 Good morning and welcome to the 21st meeting of 2023 in session 6 of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. This morning we have received no apologies. Our first agenda item is to agree to take item 3, which is consideration of today's evidence in private. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Our second agenda item is to take evidence on the reconsideration stage of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Corporations Scotland Bill. We will be taking evidence from two panels this morning. I welcome our first panel, which is Nicola Keyin, from Children and Young People's Commissioner Scotland. Gina Wilson, who is the head of strategy, also from the Children and Young People's Commissioner Scotland. Juliet Harris, director of Together, Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights. Jan Savage, who is the executive director of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, and Fiona Mingis, who is the policy manager at the Law Society of Scotland. Welcome to you all. I refer members to papers 1 and 2, but before we begin with our questioning, I would like to invite each of the witnesses to make some brief opening remarks, should they wish to do so. I'll start with Nicola, please. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for the opportunity to come and speak with you all today and give evidence. I took office as the Children and Young People's Commissioner in August. During my interview for the role by children and young people, I was asked to outline my top priority. It wasn't a difficult choice for me to make, ensuring that the UNCRC was incorporated into Scots law was my first priority. That was and is because of the following reasons. Children and young people in Scotland have been campaigning for this for years, and they still are. It will accelerate the culture change that has started to ensure children's rights are centred by decision makers. It will give children and young people additional powers to hold decision makers to account. I know that children and young people may be watching us today, so I want to be clear. I support the approach that the Scottish Government has proposed to take to amend the bill. This legislation, if passed, will provide greater protections for children's rights now, and it will create the foundations on which we can build on those protections into the future. This will be a long-term investment, focused on the future and beyond parliamentary cycles, not just an immediate return. If the bill is subject to further referral on scope, I am concerned that the opportunity will be lost. That is an amended bill. However, the intention of the Scottish Parliament to weave the UNCRC into the fabric of our law, our policy and our public life in Scotland is still achievable. The then Minister for Children and Young People, Marie Todd, opening the stage 3 debate on the UNCRC bill in March 2021, said, I want this legislation to help to deliver a huge cultural shift, but let us not forget the small changes that will also make a difference to children's everyday lives and which can send clear and unequivocal messages about what a child centre society truly looks like. Raising awareness and understanding of children's rights will create a lasting legacy. It will mean that the children of today grow up to empower the children of tomorrow. We should make no mistake, this matters to Scotland's children. My office agreed with the minister then, and I agree with her now. You have received evidence from others explaining that the amended bill makes things more complicated. It does for now. However, there is a path that the Scottish Government can create to help duty bearers and children and young people to understand what changes can happen now and how they can continue to adapt future legislation to bring more and more areas into scope. As the convener mentioned, I am joined today by my colleague Gina Wilson, head of strategy for my office, and we look forward to providing any information we can to support the committee's scrutiny of the amended bill. Thank you. Thank you, Nicola, and welcome to your role. Congratulations on your appointment. I believe that this is your first appearance. Welcome. Gina, do you wish to add? No, thank you. The Scottish Human Rights Commission welcomes the commencement of the reconsideration stage of the UNCRC incorporation bill. Children, young people and their families have waited a very long time for this. Incorporation of children's rights is essential for children and young people to secure accountability for the rights that they already have under the UN convention on the rights of the child are not adequately considered by public bodies here in Scotland. That is also the view of the United Nations committee on the rights of the child. So is this where we thought we would be when this process started? No. Is this more complex than we envisaged at the start of this process? Yes. Is that a reason not to proceed? Absolutely not. Is this the best way to go forward with the bill? Yes. It's a messy and it's a complex route, but it's the only route forward. Our view is that this is the only way to proceed and we do not have an alternative to propose to you. We've reviewed, through the lens of A, minimising the risk of referral back to the Supreme Court, B, to reduce complexity and to provide clarity for duty bearers and for children and young people alike, and C, to maximise the coverage with indevolved competence. We have not identified an alternative. Today, and as you move through the evidence sessions, you will hear concerns about complexity and burden on duty bearers. It is complex. But firstly, the starting point is already complex. We don't have a straightforward system really in terms of access to justice for human rights in Scotland. Secondly, and this is a really fundamental point that you as a committee and the Parliament are faced with, progressing for now with improving children and young people's lives through stronger application of their human rights in the Scottish legal framework. Do you give up because it's difficult? More difficult than envisaged or do you progress? Do you start on a new path, on a new journey and open the door for a new human rights framework for children and young people in Scotland? That's not really a choice. That must be done and therefore the commission supports the proposals from the Scottish Government. Thank you. Thanks, Jan. Juliet? Thank you for inviting me here today. To prepare, I have spoken widely to children and young people and all of them have pointed out today is Halloween. So, two of our rights detectives, Oscar and Sophia, have helped me to prepare an opening statement with a Halloween theme that sets out what children and young people think about the amendments to the Bill. So starting, here is a Halloween web. This is a strong web that represents protections for children's rights and here are some flies and as they buzz around they represent breaches of children's rights and they're caught by the web. And here is Shirley-Anne Spider, the Cabinet Secretary. She's in charge of the web along with our Spider MSPs and our Spider courts. And this web here represents the UNCRC Bill as it was passed in March 2021. You can see it provides protections against breaches of children's rights across all areas devolved to Scotland. It was really tough for any of these flies to get through. But the UK Supreme Court means that the web has had to change. It's now a looser web where children's rights might not always be so well protected. Whilst it catches some flies, other flies might sneak through. But even though this web isn't so neat, children and young people say this is critical. The very fact that a web exists actually scares away the flies, much like the UNCRC Bill will help to prevent breaches of children's rights through its very existence. With no web, flies might fly everywhere. They might think they can do as they please. Children and young people really worry that without any UNCRC Bill, adults might think they don't need to worry about children's rights. So this web is not perfect, but it's still absolutely an essential framework to protect children's rights. In years to come, the Cabinet Secretary, the Scottish Government, the courts and other MSPs can strengthen this web. They have the power to improve it. All the spiders can identify where there might be weaknesses, and they can actually get to work to fix them and improve the web in future years. So in years to come, as I said, government, courts, the parliament, you all have the power to improve this web. All the spiders can identify the weaknesses and where the flies get through. So while the Bill that we're looking at now isn't perfect, children are very clear that it's really important that it becomes law. It will provide the essential framework that we need in Scotland to promote a rights-respecting culture. Over time, this web can grow into this web and so that we have the strongest possible protections for children's rights in Scotland. Thank you, Juliet. I'm always impressed by the clarity of children's thoughts and how they can bring that alive through visual aids and storytelling, so thank you very much for that. Thank you, convener, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for inviting the Law Society to join this panel this morning. The Law Society has a statutory duty to work in the public interest. Part of this work being our strong commitment to protecting and promoting the rule of law and seeking to influence the making of a fairer and more just society through creation of good law, law which is clear, accessible and effective. We're pleased to see UNCRC incorporation being reconsidered and you'll know that we were and remain supportive of what the Bill intends to achieve. You'll see our comments on the amendments in our written submission and all I'd intend to add in these brief opening comments is a word on the wider societal context in which we consider these. Highlighting again the importance of duty bearers having the necessary resources, education and capacity to meaningfully comply so that rights of children aren't lost in that compliance. We would also add that it will be important to balance the legal context with the everyday practicalities for end users, both duty bearers and children and young people. I look forward to a wider discussion on these important issues this morning. Thank you to all our panellists. Just to get us started, I wondered if any of the panellists would like to share their view of the Scottish Government's approach in responding to the Supreme Court judgment and its proposed amendments in the UNCRC bill. I did notice, Jan, that in your opening statement you felt that this was the only way to proceed and there were no alternatives. Perhaps you'd like to give me a bit of insight into why you so firmly believe that and whether any other alternatives were considered at all. If I could come to Jan first and if there are any other panellists that can indicate to me that they would like to come in. I'm happy to give that a go. Certainly our analysis has been informed by consultation with our colleagues at the Children's Commissioner's Office who have really taken the lead in the interests of avoiding duplication of effort across both bodies and have done some sterling work in pulling together an expert group and ensuring that the appropriate analysis was given into the Scottish Government. It is our judgment that, in the interests of lack of complexity, reducing the risk of referral back to the Supreme Court and establishing a framework from where the Scottish Government and the success of Scottish Governments and the Scottish Parliament from here can seek to close that web. As Julie, I'm so eloquently and simply managed to explain to us there that this is the best, if only, option available at this point in time to the Scottish Government. It's not where the journey started and it's not an ideal piece of legislation, but this route, as amended, is the only route that we can see to enable those steps to be taken and we do not have an alternative to propose. Did you have any involvement in the preparation or the development of the amendments at all? More formally, we left that with our colleagues in the Children's Commissioner's Office, as you would expect. They did keep us fully appraised of those discussions and we absolutely were able to confirm their analysis as informed as ever. As you have heard in my opening statement, we are also very supportive of the Scottish Government's response and the amendments in the bill, as proposed now. For us, it's really important that we reiterate the focus on what is still within that bill. It will give children and young people additional protection and powers. That is really important for us. It will also introduce the children's rights scheme. It will introduce the requirements for children's rights impact assessments to be undertaken, where strategic decisions are being made by duty bearers and child-friendly complaints mechanisms. Again, just to reinforce that the team over the past month has consulted with partners, experts and children young people to look at the amendments and assess whether we felt as if there were alternative approaches, but we did continuously come back to the decision that we felt as if that gives the strongest opportunity for the UNCRC bill to be incorporated into Scots law. There is a path to broadening the scope of that over time. In terms of contribution to the amendments, I will just bring Jeana in there as that became a much later date. In terms of the work that we did directly with Government around the development of the amendments, we did not work with Government to produce the amendments. We did not see any of their legal advice in advance of the production of them, but they did share with us after a period of time that the tests that they were looking at were about how to minimise the risk of referral, how to maximise coverage and how to ensure that legislation was accessible. We did support the approach that they were taking in order to examine the options that were available to them in terms of amendments. We did take a view immediately after the Supreme Court judgment that the form of the amendments that you have now was the likely route that this was where we thought we would end up. We thought that this was probably the version that was going to be acceptable to the UK Government in terms of what did not seem to breach on scope again. We have ended up where we predicted that we were going to be. Any of the other panellists like to come in? Juliet, thank you. I think that it is really important to stress that incorporation is a journey, and we are still on that journey. Whilst the amendments mean that we are further back on that journey, we still need to continue forward. Incorporation, no matter the scale, no matter the method, is always going to be worthwhile. It is always going to be that beneficial first step that helps to create the framework that Nicola spoke about. It is important to note that earlier this year the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child specifically made a recommendation for the Scottish Government to bring those amendments expediously back to the Scottish Parliament to make sure that we can continue on that journey towards incorporation. The work that we have done with our members, with legal experts, with children and young people shows how this is a framework that we can build on. We have shared with you a letter to the Cabinet Secretary where we set out four specific asks, which I will go into later on in my evidence, as to how we can build in the future with ministerial commitments on this initial framework for children's rights. In terms of our involvement, we have been involved with the Scottish Government. As Jeana said, we have not seen the legal workings from the Scottish Government on the amendments, but they have kept us up-to-date, informed and involved in our membership. Back in June 2022, we had a targeted engagement from the Scottish Government at that point through the Strategic Implementation Board. At that point, they let us know that they were seeking as much coverage as possible from the compatibility duty. They were seeking to minimise the referral to the Supreme Court, and they wanted the duty to be accessible as possible. At that point, our members were really supportive of that approach. There has been a further engagement in detail in June of this year, and that was with the Children's Commissioner's Office, SHRC and UNICEF. At that point, the Scottish Government set out some options for us, and, although we were enabled as a membership organisation to specifically state our support for any one of those options, it would have meant consulting with 550 different people and different organisations. We were very clear that we welcomed the Scottish Government's approach. I think that it's so important to our membership that we don't see another UK Supreme Court referral, we just want to move forward on this journey. So, whilst there might be criticism that the Scottish Government has been a little bit cautious perhaps in its approach to amendment, perhaps they could have gone further, our membership is very content that we minimise the risk of another referral, and we take forward other commitments that we can strengthen the web, as children and young people have told me to make sure that we build on those protections in the future. I'm going to bring in my colleague Paul, who will be followed by Megan. