Incorporation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

For over 10 years, children and young people had been calling for their human rights to be made part of the law in Scotland. 

In 2018, Together convened a group of its members, the Children and Young People's Commissioner Scotland and other supporters to create a draft Children’s Rights (Scotland) Bill. They presented this to the Scottish Government to show a model of how Scotland could incorporate the UNCRC.

The Scottish Government drafted a Bill, drawing on elements from Together's version. The Bill followed a decade of developments that had been furthering children’s rights across legislation, policy and practice in Scotland – including GIRFEC, the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, Scottish Government's 2018-21 Action Plan, and the Children (Scotland) Act 2020. 

In 2021, the UNCRC Bill was unanimously passed by Scottish Parliament. However, this was later referred to the UK Supreme Court who said that some changes needed to be made before the Bill could be made into an Act. 

The Scottish Government proposed some changes about which laws the Act would cover. It said the Bill would only cover laws made in Scotland and not laws made in the UK Parliament. The Cabinet Secretary wrote to children and young people to explain this change.  

The Scottish Parliament unanimously passed the updated Bill in December 2023. Royal assent was granted on the 16th of January 2024 which marked the final step of making the Bill into an Act of the Scottish Parliament. 

The Act entered into force on 16th July 2024.

This is a major milestone for children and young people in Scotland and for all those who campaigned to ensure that children and young peoples’ rights are rights legally recognised and protected. 

The 2024 Act says that public authorities must not act in a way that is incompatible with the UNCRC requirements. 

It puts a duty on Scottish Ministers to create a Children’s Rights Scheme, which will promote accountability and help to ensure that children's rights are embedded in decision-making. 

The 2024 Act also introduces a reporting duty for listed authorities. These reports must be published every three years, setting out steps taken to ensure compliance with the UNCRC, and future plans for enhancing children's rights. A child-friendly version of the report must also be published. 

The Scottish Parliament is also required to report on its efforts to support children’s rights, with both standard and child-friendly versions to be made available. 

• Read the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 in full here. 

Statutory guidance 

The Scottish Government has produced statutory guidance for duty bearers under the Act, including public authorities and children's service providers: 

• Sources to guide interpretation - Guidance to help public authorities understand different sources that might help them interpret the UNCRC requirements, such as General Comments and Concluding Observations. 

• Part 2: statutory guidance- Guidance to support public authorities to understand and fulfil their duty to act compatibly with the UNCRC under section 6 of the 2024 Act, and to secure better or further effect of children’s rights. 
• Part 3 statutory guidance - guidance for listed authorities on their reporting duty 

Children's Rights Skills and Knowledge Framework for public authority workforce in Scotland 

Together has been working on the Children’s Rights Skills and Knowledge Framework for the public authority workforce in Scotland. This exciting project was commissioned by the Scottish Government, and developed in partnership with JustRight Scotland, JRS KnowHow, Children’s Parliament, the Observatory on Human Rights of Children in Wales, a Children and Families Panel and a Professional Panel. The Children’s Rights Skills and Knowledge Framework acts as a flexible resource that can support public authority workers across a wide range of sectors to access the essential skills and knowledge they need to improve their children’s rights practice.  

• Find out more about Skills and Knowledge Framework here. 

Now that the UNCRC is incorporated in Scotland we at Together will continue to work hard to ensure the UNCRC is properly implemented by holding the Scottish Government and wider public authorities to account with our #RightsOnTrack monitoring campaign.   

The #RightsOnTrack campaign is closely monitoring the UK and Scotland’s progress towards implementing the latest recommendations from the UN Committee (known as ‘concluding observations’), as well as other priority issues of importance to babies, children and young people.  

The 2024 Act is an important tool for putting these recommendations into practice and we need members’ help to monitor how well things are going! 

Find out more about our campaign here! 

• Want to get involved? Sign up to our campaign here and receive updates on how you can help.