Children's Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment guidance

Guidance on how to complete a Children's Rights and Wellbeing Screening Sheet and Impact Assessment (CRWIA). Includes links to useful resources for gathering evidence, involving children and young people in the development of your policy/measure and ensuring decisions are necessary and proportionate.


Introduction

In December 2018 the Scottish Government laid before the Scottish Parliament the Progressing the Human Rights of Children in Scotland: 2018-2021 Action Plan and the Progressing the Human Rights of Children in Scotland: Report 2018, in line with the duties placed on Scottish Ministers under Part 1 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014.

The Action Plan set out a number of Strategic Actions that would be taken forward to help children and young people to experience their rights, including a set of actions aimed at evaluating, improving and promoting the Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment (CRWIA) process. The updated CRWIA templates and associated non statutory guidance are products of those actions. They are the result of an engagement and evaluation process that involved consultation with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders on existing CRWIA templates and guidance, including members of the UNCRC Guidance Reference Working Group, some Local Authorities and Child Rights Sector Organisations.

The new templates and this updated guidance, which conform to accessibility requirements, can be found on the Scottish Government website and are available for all to use. The updates include the following changes:

  • A contents table has been added to the CRWIA template to ease navigation of completed CRWIAs;
  • Both the Screening Sheet and CRWIA template are available as a form to download from the Scottish Government website allowing for easier completion;
  • The SHANARRI wellbeing indicators are no longer used as a framework to consider potential impacts. Instead this framework is used to measure the impact of the policy/measure after implementation;
  • Stage 3 has been removed, instead of a separate publication template we are requesting colleagues publish the Screening Sheet and the CRWIA templates once completed;
  • There is now a single template covering both policy and legislation;
  • A new Annex has been added to the CRWIA template providing UNCRC Articles in clusters and links to General Comments.

We will continue to gather feedback from those using the templates and guidance to ensure they are continuously improved. Work to improve training available on the CRWIA process and to develop an impact evaluation process for the CRWIA also continues. The template and guidance will be reviewed and updated in line with future legislation to incorporate the UNCRC into domestic law.

Contact

Email: CRWIA@gov.scot

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