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning to the panel. Thank you for the helpful overview. I'm going to ask questions about legal complexities. I suppose that some of the views that have been shared by other organisations will hear from this morning as well. COSLA and Social Work Scotland have both indicated that the legal complexities that will be created following the amendments will be challenging. Indeed, Social Work Scotland told us that they viewed it as a potentially impossible legislative landscape to navigate. I think that what we've heard quite clearly from all of you in evidence so far is that this is the only option. I suppose the question would be, what do you think the impact on duty bearers under the bill will be, and how can we perhaps help them to navigate and address those complexities? I wonder if Fiona, would this be a good one for you to come in, and then I can bring in other members? Yes, so in terms specifically on duty bearers and the impact on them, obviously duty bearers here will be a better place to answer specifically how they feel about that. We would say that we obviously need to consider and be conscious of the capacity of duty bearers, which others have highlighted in their submissions, as you say, and of course there are some legal complexities. In terms of that, there's obviously many strands to that. If the bill becomes law, advisers will need to take into account children's rights under the new act, relevant provisions in acts of the Scottish Parliament and assess compatibility and relevant provisions in acts of the UK Parliament, their impact and effect. Perhaps the Scottish Government might look to provide some detailed guidance taken into account of each article of the UNCRC identifying the relevant Scottish and UK legislation to aid duty bearers in their work. You'll be aware that complexities and gaps have been highlighted that could potentially be created. Things in terms of having to ascertain compatibility and the large mix of legislation in place here used by duty bearers, covering children's rights, a mix of acts of the Scottish Parliament and also of the UK Parliament. There's potential for a layer of complexity there and potential gaps where some of the legislation would fall outside the scope. From purely legal standpoint, that highlights the potential gaps and complexities that others have spoken about, but duty bearers have to then find a balance there with how and to what extent they are likely to play out practically, and having regard to that practical implementation for duty bearers, others will be better placed to talk to that. I think that our clear message is that duty bearers should be focusing on acting compatibly across all elements of the UNCRC. Two years ago, that's what Scotland was preparing for, and we would urge everybody to continue to deliver on that and focus on that. We also believe that there are some really clear commitments that the Scottish Government can make to be able to support duty bearers in terms of the legislative review and audit. Really clear communications that are to support everyone, including children and young people. Ultimately, we feel that if that gives additional powers, wherever there are additional powers, it's about choices and using those circumstances as a last resort. We would always be looking to ensure that children's rights are fulfilled at the local level, wherever possible. We should always be looking to see across all elements that children have opportunities with trusted adults at a local level to be able to identify that and support them. Our message is that all duty bearers should be looking to act compatibly all of the time across all elements of the bill, and the Scottish Government can support by giving some clear guidance, some clear commitments and some clear communications about what changes from a legislative point of view and what can continue to change into the future. Thank you. Juliette. Thank you and completely support what Nicola has said, and the importance of actually focusing on the carrot rather than the stick. It's really important to note that the reduction in scope of the bill is only in relation to legal enforcement, so all the other factors that are included in the bill, it's a holistic bill that has actually been designed right from the outset to prevent breaches of children's rights. So there's a whole section of the bill that we're not looking at in reconsideration that's there in place to stop breaches, to prevent breaches, so the fly is being scared of keeping away from the web. And so it's really important to note that that's in place and that the reduction of in scope only does apply if children's rights are breached and they need to use the UNCRC to seek remedy and redress. And like I've mentioned before, then there are all sorts of models of incorporation internationally. And in these models internationally they don't always cover all the different parts of the UNCRC, it can be piecemeal, it can be across the board. And we've spoken to UNICEF and they have said that there's no evidence that they've seen that those that have taken a partial or unique approach are actually seeing issues in terms of legal complexity. I also think it's important again to go back to what do children and young people think about these bits of legal complexity. And for me, this is complete learning of the importance of listening to children and young people. In my preparation for today, I was looking back at the minutes to the strategic implementation board. And in the strategic implementation board, I'd raised concerns that children and young people might not know when their rights are protected by the UNCRC when they're not, how they might be able to access remedy and redress and how they're not. Since speaking to children and young people about that specific concern, they've said to me, do you know when your rights are protected by different laws? Do you know which laws prevent somebody from stealing your handbag when you're walking down the street? Do you have to quote these laws? No, you don't. That is the job of a lawyer. So children and young people have said the most important thing for them is that they need to know about their rights, they need to recognise when their rights are breached and they need to know who they can complain to. And going back to social work Scotland and causallist concerns, for children and young people, the most important thing isn't whether they can speak to a lawyer and go to the courts. It's whether they have a trusting relationship with the adults around them, with teachers, with social workers, that they can say, I'm worried about my rights, I'm worried that they might have been breached. And the teacher and social worker deals with that straight away saying, let's put this in place, let's deal with your concern, let's make this better. There's no legal complexity in that. It's just the relationships that social workers have, it's the relationships that teachers and public authorities have. And so that's the level that we need to be talking about. We need to be really front loading their system to make sure that children and young people are in a safe, secure environment where they feel they've got trusted professionals that they can speak to about their concerns. And really, the legal complexities only really matter in the most serious and extreme of cases. Thank you. Are you okay? I think that that was a helpful contribution in terms of understanding, I think it was put by you, Juliet, as the carrot and stick approach, and actually that overarching sense that people should be doing this anyway. I wonder, though, because there has been concerns raised by COSLA and Police Scotland and others about the potential kind of confusion between what is statutory and what's not statutory. And then, I think, in a time of ever diminishing resource and challenges for public sector bodies in particular, how do we ensure that the points that you made, Nicola, about communication, about taking rights-based approaches generally and training, and I think going to Juliet's point that she just made there, how do you ensure that front-line professionals who are struggling with the day-to-day caseload are able to implement that? What more do you think we need to see of government in terms of putting that forward? I wonder if I can maybe ask Nicola that first, convener, and then if Juliet wants to comment. I guess I'm going to reiterate some of the points that I made in the last response. I think that, from Scottish Government, there is a really consistent and clear ask around about commitment to the legislative review and audit, and I think that that will be supportive. I think that it needs really clear leadership across all duty bearers to ensure that front-line workers know that actually the change for them is to continue to ensure that they deliver excellent services for children and young people, and that there shouldn't be a diversion of funding and support into lawyers looking at that. It is about the support for children and young people. Ultimately, though, if there are children's rights being breached and those are serious breaches, we want to know that as well. We want to know that, just not myself in my office but as a society. We have to understand that and we have to make plans to be able to do it. I think that the Scottish Government really clear commitment to the review and audit and really clear communications commitment to the on-going implementation plan. There has been a programme of work now for a number of years, and there have been excellent examples of work undertaken by duty bearers to prepare for this and to change ways of working. I clear commitment to that from a resource point of view as well, but overall I think that really good leadership. Front-line workers know that their job is and continues to be to ensure to provide the best services for children and young people and where they feel they are struggling with resource to do that, for that to be communicated clearly and for everyone to be listening to that. I do want to move on. I am going to move on because we are precious for time and I know that members are going to be covering some of the points that may well come up, so you will get an opportunity. I would like to bring in Megan McLean. I warm welcome to the panel this morning. I will start with a reflective question because it has been almost two years since the Supreme Court ruling. It has taken that length of time for the Scottish Government to bring the amendments back to the Scottish Parliament for reconsideration. I am just wondering, in terms of the feedback that you have had from children and young people or indeed your own feedback, are you disappointed with the length of time that it has taken for the amendments to come back to be reconsidered? I am happy to throw out Jeana and Nicola, please. It would be fair to say that we have had extensive frustration from children and young people about the delay. I think that what has caused most of an issue for them is a lack of understanding of what has been happening in that time period. It has been a challenge for us to have information to be able to share with them candidly about what is being considered, what the challenges are, what the progress will be and what the timetable will be for us hearing about the next steps for the bill. It has been something that our office has been fairly vocal about. The length of time has been quite challenging for children and young people. Although we do recognise that where we are now, the communication and the effort around communication does appear to be improving, it is making it. It has been recognised by children and young people that there is an intention to try to share information more meaningfully with them now. I have spoken widely to children and young people about this. I have also been working with children and young people on this for 14 years, so many of them are now adults. I have to say that, yes, there is quite a degree of frustration that it has taken so long, but there is also an understanding. Children and young people are not stupid. They do understand that this is complicated and that it has far-reaching consequences. I have spoken to members of the children's Parliament, Amima and Arden, who came out to speak to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child this summer about incorporation. They said to me just the other evening that we know that it will take ages for things to change. There are so many things that children are affected by. Most children just want to know that the adults are trying. We know it will not happen overnight, but we just want to know that people are trying and things are starting to change. I also spoke to members of the Scottish Youth Parliament, to Beau, Chris and Eila. They said that it is a big change that we are looking for. We know that. We know that it will take a lot of effort from a lot of people and change is likely to be slow. I have to say that children and young people really do appreciate it when they hear directly from people with power, decision makers and