understanding of children’s rights will continue to develop, and court judgments can shift interpretation over time.

The Bill passed Stage 1 on 25 November 2025, JS noted that children’s rights organisations and several MSPs had raised concerns that this exemption could be widely relied on and that legislative incompatibilities could go unnoticed.

SG has a process through the Children’s Rights Scheme, to support transparency, Ministers will ask public authorities (at least annually) whether they have identified any legislation they consider incompatible, or whether they intend to rely on the exemption. This gives public authorities a safe way to raise issues without risk of legal challenge, while allowing the government to assess any potential incompatibilities.

JS noted that children’s rights stakeholders are calling for a statutory duty on public authorities to notify the Scottish Government and the Children and Young People's Commissioner Scotland (CYPCS) when they become aware of a potential incompatibility. It is important to identify and assess legislation that may be incompatible, but there are concerns that a statutory notification duty on public authorities would be difficult to operate.

The SG feels it is important for public authorities to have space to discuss whether legislation can be read compatibly. A statutory duty might inhibit that, particularly if public authorities fear legal challenge for not reporting every possible concern. JS also noted that “becoming aware” is not a clear legal trigger, as it would rely on a subjective judgement and could be difficult for public authorities to apply consistently.

The SG is exploring whether a notification duty on the courts, rather than public authorities, would be more workable. This would mean the duty only arises when the exemption is relied on in legal proceedings, which would be a clearer trigger. By that stage, the public authority will usually have taken legal advice and be reasonably confident, in their view, that the exemption applies.

JS highlighted the key point is the call for a statutory duty on public authorities. While the SG is not pursuing that approach at present, stakeholders and/or the committee may continue to call for it. JS welcomed members views.

NT asked if there is an existing duty on the Scottish Government to address incompatibilities with the UNCRC, noting that earlier discussions had explored placing a duty on public authorities to report incompatibilities. NT queried if this responsibility could sit with the Scottish Government rather than with public authorities or the courts.

JS clarified that the Scottish Government is a public authority under the UNCRC Act and is required, both under international law and the Act, to address incompatible legislation when it becomes aware of it.. Additionally, through the Children’s Rights Scheme, the Government will seek information from public authorities and assess any incompatibilities identified. JS also confirmed that if the courts declare legislation incompatible, the Scottish Government would be required to respond.

Insights from attendees on early implementation

NT thanked members who attended the UNCRC incorporation health conference which was hosted by NES. There were over 400 attendees. The conference showcased lots of good practice across health boards. NES also held a webinar with spiritual care colleagues to explore how children’s rights can be upheld in adult settings. NES is working with a number of boards who want to embed the UNCRC in adult services.

 

MC highlighted that Together’s next state of children’s rights will focus on case studies and there are limited examples for accountability. She asked members to share any case studies around monitoring children’s rights or sharing information to support children and young people to challenge decisions.

RS noted that the Improvement Service (IS) continue to work with local authority colleagues, there have been two roundtable events about children’s rights reporting so far. It’s been positive to see children’s rights involving such a range of work. IS will continue to run these sessions in the lead up to rights reporting.

RS is currently finalising a date for the UNCRC local authority conference, to be hosted in February/March 2026. RS hopes to share resources from that.

RS is developing antisocial behaviour guidance for Elected Members as this is frequently raised as a concern. Publication will likely be early in the new year. RS highlighted that East Lothian has some child friendly versions of their CRWIAs e.g. East Lothian Museum Service.

Action 4: Members to get in touch with MC with case studies on accountability.

Update on considerations re the analysis of the first UNCRC children’s rights reports

EM and SU presented the AI analysis of children’s rights reports created under the 2014 Act duty. AI analysis was used to support faster, consistent, thematic analysis and produce summary outputs such as infographics.

The analysis highlighted strengths across reports, including staff awareness, effective workforce training, trauma-informed approaches, strong partnership working, and clear alignment with national priorities. Gaps and challenges identified included limited demographic breakdowns (e.g., socio economic status, disability, ethnicity), limited evidence of outcomes, a lack of transparency on resources and budgets, and weak evidence on accountability systems such as feedback, complaints and remedies. Key considerations were highlighted such as only using publicly available data, ensuring human oversight and being aware of potential AI bias. Prompts created for the AI analysis can be reused and shared with partners where useful.

KR asked about the prompts used. EM explained that the script can be used on any report to produce a one page summary of findings. It can also be edited to pull different outputs.

There was a question on how SG would prioritise any challenges highlighted through reports.

The Children’s Rights Unit has a list of children's rights issues that have been identified from various sources, the next step would be to look at what could be prioritised from that. LS noted that this work will likely be carried out with the UNCRC Strategic Implementation Board.

RS noted it would be good to have transparency on whether there will be formal reviews of reports from SG and what that process will look like. LS explained that we won’t be considering individual reports, but rather hope the reports will help us understand progress on early implementation.

Action 5: LLe to circulate the slides and share the script.

AOB

MC asked about the workforce development subgroup. LS noted that the subgroup sat under the children and Families leadership group and she understands that it has been paused, but will need to confirm this.

Action 6: LS to confirm whether the workforce development subgroup is still active.

The dates for next year’s meetings are still to be circulated. Members were content with the current two hour format on a Monday.

Action 7: LLe to circulate new meeting dates for next year.