As a local authority, we are already committed to respecting and protecting all children’s rights and ensuring that our young people have a voice.
In July 2024 the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 became part of Scots law.
The Act provides protection for the fundamental rights of children and young people across the country.
The Convention – which is the gold standard for children’s rights and the blueprint for the Council – details how we must protect, listen to and nurture our children.
Key elements of the Act are:
•Public authorities are not allowed to act in a way that is incompatible with UNCRC requirements
•Children, young people and their representatives have the power to go to court to enforce their rights
•The Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland and Scottish Human Rights Commission have powers to take legal action to protect children’s rights
•Public authorities must report every three years on what they are doing to meet the UNCRC requirements and
•The Scottish Government has to publish a Children’s Rights Scheme to show how it is meeting UNCRC requirements and explain its plans to progress children’s rights.
The UNCRC affects EVERYONE in our Council in every service – not only services traditionally associated with children such as education, housing or social work.
We must all think about children aged up to 18 when making decisions or creating policy and how they might be impacted (positively or negatively) by our actions.
Everyone has a special responsibility to protect and advocate for the rights of our children to ensure they are free to learn, play and develop. This is a now a legal responsibility for our Council. And we have established a local UNCRC steering group to help ensure that children’s rights are embedded within our work, including:
The UNCRC has been part of daily life in our schools for some time, with 17 schools already being awarded the UNICEF UK Gold Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA).
This is granted to schools which have fully embedded children’s rights throughout the school in its policies, practice and ethos. Professional advisers look at the whole school’s rights respecting work and the impact that has been made by embedding children’s rights into school life before the award is approved.
School pupils are heavily involved in learning about their rights and how these should be protected.
Emmeline, a pupil at Whiting Bay Primary School on Arran, said the UNCRC “gives people who are unable to stand up for themselves something that they can stand up for” while Nathan, who attends Pennyburn Primary School in Kilwinning, said: “The UNCRC rights mean a lot to me because every child gets protected, no matter what race, religion or gender you are.”
Sam Anson, Executive Director for Education, explained: “There is already a lot of great work being done by staff across our services to ensure that our young people are being supported to thrive, and their rights are respected when it comes to policy, practice and budget decisions.
“This work is critical to our strategic priority of Wellbeing and our wider Council vision of a North Ayrshire that is fair for all.
“The UNCRC – which is an international human rights treaty – and the new Act means that these principles we believe in are now constituted in Scottish law.
“We all have a responsibility when it comes to UNCRC, and our Learning & Organisational Development team will soon be launching an i-Learn module for staff explaining our responsibilities.
“Details of the module will be promoted in Staff News and News In Brief in the coming weeks.”
•Enabling the views of children and young people to be heard and considered in decisions that impact them
•Strengthening approaches to child-friendly reporting
•Establishing local approaches to managing circumstances where children’s rights may not be fully realised prior to these being escalated to the children’s commissioner
•Raising awareness of UNCRC duties across the workforce and communities and
•Building on current approaches to educating children and young people on their rights.
The Convention has 54 Articles, covering all aspects of a child’s life, including the right to be: registered at birth and given a name (Article 7); enjoy freedom of expression (Article 13); expect protection from violence, abuse and neglect (Article 19) and access education (Article 28).
And colleagues working in all services are continuing to put young people’s rights front and centre of daily Council business.
You can watch a short video here, where Youth Participation and Democracy Officer Donna Anderson explains our UNCRC responsibilities and some young people share their views.
- Is your team working on a UNCRC project that you would like to highlight in the local media, our social media channels or Latest Staff News? If so, email communications@north-ayrshire.gov.uk as we are currently on the lookout for case studies to champion this area of work.