have updates. The reason why I had Shirley-Anne Spider with me today is because the Cabinet Secretary wrote to children and young people just a couple of weeks ago to update them on where we are at with the UNCRC bill. When things are complicated, when things take time, as long as we are open and we communicate and we talk to children and young people, they do understand that change takes a while. I have to say that 14 years is rather a long time. It is useful to know as well that that communication is now happening between the Cabinet Secretary and young people, because that is vitally important, particularly as we move towards, hopefully, getting the bill over the line, because that is the crucial element here, and that is why we are back discussing that issue. If I could move on to pick up on the points that Paul was raising about COSLA and Social Work Scotland. Juliet, you mentioned briefly in your last contribution about redress, because that has been a concern raised by COSLA that children could find it difficult to identify when they can seek redress for UNCRC incompatibilities using the powers in the bill. I am wondering what your thoughts are on how the Scottish Government can ensure that all children who are deserving of redress receive it, and Juliet, if I could start with yourself, please? Yes, certainly. Again, that is something that I spoke to children and young people about. They were very clear that they do not need to know which laws protect their rights at different times. The most important thing for them is that they know that they have rights, of the rights in the UNCRC, that they are able to recognise when they are breached, and that they know what they can do, who they can speak to, who they can complain to. They also talked to me a lot that sometimes children and young people are scared about complaining, they are nervous about it, and they do not want to get people into trouble. For them, the most important thing was that they had lots of options that they could complain anonymously. They could perhaps have a peer mentor at school, a child or young person, that they could speak to about concerns of their rights. They were really clear about that, and that they do not need to know the details of the laws, and that they need to know the details of their rights. They did suggest things like flowcharts that both children and young people and the adults around them should have, because they said that sometimes adults do not know that they have to listen to complaints from children and young people. If they do make complaints, they are not always respected and that they are not always taken into account. If there were flowcharts for children and young people in their schools, they knew who to speak to informally, if they were worried about their rights, that would help them. I think that the same would be the case within children's hearings and all aspects of children and young people's lives. It is so important that the adults around them know what to do if a child complains about their rights, because the very worst thing that can happen is that children and young people raise a worry and the adults around them do not react. I spoke to children specifically about the COSLA and Social Work Scotland concerns, and they said that they are not concerned for them and that they do not worry about knowing when and where their rights are protected. For them, it is more important that they know about their rights and what they can do to raise any worries that they have. That goes back to the element that children might be expecting something that they can see visibly, and that is where the flowcharts would come into that. I am just wondering if there are any other comments on the redress. Just to build on what Juliet said there, in terms of what we can do to support address some of those concerns from COSLA and Social Work Scotland, we recognise that the trusted adults and professionals around children and young people need to understand, which means that we need to support capacity building support for those professionals to ensure that they understand what their obligations are and what rights children have and how they can be supported. We encourage the Scottish Government to ensure that they adequately resource and support the on-going implementation programme for the UNCRC. There has been years of extensive work already that has happened to get us to this point, but we want to see that continue with particular emphasis on services like the improvement service, which are creating fantastic professional development capacity, training opportunities for adults who are working around children and young people. I appreciate time's precious, convener. We'll move straight on to Fulton, who is joining us online. Thank you, convener. I hope that everybody can hear me there. Good morning to the whole panel, and thank you very much for your input so far. I particularly like your opening statement, Juliet. I think that it was something a wee bit different there, and definitely the theme of the day. I've got two broad questions, the second of which we've covered a wee bit already, but in terms of my first question, the bill provides that it will commence six months after Royal has said, what do you think is a panel about the timing of this? Do you think that this is sufficient time for duty bearers and right holders to prepare for this approach? What's your thoughts on that? Because I'm not in the room, convener, I'm really happy for you to convene who answers. Juliet? Thank you for that question, and together members are very clear that they are happy with the six-month commencement date. This is building on the fact that the UK signed up to the UNCRC in 1991. Policy in Scotland under GERFEC has built on the UNCRC, and that's been since 2006. If the bill had commenced after being unanimously passed by the Scottish Parliament back in March 2021, it would have commenced by now. Actually, there's been a lot of time for the implementation programme that Gina has spoken about to build the capacity of public bodies to be ready for this stage now, to be ready for implementation. The UNCRC implementation programme has obviously been funded since March 2021. It's so important that that is continued to make sure that duty bearers are ready for commencement. At the moment, it's only funded up to March of next year. This is one of our specific asks to the cabinet secretary that she commits to continue the funding for the UNCRC implementation programme. It has been providing, as Gina said, vital support through the improvement service for public bodies and for elected members. It's enabled the Scottish public services ombudsman to develop a child-friendly complaints mechanism, which is currently being piloted across lots of local authorities. It's allowed time for the Innovation Fund, in which public bodies are trialling approaches at the moment towards UNCRC implementation. It's allowed some brilliant work by the Scottish Youth Parliament, their rights now resource, and the Dignity and Schools Hub from the Children's Parliament. All of that wouldn't have been in place if it had commenced back when the bill was first passed. So, I would say that we're more than capable, we're more than prepared to cope with six months' commencement at this point. Okay, thank you. Any other in there? Fulton, I'll come back to you, please. I don't think he can. Oh, he can't hear me. Yeah, sorry, I was waiting to be unmuted there, convener. Thank you very much. Yeah, thanks very much for that, and I think, Joe, you did properly answer on the scene, I could see everybody nodding that was on the panel, so I think there's general agreement there. My second question builds on from that, and I know that we have talked about it a wee bit. And this is about what duty bearers should be doing anyway, and there's obviously been the suggestion, and we've heard it today already, that duty bearers should be acting compatibly with the UNCRC requirements, regardless of the amendments to the bill. Does that view make the amended bill easier, then, for duty bearers to navigate, or do you think there's a danger that public authorities might now focus more in areas that could potentially be litigated on if you have any thoughts on that? Thank you. Can I bring in Jan, please? So, I think it would be really disappointing if that were to be the case, and it's really quite a concern and prism to look through the bill. The point of this bill is, in many respects, as we've heard across the panel, to reaffirm what should be happening anyway. So, the state, the United Kingdom, through the duty bearers here in Scotland ratified the UNCRC many years ago, duty bearers should already be, and in many cases are, delivering in design and services which promote compliance with the treaty. So, I think there's a question to be asked as to why duty bearers may feel that that might not be the case and to be explored around why that's the case and what supporting resources they would need to remedy that. If the process, through increased routes of strategic litigation, for example, which will only be in the most severe and systemic cases of human rights violations to be tested through the courts, if that is a result of this bill, that has got to be a good thing because that has to then guide duty bearers as to what they need to do to make things better. The point of strategic litigation is that that does not then just apply to the child and in the local authority or in the town, in the community, where that has been experienced, but that the learning through the court system then, as a test case, can apply across the rest of the country. The bill isn't about going to court every five minutes. We'll talk about that as we progress through the human rights bill process too, but it's about creating the context where there is opportunity for those systemic and strategic risks to be tested through the court system. I think that the final point to say is that we've talked a lot about capacity building and the difference of approach and supportive approach that this bill and its supporting guidance can bring to bear in terms of informing how public services are designed and delivered, but at the commission we do a lot of work around capacity building on a human rights-based approach to budgeting and to service design. What you see is where the public services get that right and where duty bearers are coalescing everything around the human rights of individuals, then outcomes for those individuals improve. Reliance on public services decreases and actually has an opportunity there to redistribute areas of focus. I think that it would be a disappointing prism for duty bearers to look at it through that lens. I think that it's important to reiterate that many of together members will be duty bearers under the new bill. We specifically fought for an amendment at stage 2 of the UNCRC bill to make sure that those who are delivering public services on behalf of Government are included within the scope of the act. We're not going into this kind of blind. We know that we as organisations together itself will have obligations under the new bill, but when we're going into it we're also very mindful of the need to address children's rights across the board. We're not focusing on where there's possible litigation. What we're doing is making sure that we're getting things right from the outset. I think that it's with that spirit that together members are hoping that we see that as well across public bodies, that we want to act compatibly across the board, that we want to get things right from the outset, but we also want to be covered by that section 6 duty so that there is accountability, there is scrutiny where we don't get things right. Julia, the Scottish Government has committed to a three-year implementation plan. Do you think that that is reasonable and realistic bearing in mind what you've just said about getting it right from the beginning to avoid the litigation coming forward? The three-year implementation plan has already started. That is the UNCRC implementation programme that I spoke about with the improvement service. I think that that has given us plenty of time to prepare, but at the same time I do think that it's really important that we get a continued commitment to that implementation programme for the next three years so that when the duty is alive we're continuing to build our capacity and to develop and to learn. That's great. Thank you for saying that. Fulton, I take it that you have no further supplementaries and thank you. I'd like to bring in Maggie, please. Thanks very much, Keke Ever. And good morning to the panel. Thank you very much for being here and for your contributions both in writing previously and today. I want to just pick up on a couple of the legal complexity issues that both Paula Cain and Megan Gallacher have spoken about. Julia, you said earlier that children and young people don't need to know which rights are being breached and under which, sorry, they don't need to know which laws or where things are going wrong, but they need to know what their rights are. Given the partial coverage that we will have with proposed amendments, there will be gaps. Are you concerned or are any of your members concerned that those gaps will lead to a mismatch of expectation and reality into how we can tackle issues when there is a breach, when something does go wrong? Yes, definitely. That's why it's not so much a mismatch of expectation, it's more about the practicalities and it's more about making sure as well that there is full coverage of protections for children's rights across the board. I think three of our asks that we've made to the cabinet secretary particularly addressed this point and the concerns that have been raised by COSLA and Social Work Scotland. It is why we know that the cabinet secretary has committed to conduct a legislative review to see what's covered by the bill and what isn't. We want a timescale for that. We want to know when that legislative review is going to happen and we also want a commitment to actions. We want really that commitment that we are going to bring as much into scope as possible. Our second ask is to continue to use legislative opportunities to bring things in the scope of the bill. We have forthcoming opportunities with the Promise Scotland Bill, with the Education Scotland Bill, where provisions—one of our members has described them as mothership provisions that you always come back to if you're taking a legal case. If you bring those provisions in through the Promise Scotland Bill and through the Education Scotland Bill, that will help to address that point as well. The final of those three points that I think are particularly relevant to this question is about committing to minimise the use of amendments to UK acts in future legislation. An example for this is one that we don't have the time to address. In the Children's Care and Justice Bill, it makes amendments to five significant UK acts, and they will be outwith the scope of the UNCRC bill. It means that, as the Scottish Parliament continues to legislate, we are going to end up with a more complex legal landscape. It is really important for preparation for the human rights bill for Scotland as well that we want to make sure that as much is included within acts of the Scottish