State of Children's rights in England: Review of Government action on United Nations’ recommendations for strengthening children’s rights in the UK

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is the highest authority on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In October 2008, it issued 118 recommendations in relation to the improvement of children’s rights in England.

The Committee issued its conclusions after considering evidence and analysis from the Government, the UK’s four Children’s Commissioners and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and children and young people. It held separate sessions with Government officials, NGOs and children and young people, and the Committee’s Country Rapporteur met a variety of children’s rights experts (including under 18 year-olds) in England ahead of the formal proceedings in Geneva. This report summarises key developments in England – positive as well as negative – in relation to the UN’s recommendations for improving children’s human rights in the 12 months to November 2013. In preparing this report, CRAE examined the most significant developments in law and policy over the past 12 months; we analysed official data relating to children’s well-being; scrutinised information made available through our own and others’ Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and parliamentary questions; and read relevant research and consultation documents reporting children’s own views and testimony.

Over 60 NGOs, academics and professionals contributed to this report, by attendeding our evidence-gathering event in July 2013, by submitting written evidence and by commenting on drafts of this report. We are enormously grateful for their input. This report does not necessarily reflect the views of our member organisations.

We have shortened each of the Committee’s 2008 concluding observations, and sometimes paraphrased them; we have not included those observations specifically relating to Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales. The order of the recommendations in this report does not always follow the order in which they appear in the UN Committee’s concluding observations, as we have tried to group them to make easier reading. As well as providing a written summary of the most important developments – good and bad – over the past year,