Children’s Rights Impact Assessments (CRIA)

Our key call for change:

• Mandatory and effective use of Children’s Rights Impact Assessments by Welsh Government

Background information & introduction to our work

A Children’s Rights Impact assessment (CRIA) is used to check policy and legislation is compliant with children’s rights and is recommended by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

There is a requirement under the Welsh Government’s Children’s Scheme (which sets out the arrangements for implementing the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011 to carry out CRIAs to demonstrate Welsh Government Ministers are giving due regard to the UNCRC. The Welsh Government has conducted over 250 CRIAS since they were introduced. This is believed to be one of the highest numbers of CRIAs conducted by any government globally.

However, because there is no statutory requirement for CRIA’s, this results in them not always happening or happening too late in the process to have an impact. Evidence of CRIA being patchy and inconsistent was reported by Professor Hoffman and O’Neill in 2018 and again by Professor Hoffman in 2020.

Dr Croke and Professor Hoffman in research conducted for the European Network on Ombudspersons for Children (ENOC) on Covid 19 Emergency Measures and their impact on children’s rights, reported that only a minority of jurisdictions in the ENOC research carried out CRIA on decision-making when developing Emergency Measures. CRIAs were conducted in Wales but only later in the pandemic and not consistently.

Like the Senedd Children, Young People and Education Committee, and many organisations in the children’s sector in Wales, we have been calling for a CRIA of the Welsh Government budget. This is so we can understand and hold the Welsh Government to account to show they are spending to the ‘maximum extent of available resources’ on the fulfilment of children’s rights in Wales (Article 4 UNCRC). However, the call for CRIA of the Welsh government budget has been rejected.

An example of Welsh Government failing to do a CRIA happened in June 2023 when the Welsh Government did not do a CRIA on the decision to end free school meals in the holidays. We supported the Public Law Project in the successful legal challenge which resulted in the High Court declaring that the Welsh Government’s decision was unlawful. For more information on this case. Please access these excellent blogs Dr Croke and Professor Hoffman

Dr Croke with her Strategic Litigation Group partners are monitoring the use of CRIA by Welsh Government and considering opportunities for further legal challenges.