Parliament as possible because it makes a clearer legislative landscape. We are asking for a commitment from the cabinet secretary to minimise amendments to UK acts and instead to actually make those amendments on the face of acts of the Scottish Parliament so that we have that clarity in law. That's useful for children and young people, for duty bearers and for lawyers. Thanks, Juliet. That's really clear. I suppose it's very clear that this is a journey, as you've said before, and we're not stopping here. In that, are there approaches or other things that you and your members would like to see happen, either by the Scottish Government or by other duty bearers? I recognise that many of your members are duty bearers too. What approaches can we have? What guidance are you looking for to ensure that we have that overview even if things aren't completely covered, although we hope coverage will increase over time? That's where, again, the holistic approach that's been taken to drafting the bill, the fact that we've got reporting duties and we've got the children's rights scheme, provides a mechanism through ministers that can be held to account on the steps that they're taking to ensure that legislation is drafted within acts of the Scottish Parliament as much as possible and that steps are taken to address the findings of the legislative review. The ministers can actually report through the reporting scheme every year of what they've been doing. It can be included as an action within the children's rights scheme. I think that, really importantly, something again that members of the Scottish Youth Parliament have stressed with me, they need to be involved in this decision. When Scottish Government have done their legislative review, when they've looked to see what is out of scope of the bill, that's where we need to balance the legislative opportunities that we have with the priorities that children and young people have identified to make sure that that continual law reform is really informed by children and young people's experiences of their rights. My second question is around the requirements. Jan, I'll come to you on this first. It's for both you and Nicola. As commissions, you will be given additional responsibilities and powers with this. I suppose that this is important as we look ahead to the human rights legislation, too. How will the amended bill affect your current work, and what additional resources, expertise and skills will you and your organisations need to make sure that, when you are required to take legal action, you can do so in a meaningful way? We welcome the new powers very much that have been proposed for the SHRC via the CRC bill. As committee members will be aware, they would give the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the Children's Commissioner the power to raise own name proceedings, so that is strategic litigation that we have been speaking about. To intervene in proceedings where there is a public authority is acted in a way that is made unlawful by the bill, and over time that will increase. That might be the first challenge as the framework increases and as that web gets smaller, but the requirements on each commission to do so will change. We do not currently have the powers to raise proceedings in our own name to challenge any systemic human rights violations in Scotland. It is a clear gap compared to how human rights are enjoyed in other countries of the United Kingdom. We see that this is a really important first step to open that door for the Scottish Human Rights Commission that we can explore further via the human rights bill in due course. We have had early discussions across both offices. As I said earlier, it is specifically stated in our legislation that we must not duplicate the efforts of other public bodies, so it will be incumbent upon us to continue to communicate closely on how and when each organisation would seek it to be appropriate to use those powers. That feels appropriate because children's rights are everyone's rights, so all human rights have an impact on children and young people. Each organisation will have its own strategic plan, its own strategic priorities, and there will be issues that will be of more strategic concern to either organisation at any given time. Having the potential across both organisations also helps us to manage the potential workloads that will arise. We have started those early considerations. It will be important not to duplicate, but we are very welcome. I echo some of Jan's points. We very much welcome the additional powers, but I want to emphasise as well as the office has already been spending time, even before I was in post-preparing for this. Earlier in the year, we published a strategic litigation toolkit. That was developed with international experts and children and young people, and it is available publicly. People can understand those powers and how the office may use them in the future. We want to ensure that that is as transparent as possible and that people understand that it will be based on strategic priorities, the best interests of children and young people. The office has been in preparation for a number of years around this. One of the very first things that I had to do was propose how we would use our budget for next financial year. We have already made preparations and plans of how we would be able to allocate resources effectively for that. Fiona, I do not know if you wanted to come in on this point as well, that the statutory obligations that law society has, do you see any need for thinking differently in your work? It is not something that we have specifically looked at. With that lens, I think that that is probably specifically for the two organisations that you have spoken to on your previous question. I think that I have already covered what has been said about the complexities and gaps. We would echo that the Government could provide detailed guidance. We would support a legislative review, and we would also be supportive of post-legislative scrutiny in the term of having a legislative audit as well. I am sure that the conversations will carry on about exactly what needs to be in that guidance. Thank you very much, Maggie. I would like to bring in Annie, please. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. Just going on the legislative audit in Nicolae, you had mentioned that a couple of times as well. I was just wondering what you think should be included in it, who should be involved with it, how long it might take, and whether there could be unintended consequences to it. That is something that we have been asking for for quite a time. It is something that actually happens in most countries that incorporate the UNCRC. It does not always happen before the bill commences. It often happens afterwards. There are examples of Sweden and Norway around that. In terms of what is involved, first of all, we want the Scottish Government to set out the timescale. We want them to concentrate, first of all, on the legislative review. What is in and what is out of the scope of the bill? At that point, we want them to look at the legislative opportunities that we have. We have mentioned the promise bill and education reform as examples and see what we can bring in. We want them to speak to children and young people to look for other opportunities to bring in other bits of legislation that are particularly important to them. In terms of involvement at that stage, it is very much Scottish Government, children and young people, for us together—members in the commissioner and SHRC—and it is something that they could work with the Scottish Law Commission on as well. There is a good starting point with the concluding observations that come from the UNCRC as well for the subsequent legislative audit. The review is looking at what is in and out of the bill. The legislative audit afterwards is a compatibility review. Where we have got all the laws that protect children's rights in Scotland, are they all compliant with the UNCRC? We would say that this is something that can be done further down the road. The most important thing at the moment is the review of what is in and out. The audit itself that can be done further down the road should involve stakeholders from all across Scotland—children, young people, commissioners, et cetera, like we have said. We already know of examples of legislation that our members have highlighted as not being compatible with the UNCRC. We know that there are provisions in criminal justice for 16 and 17-year-olds that are not compatible with the UNCRC. We know that, in the Education Scotland Act, the fact that children up to the age of 18 cannot opt out of religious observance is not compatible with the UNCRC. The Marriage Scotland Act is not compatible with the UNCRC. For us, in terms of priority, we should do the legislative review, find out what is in and out, look for opportunities to bring things into scope of the bill, and over time we can do that compatibility review. Even in countries like Norway, that was 11 years after they incorporated the UNCRC. That is an on-going piece of work to check compatibility with legislation. I think that my other question that I was going to ask has been answered earlier on, so for time I will leave it there. Thanks very much. We will move on to Caden, please. Thank you, convener, and good morning to the panel. As you are all probably aware, the Scottish Government has plans to introduce a Scottish human rights bill, which is going to incorporate four international treaties into law in human rights treaties. Dr Tekel, who has joined us in panel 2, has said that the difficulties facing the UNCRC bill apply just as powerfully to further incorporation. With that in mind, and I think that I am probably looking to Fiona and Jan, what do you think the Scottish Government, the Parliament, our duty bearers, rights holders learn from the UNCRC bill amendments? How will that apply to our Scottish human rights bill? Fiona? There are undoubtedly lessons to be learned looking forward in terms of the human rights bill. One thing that some have picked up on is the potential for a new approach to be taken in terms of drafting, where existing legislation is not amended, but the decision is taken to re-legislate with a new Scottish act. We would need to look at this in more detail. Freestanding provisions, rather than amendment of previous UK legislation, could have the benefit of being within the scope of the UNCRC compliance duties. It is possible that they would be easier for legislators and others to understand when bills are being enacted. However, we have also heard the concern about the usability of legislation. The benefit of textual amendment is that all relevant statutory provisions can be found in one place, and people operating the relevant schemes only need to know about the main statute rather than having to take account of a range of provisions. That is potentially why the preferences right now are likely for textual amendments. We would have to look at that in more detail if we could see that change to form a view on that. We responded to the recent human rights consultation, and when we were talking about the proposed models, we noted that in order to ensure that the bill is within the competence of the Scottish Parliament, the text of the treaties would need to be amended to remove anything that could relate to reserved matters contained within the Scotland act. That is an initial example of where we need to have regard to the problems that are faced in that process. Otherwise, obviously, we have only seen the consultation at this stage, so we would need to see more in terms of the approach that ends up being taken towards a future bill. That is great. I appreciate that. First, we really need this bill process, the CRC amendment process, to conclude successfully. It is really important that the bill is progressed without further delay in order that we can fully learn all the lessons of the process before we apply that to the human rights bill. Your job as a Scottish Parliament is the guarantors of human rights legislation, realisation and fulfilment for the people of Scotland. It is our job at the commission to be alongside you every step of that journey and support you with that role. We know now, as a result of the first lesson learned from the CRC process, that there is a big curtailment on the ability of the Scottish Parliament to progressively legislate in all areas of human rights in the way that it thought it could. However, the positive element of the Supreme Court ruling is that it is possible for the Scottish Parliament to incorporate human rights treaties into Scots law. That is a really important first principle that we sometimes can forget when we go back to the complexities of how we do that. It is the how that has changed. The why has not changed. You will be legislating to enhance protections for individuals and communities directly into Scots law. That must always be the guiding principle through this, as we have explored today around the children's rights bill. Clearly, the process is going to have significant implications for the design of the bill. It is difficult, as we have explained. We have not yet seen a proposed draft bill from the Scottish Government. We have a consultation that we have all participated in. At this stage, we have not seen the legal advice from the Scottish Government in terms of what is informing their current considerations. What we have done is that the commission has published a statement about the proposed bill and a legal opinion from Senior Council on the incorporation approach, which deals with a lot of the complexities that Fiona Hewley has outlined. We have shared both of those in writing with the committee, and at an appropriate time, as you wish, we will be very happy as a team to come back and engage further with the committee on that. Our view at present, in summary, is that the proposed approach has not necessarily yet fully learned all of the lessons from this process. That might be understandable because the process has not yet concluded, but it is very important to signpost that to you. It is definitely possible to look at alternative models of incorporation, and again, the legal opinion that we have sought and shared with you encourages that. At this stage, we are not in a position to specify what particular approach over any other might be the best, but we need to signal that there are alternative approaches to incorporation that could better achieve the policy intent, which is excellent. The policy intent of the human rights bill is absolutely excellent, and all any of us that we are concerned with now is moving forward from this process and ensuring that we have the most accessible foreseeable bill that provides clarity for everyone. The clarity of scope has been outlined, so the legislative audit process, which again, Juliet, has really eloquently outlined for the purposes of the CRC bill. We did not know that that was going to have to be done when the CRC bill was drafted. We now know that that is going to have to be done ahead of the human rights bill, so let us be ready for that. That would be one ask. Yes, it can be a progressive process, but there is definitely an earlier consideration that is possible now around prioritising, shining a spotlight on those areas of human rights legislation that the Parliament may wish to look at sooner rather than later. We are also clear now that we have to be in it for the long term, so that is not going to be a quick fix through the human rights bill, and the opportunity now is to open a door for a longer-term development. We will come back absolutely in due course to consider that more fully with you. I have one thing to add, and it is just what I hope children and young people will learn from this in the future. It is that we will not give up and that the Scottish Parliament will continue to ensure that you can do everything that you can to promote and safeguard their rights. Thank you. Captain, was there anything further? Nothing on that. That was really helpful. Thank you very much. I have another question for you now, if that is okay. You have another question? Not another question, yes. Yes, please. Just to ask, this is our evidence session on the UNCRC bill. It was to ask, along with yourselves on a second panel today, if you feel that that is enough for us as a committee to be doing and if not, is there anyone that you feel that we should be healing from? Juliette? Yes, I think that there is somebody else that needs to be in the room. This is again demonstrating to me the importance of listening to people with lived experience and duty bearers, because I have to hold my hands up. I have to say that I thought that this was too complicated for children and young people. I thought, do not consult with children and young people on the specifics of what is in and out, and do not speak to children and young people about whether this law is important or that. I have learned in the past six weeks that they have plenty to say, and they have plenty to say about the practicalities. That is why I have underpinned all my evidence with children and young people. I think that those children and young people that I have spoken to have spoken to their peers, and I think that we have managed to get across a lot of what they have told me, but they have taught me a lot, just in preparing for this session. I think that we always need to have people with lived experience in the room, even if it seems tough and complex. The specific examples around that, my assumption that children and young people would not want to be involved, the assumptions that we have from COSLA and Social Work Scotland, that children and young people would be worried about which laws protect their rights, when all of those are things that I have learned from children and young people. Some of our concerns are not concerns to children and young people, and sometimes they have concerns that we have not even thought about. However, I do hope that the children and young people that I have spoken to feel that I have properly represented them today. I think that you did a wonderful job. Does anybody else have anything to come in on that one? On behalf of the committee, I think that we have found this a very useful session. I think that we have managed to get under the skin of some of the areas of contention in making sure that we move on at pace, but we also provide a very thorough scrutiny process alongside that. Julia, I think that we all appreciated you bringing alive the children's voices in a practical way in using the spider and the web. We want to make sure that that web is robust enough. In the future, when we are adding all the bits and things on to strengthen children's rights, the framework that we have, the web that we have now, will be robust enough to carry that. I would have to agree that children are well able to understand complicated concepts regarding their own needs and their wants and their rights. When I was teaching prior to being elected, we were doing rights respecting schools and the articles in the UNCRC, and children were able to not only orally but also through pictures, through multi-sensory play. They were able to well express their knowledge around all the different articles. In one sense, it appears that they were well ahead of us adults, and the legislative process is just catching up with them. In the spirit of that, thank you very much for your contributions this morning. It will certainly add to our scrutiny. I suspend the meeting very briefly in order to allow for a change of panellists. We will now resume with our next panel of witnesses. I welcome to the meeting this morning Councillor Tony Buchanan, children and young people, board spokesperson from COSLA. Welcome. I would also like to welcome Derek Frew, who is the temporary chief superintendent, head of partnerships, prevention and community wellbeing from Police Scotland. I would like to welcome Dr Andrew Tickell, who is the senior lecturer in law at Glasgow Caledonian University. Welcome to all three of you this morning, and thank you very much for joining us. I will invite each of our witnesses this morning to make any brief opening remarks should they wish to do so before we move to questions from myself and the rest of my committee members. I would like to start with Councillor Buchanan, please. I am happy to make an opening statement. I thank you for the opportunity to give evidence today. Already we have responded in writing to you previously, but it is important to be clear that local government is fully supportive of the intentions of UNCRC incorporation. We share the vision of a Scotland where children's human rights are embedded and fulfilled across all public services and the extensive work is already under way across all councils to take forward this ambition. Local government's concerns are not about the incorporation itself but rather about the practical implications for councils of the proposed amendment to the UNCRC compatibility duty whereby it would apply only where an authority is acting under an act of the Scottish Parliament and not UK legislation. Those concerns have been raised by our professional advisers representing social work, education and local authority solicitors. We are concerned that the approach will leave considerable gaps in the legal protection of children's rights. Key areas of council services and functions will be excluded from the scope of the UNCRC legislation, including within some of the key relevant areas such as education, care and protection. Another key concern is around the significant legal complexity that this will bring. Council's powers and functions are based in a complex mix of both Scottish and UK acts, meaning that the nature of the compatibility duty on local authorities may in many situations be complicated and unclear. This complexity will pose difficulties for operability and accessibility both for practitioners applying the legislation, as well as children and young people and their advocates seeking to understand and claim their rights. In line with the Verity House agreement, local government is committed to working in close partnership with the Scottish Government and other partners in resolving those concerns. There are a number of things that the Scottish Government can do to help to address them, namely to undertake an exercise to identify which public authority functions will be in and out of scope, provide detailed sector-specific guidance for public authorities and ensure that there is very clear public messaging about the limited coverage and the amended legislation itself. I should say at the beginning that I am not a children's rights specialist, so my interest in this topic really is fundamentally about devolution, how devolution functions and the practicalities of what this means in terms of this bill for the enforceability of these rights. That is my starting point. Although I enjoyed your discussion at the end about children's perspective on this, I am not sure to be a cynic about it. I entirely agreed with you, convener, that this is an area where children can understand this issue, because I think I have given evidence in Parliament, in writing or in person, about 10 times now. I cannot think of an occasion where drafting a short written statement about what a bill or even just amendments to part of it would do was more difficult to try to make simple and clear and understandable than what I tried to do in preparation for this particular process. I think that it is very difficult to get your head around these amendments and the consequences of that. I suppose that you might find my evidence on this somewhat negative. I think that the first panel accentuated the positive and understandably so, but I suppose that I am going to be accentuating the negative here today, not least simply to make clear what you are and aren't doing, because that, of course, is what legislation is about. It is about setting down law that will be usable or unusable in practice. I think that there are lots of positive things about the bill, and there are a range of practical things that colleagues have identified about how some of the problems that we are going to talk about can be addressed. However, I do not want us to skip past the fact that the UK Supreme Court judgment, which surprised many academic lawyers in its breadth of approach to this Parliament's legislative competence, has significantly impacted on your capacity to introduce significant human rights protection, not just in this area, but as we will perhaps develop later, on a range of other forms of human rights that you will be contemplating in due course. I say that not as a council of despair or of woe, but of realism, I think, about what this bill can and cannot achieve, but it is interesting to be here with you again and, hopefully, I can help you in your deliberations. Thank you. Chief Inspector, the chief superintendent. Thanks, convener. Good morning, and thank you for the invitation to attend today's committee in the opportunity to provide you with Police Scotland's views of the amended bill. Police Scotland is a rights-based organisation with our values of fairness, integrity and respect and a commitment to upholding human rights at the heart of everything that we do. So, upholding the rights of children and young people as set out in the UNCRC is a line to our existing approaches and aspirations, which will be further underpinned by embedding UNCRC into our policies and procedures. As has been highlighted today, that specific legislation does contain complexities in terms of its application, some of which have been addressed through the amendments, and we are committed to continue to work collaboratively to resolve the challenges that are required to be addressed from a policing context. The committee will be aware that the current financial challenges facing Police Scotland and other public bodies are resulting in hard choices to deliver services, and we are no exception. We are making those hard choices to deliver effective policing within our current funding parameters. As a public, we expect to prioritise our resources in those areas of greatest demand and risk to ensure our overall commitment to keep people safe. Legislative changes like this ultimately bring with it a human resource commitment with a potential recurring impact on our revenue budget. It is also recognised that the scope of the bill may have wider implications on our capital budget. It is essential that we fully understand Scottish Government and key partners' expectations of the police, balanced against the mandatory legislative requirements of the bill to ensure compliance at the date of enactment. Therefore, going forward, it is important that we collectively understand what Police Scotland can and will deliver within the resourcing landscape and legislative landscape that we are currently operating and will do when this is enacted. However, I would like to include, as I started, by reaffirming Police Scotland's commitment to working with the Scottish Government and key partners to comply with the requirements of the amended bill and make a real intangible difference to upholding the rights and children of young people. Andrew, let's come back to your opening statement. The committee welcomes your perspective on this. It is our job to scrutinise this in the widest possible sense, so we are actually on the same page really. What is your view of the Scottish Government's approach to responding to the Supreme Court judgment and its proposed amendments on that? Also, the previous panel we heard their view generally was that there was no alternative. I wondered whether you had a perspective on that also. I think that, as we saw at the beginning when the bill was first passed, there were really two primary ambitions that were articulated initially. It was a maximalist approach to application within devolution and minimising complexity, both of which are very admirable goals. However, I think that my view is after the Supreme Court judgment. The decision that Westminster legal sources, if we can call it that, can't be subject to any of the restrictions means that you can just decide which kind of complexity and fragmentation you want to deal with, because the legislative picture is now inherently fragmented. Therefore, all the Scottish Government can do, and all you can do in deciding which approach is best, is to pick the best option. I have to say that, considering the alternatives, it seems to me that the cabinet secretary's proposals are the ones that reduce complexity to the minimum possible level at this stage. It is very commonplace, I think, for people to come before Parliament and you will know yourselves with problems and critiques and say that, basically, you should fix it or the Scottish Government should fix it, vaguely implying that there is some wonderful solution out there to those problems. I do not think that there is any solution to the UK Supreme Court's judgment above and beyond what the Scottish Government has proposed. However, it does have all the consequences that Councillor Buchanan has outlined. There is no perfect solution in front of us at this stage or significant alternative approaches to incorporation. I suppose that the single issue that you could take a different approach to is on amendments. As you know, the Scottish Government has proposed that only acts of the Scottish Parliament should be subject to those interpretive duties, and therefore any amendments that you have made to other legislation, passed by Westminster, should not be subject to that. You could, in principle, extend your amendments to cover the UNCRC, but I think that that would produce even more complexity than we already see in terms of the legislation in front of us. I think that the cabinet secretary herself recognises that, as she sought to extend coverage, she also extended complexity. That suggests to me that those noble ambitions at the beginning of maximalism and lack of complexity are not aspirations that we can really pursue at this stage for this bill. For me, given all of those compromises, the cabinet secretary's compromise seems the most rational and the most workable, but it still presents a range of really profound challenges for public authorities, I think, in particular, as well as for rights holders who might try and vindicate their rights through the courts. The word that I was thinking of was pragmatic. It is a pragmatic way forward, but we realise the complexities of it. Can you give an example of an unintended consequence of this process that you alluded to about a legal challenge? Can you go into that a little bit more? In terms of unintended consequences of the Scottish Government's proposals? I think that in terms of what the Scottish Government has proposed is that, as I see it, only acts of the Scottish Parliament will be subject to this legislation, but amendments passed by this Parliament will not be. Imagine that you are a child or more probably an advocate for a child who thinks that you have a legal issue with an act of the Scottish Parliament, and you go and you find the act there and you think, oh, good, it's in this legislation, but then you discover it's an amendment to a Westminster bill and therefore it's out with the scope of the UNCRC. It's undoubtedly the case that children will look at that, whether it's about the Education Scotland Act 1980, whether it's about the criminal procedure Scotland Act 1995. They will look at that and think that these are big issues of children's rights. The Children's Scotland Act 1995 is probably the best example, covering issues of adoption and so forth. It will strike people as difficult to understand why something as fundamental to the rights of children as adoption falls outside the scope of the rights protected by the UNCRC, and that is the net effect of what the Scottish Government is proposing. I think that that's probably the perversity or potential gap in the law, you can put it more or less strongly, that you were alluding to before, and which really has the biggest implications for the enforceability of this legislation at the moment. Maybe I can say more positively later on, but the complexity will decrease over time, but it begins in a very complex place, I think. Thank you for that. Do any of the other panellists want to come in on that area? It was very specific, I suppose. I can move on to Maggie please. Thank you very much, Cocab, and good morning to the three of you for joining us today. I want to just drill down into some of those legal complexities and I suppose the impacts are primarily on Tony for local government and Derek for Police Scotland. Tony, in your opinion statement you talked about the close partnership working that you have had and you hope will continue around working out some of the concerns around identifying for you, for the public, for everybody which functions are in and out. I suppose a question in this maybe echoes some of the points we heard earlier. We know that the legal redress side of these things is only one component of the legislation. There is a whole host of other bits within UNCRC and within other legislation that is about rights protections for children and young people. Given that duty barriers are encouraged and asked to act in compliance anyway, can you just unpick a little bit more about the exact complexities and tensions that you have identified and whether there are things that we can consider, given that overall point that we should be complying anyway? It is very difficult because, as Andrew touched on, there are things that might have consequentials that happen after the event. That makes it a very difficult place to begin with. What we are trying to do just now is flag up many of the concerns. For example, we envision amended bill being significantly more difficult to navigate because of the narrowed compatibility duty and the need for legal obligations to be clear and practically applicable. That can go for authorities and all of our partners. There is a huge gap there in what we can potentially set aside and potentially do. Our professional advisers at the moment have advised that, including Solis, Solar and Aides and Social Work Scotland, they have advised that they envisaged some significant practical challenges for the implementation in terms of the need for staff to interpret and apply the legal duties, which will now involve some significant additional complexity. That could result in capacity issues for legal and other departments in local authorities due to the required work that might then be required through the legislative issues of dealing with that. Again, that straining capacity would also have likely related financial implications, as it has been touched on. We are clear that sufficient time is required for local authorities to prepare to implement the amended duties and that that will require timely provision of detailed guidance, which, again, we come back to ensuring that we have that guidance so that we can narrow the parameters, if you like, of what we have. That is helpful. Just in terms of that guidance, in the conversations that you, Cosly and others have had, do you get the sense that there is a shared understanding across different partners of what that guidance actually needs to say? I think that there is a shared understanding that we all want to see children's rights upheld and protected. However, we are clear that there needs to be some very good public messaging in relation to it. We also need the detailed sector-specific guidance to enable our front-line staff to do their job. Without that, we would all start to struggle. We need that to be up front, to know what the parameters are and to be able to set that out from day one. Okay. Thanks. That's helpful. I suppose that links to the point that you made earlier about if we don't get the guidance right, if we don't get the resource allocation right, and we collectively, not us in Parliament or you separately, do you think that there's potentially a danger that duty bearers focus on the legal elements and the bits that aren't included in incorporation because they are UK acts rather than Scottish Parliament acts? Is there a danger that we focus exclusively to the detriment of the excluded areas in terms of providing the service because we're worried about litigation? I suppose that the real issue is that it's a potential issue. Our front-line staff are going out to do the best for the children and the families and young people that they're working with. The last thing that they want is for them to come up against a barrier that doesn't enable them to take forward that action. Okay. Thanks. Derek, can I come to you on very similar questions around the capacity issues that you've already highlighted, but really that detail around how you envisage dealing with some of those complexities, some of the gaps that mismatch between reality and expectation that your colleagues might face as well as the people that you are looking to support? Absolutely. Start with a positive, first of all, because we talked about acting in line with UNCRC. I would like to think, certainly from a policing perspective, when you think about we've been working with GERFEC principles for a long time, the work we've done around the age of criminal responsibility, the work that we've done around trauma-informed practice that we continue to do, the work that we do about how we conduct interviews of children, there's a whole landscape of good work that's getting done in the policing context where the rights of a child are at the absolute centre of it. I think the complexities of that litigation question, I don't think we'll focus on the litigation because of that good work that gets done, but ultimately that is a huge fear factor for public bodies because we absolutely want to embed this and I think that unintended consequences of not having probably that clear legislative review, not having that clear guidance puts us on that position where you want to make sure that we protect the organisation versus deliver the UNCRC principles, which is an absolute, we're not saying that it's not there, but I think it's in natural default position for a duty-bearer to look at. So I think any legislative review or guidance we could get would be really helpful because the complexities of policing, you've got cross-border investigations, you've got UK legislation, the definition of age of a child across many different ranges of legislation is different, so there is huge complexities there that probably need to be worked through. Never mind the actual embedding it in the corporate memory, I'll probably touch on it later about the child rights impact assessment and what that process looks like versus what provision is in a custody environment and what additional costs that could have if we're to keep children and adults separately, what is the utopian vision versus the reality in terms of what police estate we have. So that's just maybe a small overview of that if that's helpful. That is helpful and I suppose coming back to the point you made that well that the very clear ask you making there for clear and detailed guidance. Are there, do you have concerns at the moment given conversations that have happened to date that actually that guidance is going to be fuzzy or absent and I suppose are there things that you're looking, you would be looking to us as the committee scrutinising this to make very very clear recommendations on because I think it's all very well to say we want clear guidance but actually understanding what we mean by clear guidance is important. Absolutely, I think from a policing context certainly because we've probably got slightly narrow parameters that may be cosily we'll have because of the range of services that they deliver but from a policing context it would be useful as Andrew described what legislation is it that in the expectations of Scottish Government and partners that we heard in the first panel what is it that you expect us to deliver and can we meet those expectations and it's not just that mandatory legislative requirement because we could very quickly go down into the legislation and pick off the detail and say we are doing no more than that and I don't think any of the public bodies or duty bearers should be doing that we should be trying to do something more holistic without the fear of that litigation. I'm not probably not going to give me a definitive answer but we want to do it more broadly as the first panel alluded to because that is the utopian vision but the reality of that lack of legislative review and that sector guidance bespoke sector guidance that would be informed by partners that we heard in the first panel I think would be really helpful. That's really helpful thank you. Andrew if I can come to my last question I suppose just really your thoughts on that balance between how we make sure we offer guidance and support for duty bearers and other service providers but in a way that doesn't lead to that focusing in on on the litigation elements or you know because for organisational protection for a whole range of reasons that we've already discussed what are your thoughts and comments on how we best avoid that. Yeah it's very interesting isn't it because as the aspiration for a kind of generic mainstreaming approach would say well forget the technicalities get the lawyers out of the room they distract us and focus us on the wrong things whereas the demand for clarity is the exact opposite in fact so you probably can't service those those two things in the same way. I mean certainly if you look at empirical studies of the impact rights and law have on decision making by public authorities it's very often the case that the impact is through non-legal sources through understanding of the law that are shared through professional practice and understandings of what best practice look like. I mean upsets lawyers but there's lots of evidence that the law has relatively little impact on what public authorities actually do on the ground and the way upset parliamentarians as well I'm not sure but that is the situation that we are in. Certainly it is the case as in other sectors of society that you can get almost defensive medicine you get the situation where you have the judge on your shoulder and the anxiety that the legal department are going to get involved so I think perceiving that as a discernible risk is absolutely right and probably not avoidable because if the Scottish Government is to produce a long laundry list of things which public authorities definitely are subject to litigation under I think it's unavoidable that they will be approached differently than broad aspirational principles which are less articulated. There's a danger there that undermines the sort of culture of compliance that we are wanting to support we are wanting to encourage and we're wanting to see beyond the letter of the law. Yeah so tick box kind of approach I mean interestingly there is empirical studies which suggest your own parliament does this with the ECHR that in the sense you don't think about the deep profound principles of the European convention you ask has it been signed off by the lawyers and then oh tickety poo so I mean it is something which institutions of a range of kinds subject to rights face it's quite easy to call for the mainstreaming of rights the experience of mainstreaming rights are also mainstreaming equality considerations is not great thus far and so that's simply another challenge which this bill faces but it's not unusual in that respect okay I'll leave it there for now thank you I will bring in Megan but just a quick question I just wondered whether any of you what involvement you had had in the development of the amendments to the UNCRC if any at all has no no okay yeah just wanted to know Megan thanks convener and good morning panel there's a lot to unpick already I think just from the first couple of questions and I think you know that's taken a different landscape to the previous panel which is really good because we're getting into the nitty-gritty I think of the legislation itself and I think my questions have strayed a little just because of the discussions that we've had so far and if I could start with Derek Frew please as the temporary chief superintendent just on the age of a child because I think that is really important actually when we're looking at legislation that impacts children and young people directly and we have you know this anomaly that's now existing within Scotland where you can do different things at different ages because you're considered a child or not considered a child at certain points in your life and I'm just wondering do you think given that we've got the UNCRC bill but we've also got the children care injustice bill that's coming through parliament just now as well do you think the government needs to be stricter or you know define when a person goes from being a child to an adult because that's certainly something that I'm wrestling with and I know it's something that the other people are wrestling with as well just in terms of legislation because just now it just seems to be a minefield and the justice system you're you know at age at some point but then you know and something else it's completely different so I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on that and please Dr Andrew Tickle please come in as well. From a policing perspective I suppose we really like things black and white let's be honest because it makes the decision making far easier so it'd be lovely in a perfect world if we had 18 as the age of definition for a child however I'm quite sure the panel from the first panel children might be quite peeved when they don't get certain rights when the age of an adult when age 16 so certainly not from a police perspective to make any comment on that legislative framework in principle I agree of that simplicity but I think that complex legal landscape in attaining that rights of an adult versus a child probably make that for lawyers to enter a room sort that out it's not one for me to comment probably. I'm just wondering if. Yeah I think the legal concept of a child is complex because the social concept of a child is complex and pushing different directions so in the sense we can see with the care and justice bill on the one hand a sort of protective approach but then we also have the demands of autonomy and they are oftentimes in a degree of conflict and actually this isn't something which is entirely new to our own time I was reading one of my colleagues PhD earlier on last week and it's all about the fluctuations in the historic concept of childhood which has changed a lot in a range of different areas now as we I suppose have more protection extended to some behaviours but also greater recognition of child autonomy but certainly it is a complexity and if you sit down with your students and ask well what can I cannot cannot not do at any given point then you can sometimes search for coherence in vain I suppose it's something we can argue about which is a good thing in fact because it's not a settled category it's not a given it's something we construct and something the law supports the constructions of around that so in this area I don't know if it adds complexity or not but I think it's fundamentally quite a complex question no thank you very much for that and if I can move on to the discussions and I thank Dr Andrew Tickle you touched on it in your opening remarks just in terms of young people understanding the rights that they will have once this legislation gets over the line of the amendments are accepted so I'm just wondering how do we go about ensuring that young people do understand their rights and we had an excellent example earlier on in the the first panel where it was a demonstration and I'm just wondering you know is that something I think the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament need to get better at to make sure that we are able to to reach across a span of ages because I think we're really good at talking to ourselves but we're not necessarily good at talking to the people outside the room I'm sorry I didn't bring any visual aids I feel that if I could have let you all down in terms of that well I suppose the children's children as a matter of international law already have these rights the UK is signed up to these rights I think the children you were talking to in your class convener I'm sure understood very well these fundamental concepts has applied to them where it gets complex is not the rights themselves or the broad principles they articulate it's unenforceability and who it is enforceable against and when so in that sense telling the children of Scotland they have these rights is absolutely fine we can do so now but unenforceability I think it's a challenge and you can see this from both the perspective of sort of rights holders their advocates but also for duty bearers and public authorities and I think both of these parties have an interest in accessibility and simplicity but those aren't available to you would be my message in general so all we can try and do is minimise complexity in a way which makes it possible for those cases which can be articulated and legal advice is available to to reach the courts and for that to be an appropriate thing to happen but I think it's fundamentally extremely challenging extremely challenging though it will diminish over time I don't want us just to be a herald of woe on this score that that when you pass this legislation as I expect is quite likely that is the point of greatest complexity why do I say that because at this stage you have the most devolved law still set out in Westminster legislation but as time goes by very little time perhaps for some some panellists who want you to immediately audit every area of scots law that affects children and legislate for it whether that's viable or not over time more and more law will fall within the parameters of the UNCRC legislation as you pass more acts of parliament so that's why I say it's at its most complex right now in terms of messaging around that I don't actually know how you explain a simple version in terms of the wider public so I don't think that's a failure on you it's a failure of the situation in which we find ourselves and I would say that the extent to which the UK Supreme Court judgment in my view and it's just my view is fundamentally impractical in terms of the kind of legislative proposal you are looking at right now and didn't consider a range of the challenges we're trying to talk through right now and do you think just finally convener really short question do you think that there's a risk then that the there could be a risk of over promising and under delivering for young people because I think this is huge for young people and young people have been calling for it goodness since I was at school so that's how long this has been going on so it you know once it's over the line we need to make sure that we're careful in terms of that you know over promising and under delivering because at the end of the day as a young people that this will directly impact exactly exactly and so often you can enshrine enshrining is a thing parliaments like doing and training is easy and cheap and unenforceable and very often people want the reality they don't care about the bold big principle being articulators in legislation or if they do care about that what matters in the end is what can I do about it and yeah that is always a risk not just for this legislation but also I think for the humans rights bill as well because if we tell people I'll see you in court or we can challenge this in court if you don't uphold my rights we're not being entirely candid about what this bill will actually achieve no thank you thank you very much thank you Paul please thank you very much convener and good morning to the panel in the previous answer from doctor to care we started to touch on the audits and and I suppose the debate that exists in this space this morning we had a number of witnesses speak about the approach they would like to see you not least you know together and the children's commissioner looking at that sort of audit approach they would take obviously causa has a different view to some extent so I wonder if doctor to care you might want to comment on on the principle of audits and and what might happen in that space in your view of that and then I'll come to counsel be canon on the the causal point yeah absolutely um so for starters I think it's absolutely right and proper to identify specific areas where you think the uncrc is not being observed in scott's law whether that's about religious observance in school or whether it's about what the criminal procedure act says about the sentencing of children to life imprisonment that makes sense to me that's the kind of thing you do all the time in this parliament here's an issue here's an amendment let's fix it um I think a legislative audit if you begin to look at the legislation in question um if it's legislative audit towards the idea that it's a bumper bill we're going to have a massive education bill a massive keeping the promise bill then I'm not sure how rooted in reality that is because if you dig up the education scotland act it's over 100 provisions if you dig up the social work act of 1968 it's over 100 provisions if you dig up another key area it's over 100 provisions and there is a I think an argument being made from some quarters that all you have to do is just bundle up all the existing law into one or more mega bills and just pass it and that's not what legislation is for I mean that is not an appropriate approach to revisiting the past and the proposal set out in legislation and you'll notice yourselves that the law sits in the books untouched for years and it's used by the people who use it and the rest of us don't think about what it says but if I came forward as a Scottish Government minister and said to you let's re-enact an entire piece of legislation and let's not talk about what's in it you would regard me with profound suspicion and think I was squirreling things in which we should look again at because if we're looking again at legislation let's use the time to look again at it so I do find the idea that if it's an audit towards a kind of comprehensive consolidation of all of these areas of law that's a huge huge demand on the Parliament's time simply for the purposes of making it subject to the UNCRC I imagine you would struggle I find the opportunity costs associated with that difficult to defend to be honest so I think it's unrealistic for me to that extent but if there are specific issues then by all means those should be addressed. I wonder if I might just have the causal position because obviously it differs slightly from what we heard this morning. Well perhaps slightly not having heard all of this morning's discussion but yeah and I think some of it's just been touched on in relation for example children's social work not all of the key legislation that I've asked are included in UNCRC education again some would be in scope some not for example education act 1980 would not be in scope but the education additional support for learning in scotland act 2004 as amended would be in scope so if you then start to look at it and I know that I've legislated about it we recognise that this would be hugely complicated and indeed no doubt time consuming task meaning that it cannot be seen as a straightforward solution. Some of the other aspects from a local government perspective would be that councils are already struggling with the capacity to manage the level of legislative change and policy change already on their way and on the horizon and that further demands in this area would represent a huge undertaking in terms of just the additional capacity and the resource required to implement any further extensive cross sector legislative change so we have a strong view that Scottish government should undertake a scoping exercise to determine public authority functions which will be in and out of scope and I think this is key in supporting public authorities to understand their obligations because there is so much potentially adrift as indeed Andrew has already touched on that doesn't tie up and it will be a long process and will be time consuming. Yeah, I think just to try and get a sense of what might be a way forward because I know that your doctor to kill you had commented at the time of the outcome of the supreme court case around the opportunity that might be within you know that ruling to then look at Scottish acts in terms of some of the things we're talking about but I appreciate what you've just said in your previous answer about the complications that surround all of this so do you have a view in terms of what the most appropriate way forward is? So I think proceeding with the bill as proposed is sensible. I think in terms of duty bearers will have specific demands on what's in and what's out and that raises the risk that the Maggie Chapman was describing but would be practically helpful for them. I mean over time all I'm saying about I suppose a consolidation or scrutiny of areas of social work or education if parliament wants to do that and there are reasons to change the law then that's an appropriate thing to do. I just think that the idea that parliament should simply re-legislate for the purposes of UNCRC compliance is not rooted in my perception of the burdens of work which you have in front of you and in any case would not be acceptable to parliamentarians if that actually happened if the government tried to present it in that way. However over time the more pieces of legislation you pass on social work on education the more you will consolidate the law into into kind of single places and this is something which lawyers like service users like and actually public authorities like as well. If you talk to people at work in social work they say they really struggle with how diffuse the legal sources are which they are dealing with so if we're accentuating the positive in that way maybe this parliament too often has taken the view we've already got this long-standing big piece of legislation passed before devolution just add a line here delete a few words there sneak in a couple of extra sections and job done maybe at this stage particularly given the aspirations of the human rights bill more generally the Scottish government but yourselves might think maybe we should have more consolidating acts and really look seriously at specific areas because it can have all of these collateral benefits as well as extending the UNCRC to them. Thank you very much. I'm just going to jump back in here for a moment so the bill provides that it will commence six months after royal ascent is that sufficient time for duty bearers and rights holders to prepare for this amended approach before the bill comes into force and I suppose I'm going to go to councillor Tony on that one and then Derek please again you know that the bill will be the bill it's not for us to comment on our issue is with the implication the delivery of it if you like and the practical implications that we face and from that point of view I think the messaging will be critical within it as in you know our view has certainly been one that there must be clear messaging in terms of once it does progress to that stage outlining what the legislate UNCRC legislation then is and will have in terms of the public authority functions and what it will mean in practice so that has to be laid out so I do get that but um the the criticisms that are obviously legitimate are that you know we need this that and the next thing but people won't say by when and I suppose this is an opportunity for us to sort of like hear you know what your view on that is so I'm going to push you on that um I mean you might not want to narrow it down to six months or so but that's what we've got in front of us so have a go give us a timescale well it's difficult because at the moment we don't know what's all included and depending what is actually there and is about to become legislation and become the the practice if you like then that will determine in many respects the timescale that that's going to take to feed in and to enable individuals to understand you know yeah no no I I understand that there is a balance between sort of like doing things quickly and doing them correctly um and you know the two are not necessarily the same thing however I am mindful that we are trying to take evidence in people's views on the implementation you know duty bearers and rights holders and things um and to get an idea of what is a realistic timescale so that we as a committee can take a view on that but thank you um Derek do you have anything to add to that certainly I'm not an experienced legislator so what I'm just about to say I don't even know if it's feasible so but in terms from a policing context about like the council just said it's not within our gift to try and make a decision on that date but in terms of the principle of the enactment six months after royal assent if there's anything in that bill that then allows a bit of reassurance to a duty bearer on the litigation element in terms of that we as I said when I answered my chairman's question the police certainly and I think all public bodies are absolutely committed to delivering the urnc principles so on the basis that we are already doing that is there a point for that bill gets enacted where there is a period of time that allows all that clarity to come allows us to do those child right impact assessments or whatever the relevant process that we decide to adopt allows us to look at work custody provision without that risk of litigation coming down so can we enact a bill that then gives us all a huge reassurance from a duty bearer that we have still got time to implement that we don't need to we do not need to be at a state of absolute readiness for day one of the act because I think that's what gives us the nervousness and I'm not speaking on behalf of the councillor but we would probably in a nicer possible way we would like to delay that six months after royal assent because there's a nervousness around about our ability to be adherent from day one so I don't but I'm not a legislator so I don't know if that suggestion's even possible so I don't know if you know thank you thanks for that I'd like to bring in my colleague Karen please thank you convener and good morning panel I asked the first panel this morning a specific question on the plans for the Scottish government to bring forward new human rights law based on four international human rights treaties and I mentioned yourself Dr Tekel and you're I suppose you flagged a concern that this may have well mirror the difficulties that we've seen here with the UNCRC bill so it was just to ask yourselves what I'd asked the previous panel what do you think the Scottish Government, the Parliament rights bearers sorry yeah and duty bearers have what warnings can you give us is there advice that you could give us going forward with this legislation that we can see now for it coming down the line that's a really interesting a really interesting question I think what you're discussing today around what law should human rights apply to is just the questions you would face if if it's envisaged the human rights bill will have teeth in terms of enforceability so for the other human rights that have been mentioned can I go to court can I test the compatibility of legislation can I even strike down some legislation in court at the moment it's not clear what the Scottish Government's approach is will be to the enforceability of some of the rights that are proposing to be incorporated and some people have been critical and are demanding that it should be more enforceable and you should be able to bring cases to court if they're successful in persuading the Scottish Government of that point then everything we've said about the UNCRC bill will apply to all the other rights which are arguable in court so what it will mean is is that any law emanating from Westminster cannot be touched by it and it will only apply to acts of the Scottish Parliament and none of the amendments that you've made from 1998 to the present day that is the net effect of what it means and I think it's very telling that talking to colleagues about the practical impact of that you've had demands just for the UNCRC for audits of work clear lists of what duties are in or out just imagine undertaking the same task for every other right which is proposed to be incorporated in the human rights bill because that's exactly what will be asked for in terms of the approach that the UK Supreme Court's judgment and the cabinet secretary's response to it has set in train so that's why I flag that right now that if you want any rights to be enforceable in court then everything we're talking about now it echoes profoundly for all of the other types of rights that are set out in that bill and I'm not sure because of its technicality I'm just the difficulty of explaining these distinctions I'm not sure that campaigners third sector groups the wider public have fully anticipated appreciated just how dramatic the consequences are for that proposal and if I can just follow that up is there a solution is there several solutions what can we look at in terms of trying to to get this workable do you want solutions rooted in political reality or abstract ones that aren't I will leave that to your well that's not with me so I mean the range of ways this could work the UNCRC could be easily incorporated into UK law and if it was echoing the structures of the human rights act then that would be very straightforward but we know as a matter of policy that is not the UK government's position and is not likely to be for the foreseeable future if the UK government had decided the scotland act could be amended to make this process easier then that would be a potential solution but unsurprisingly they haven't because alas to jack pursued the reference procedure and rejected the approach to applying to Westminster legislation that the bill at stage three articulated so it's not surprising that that's not really a practical solution but it would be one way of dealing with it if Westminster passed amendments to the Scotland Act to say that the Scottish Parliament has legislative competence to introduce human rights provisions which can apply to UK legislation in devolved areas that is the neatest solution from a legalistic point of view to my mind for a range of the issues you face here and would face with the human rights bill but in my view neither of those are likely to materialise or to be practically possible so what you are left with is this and it's not an insignificant achievement it is an incorporation of these international rights into scots law that is a not a negligible achievement and is one which many campaigners and colleagues from children onwards feel deeply committed to and I don't want to minimise that as a significant impact but I do think there's a reluctance on the part of human rights campaigners to really own the difficulties around this it's why no one really wants to talk about it because it's an agenda which really suits no one politically I think that's really helpful thank you thank you thanks captain I'd like to bring in Fulton who is online thank you convener and good morning to the panel the question I'm going to ask we have had a wee bit of discussion about it both in the previous panel if you managed to see that and there's been some discussion in in this panel as well and that's around COSLA and social work Scotland both having indicated the legal complexities that will be created following amendments the UNCRC bill with social work Scotland describing it as potentially impossible legislative landscape and I know that that was quoted by my colleague Paul Cain on the previous panel as well what what do you think will be the impact on duty bearers under the UNCRC bill if passed and more importantly I think because we all want this to work how can these impacts and difficulties be addressed convener like the last panel session I'm happy for you to chair in terms of who responds thanks Fulton I'll go to Derek first then Andrew and then Tony thanks I think up to the way please cotton will take it forward I suppose is the child rights impact assessment process because we need to be able to audit I think what we are going to do in terms of that reporting requirement which I believe is proposed to be three yearly so for us to address those legislative challenges first bit is is understanding that with the audit in the guidance sector specific guidance we then need to interpret that through our own legal representatives within the police Scotland we then need to see what parameters that what impact does that have as I said if it is for example we're custody environs if we're expected at any point to create a separate custody suite for children aged between 12 and 18 that's a significant ask our current estate certainly wouldn't facilitate that and we would need to find out for example us ensuring that we close the custody suite I'm just hypothesising that we close the custody suite for any time a child between 12 and 18 comes in they don't see any any other adults during that other than the police officers that are that happen to do the necessary processing and then we make sure that there's a room which wouldn't be a cell that can be allocated to them but it's probably in every reality still going to be in an existing custody suite now does that meet the expectations of government and partners does it meet the legislative threshold so I'm just giving that as an example we would really need to work through that other policies and practices we could do whether it's a bespoke child rights impact assessment or we incorporate it into our current equality and human rights impact assessment which has age as a protective characteristic that we would make sure that we sufficient guidance to staff that covered the UNCRC requirement so we are still the decision whether we have a bespoke one or we build it into a current process but again what does that tell us and actually applying that to a process in practice might actually shine some legal complexities that maybe we just didn't pick up before so that that's why I was that that being compliant at day one of enactment gives me a sense of nervousness that Police Scotland is a public body can actually be at a point of compliance on day one and that's why I think it's so difficult to give a day of go live from a year looking for what opinion that's why I think it's so hard for us to do that and same for COSLA because they'll be even more complex than than the policing landscape is if that's answered the question yeah I think one of the interesting things here is even if we hadn't had the complexity that the Supreme Court judgment has introduced into this whole discussion I actually think we might still be having a quite a similar debate from public authorities about what do these rights mean in the sense if you read the language of the UNCRC or the European Convention on Human Rights it's big big bold and unspecified principles they're not rules they're principles and actually across the public sector and beyond what they mean in practice is something that we very often have a dawning realisation of it's not a set of strict rules which can straightforwardly be applied and therefore that I think perhaps adds to the sense of complexity that public authorities perhaps are looking at this thinking it was already difficult for us to know precisely what a right to privacy or a right to autonomy or whatever it might be means for us in our practical day-to-day work and now we're told that half of the stuff we do is subject to these rights and the other half isn't so I wonder if perhaps that combination is partly what's driving some of the anxieties it is probably worth saying though that the rights are articulated as broad principles you can't simply create a long list of rules out of them because if you do that you lose the substance of what the right is about and that I think again maybe goes back to what Maggie Chapman was saying that there's pressures in two different directions in the sense what you're being asked for is a long list of simple rules which we can follow and will be all right which is understandable from a defensive kind of point of view but is not fundamentally what the UNCRC actually says so I think we're seeing that combination of complexity on two different fronts here again both of which are unavoidable thank you uh tony yep I think just to go back it comes back to i think that the first points I've made in in my opening speech it was just we need to undertake an exercise to identify what and which public authority functions will be in and out of scope I think that has to be a priority and then we have to provide the details as that touched on the sector specific guidance for public authorities because without that we will all be looking at it on d1 and saying what what can we do what can't we do what are we allowed to do what are we not allowed to do because unless we have that we envisage that there could be significant problems arising okay thank you um Fulton do you have any supplementary questions you're satisfied with those answers a thumbs up there um just in closing um then uh this is the main evidence session um we've had the panel uh this morning as well and we're also going to be hearing from the cabinet secretary um so do you think that that is sufficient scrutiny um on the amendments and if not then what advice would you give us what thoughts would you share with us and do you have any views on any further witnesses that we could hear from as well that would be really helpful um to us on the committee so um yeah Derek no I think what you've laid out is is sounds great from my perspective uh from a policing perspective my experience and it's probably from a community planning partnership from a working at local authority level and I know we've heard the voice of children today but we signed a pledge where I previously worked as a youth pledge nothing about is without is and I don't know if we're hearing from a youth voice and I don't know if that could come from the member of the scottish youth parliament or or some there's youth cabinets all through scotland from local authority so I just thought it may be a valuable suggestion thank you thanks for that suggestion um andrew I think if you look at the compass of the amendments they're quite limited in fact I think they run to about five pages I think is what the cabinet secretary has proposed um going back to your earlier point about the six month commencement that fundamentally reflects impatience I suspect from the sector that finally this legislation which seems to have been around forever needs to get on the statute book and come into force rapidly I think the issues are fairly tightly limited from a legal point of view in terms of the choices that you've been presented by the cabinet secretary and hopefully their implications are perhaps a little clearer to you all um having taken more evidence on it so in that sense because there is relatively little room to manoeuvre on how the Scottish government can comply with the supreme court judgment unless people have thought of something that I haven't and it's every possibility that's true um then I don't think there are solutions to the problems that have been presented in a legislative sense there may be practical solutions things the Scottish government can do but there aren't any other legislative solutions in my view to these problems so what you would gain through engaging in further scrutiny of that I'm not so sure thanks for that um Tony yeah not I would tend to agree I think everyone has submitted their statements you've heard the evidence and we've highlighted the potential pitfalls if you like of it but we are working within a very limited framework which ultimately results in a limited amount more that can be done because it is going to be extremely tight it is very limiting from the point of view that the scope has to be held back from what we would probably all want to see given that we all want to see children's rights upheld and enabled and there are clearly some barriers to that thank you thank you and on that note I would like to thank all the witnesses from appearing in this particular panel and this concludes the formal part of our business this morning and I wish you well for the rest of your day thank you