Response to the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People’s Draft Equality Scheme

Children’s Law Centre
January 2005

Scope and Remit

The Children’s Law Centre is a voluntary organisation that was established in 1997 in response to a total deficit in Northern Ireland in respect of training and development on the issues of children’s rights. It uses the law to promote, protect and realise children’s rights and is founded on the principles enshrined in The United Nations Convention On The Rights of the Child. It strives to meet the following aims:-
• To develop awareness among children and young people of their rights
• To increase public understanding of children’s rights
• To promote policies and legislation which give children a better life
• To make a reality of children’s rights
We offer training and research on children’s rights, we make submissions on law, policy and practice affecting children and young people and we run an advice/information/representation service. We have a dedicated free phone advice line for children and young people called CHALKY and a youth advisory group called Youth @ clc.
We also seek to ensure that the equality provisions of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 are upheld with specific respect to children and young people.
This response will focus specifically on the implementation of the statutory equality duty in the context of children and young people. As children and young people have multiple identities, these comments should be read taking consideration of the fact that children and young people are multi-faceted, for example, children with a disability and children without, children of different religious beliefs, gender, race, sexual orientation, political opinion or young people with dependants and without.
General Comments
In terms of both the participation of and the promotion of equality of opportunity in respect of one of the most vulnerable groups of society, children and young people, we believe that section 75 and schedule 9 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 offer many opportunities and challenges for government, as well as the opportunity to effect real change to policies, practices and decisions of statutory bodies and government agencies. The Children’s Law Centre is pleased to have the opportunity to comment on the NICCY Draft Equality Scheme and congratulates NICCY on its production. It is vital that the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People (NICCY) is as inclusive as possible in taking the lead role in the promotion and safeguarding of the rights and best interests of children and young people in all aspects of his work, including in the NICCY Draft Equality Scheme.
NICCY should state how they carried out direct consultation with children and young people. There have been a number of recent problems in relation to direct consultation with the section 75 groups, especially children and young people, some of which have resulted in invoking the Equality Commission’s formal complaints and investigations procedures. It is vital that NICCY is the champion, and is seen as such, in carrying out, promoting and encouraging good practice in relation to direct consultation with children and young people. This is particularly important in compliance with both section 75 and Article 12 of the UNCRC, one of the principles of the Convention - Respect for the views of the Child. In examining the government’s compliance Article 12, the UNCRC Committee recommended that the government, “...take further steps to promote, facilitate and monitor systematic, meaningful and effective participation of all groups of children in society”. It is vital that NICCY takes the lead in examining new and more effective models of participation. We would be grateful if NICCY would respond with details of how they have consulted directly with children and young people and how extensively this process was carried out.
Duties and Responsibilities of NICCY
We welcome the detailed breakdown of the duties and responsibilities of NICCY and are pleased to note the fact that the stated duties are very closely aligned with those laid out in the enabling legislation (The Commissioner for Children and Young People (Northern Ireland) Order 2003). However, we must respectfully point out two omissions in examining the duties of NICCY, as detailed in the draft Equality Scheme. Firstly, all of the duties of NICCY as detailed in section 7 of the Order have been included at this point in the Equality Scheme, with the exception of the function detailed in Section 7 (3) of the Order, which states,
“(3) The Commissioner shall keep under review the adequacy and effectiveness of services provided for children and young persons by relevant authorities.”
While it is extremely likely that the omission of this function was an oversight, we wish to draw NICCY’s attention to it as it is an important function and one with statutory foundations. NICCY should include this function at 2.3, between B. and C. in correlation with the Order.
Secondly, at 2.3, NICCY also states that,
“The functions of NICCY for the purposes of the Act (Northern Ireland Act 1998) include its powers and duties”
However, the general powers of NICCY, which do indeed fall under the heading of, “Functions of the Commissioner,” in the Order, have not been included in the NICCY Equality Scheme, as they clearly should have been as per both section 2.3 and the Order.
Arrangements for Assessing Compliance with Section 75 Duties
We warmly welcome NICCY’s stated commitment to the fulfilment of its section 75 obligations in all parts of its work, full and meaningful consultation as well as the provision of a named point of contact with extensive contact details.
Consultation
We are pleased to note that NICCY affirms to carry out all consultation in accordance with the Equality Commission’s Guiding Principles as detailed in its ‘Guide to Statutory Duties’. We also welcome NICCY’s statement to consult as widely as possible, with a key focus of this consultation being consultation with its Youth Panel of 30 individual children and young people. This is particularly welcome in light of the number of widespread recent problems in relation to direct consultation with the section 75 groups, especially children and young people, some of which have resulted in invoking the Equality Commission’s formal complaints and investigations procedures.
It is vital that the NICCY is the champion, and is seen as such, in carrying out, promoting and encouraging good practice in relation to direct consultation with children and young people as per its statutory duty. This is also relevant in ensuring compliance with Article 12 of the UNCRC, one of the principles of the Convention - Respect for the views of the Child. We feel, in part because of NICCY’s role and in part because of the importance of ensuring full and meaningful consultation with all of the section 75 groups, that NICCY should examine new and innovative ways to consult, far beyond the youth panel and in particular, with children and young people whose voices are generally not heard or taken into account in consultation processes. These children and young people may be marginalised or excluded and for a variety of reasons, may not be in a position to participate in the debate, for example, children in the juvenile justice system, children being looked after, members of ethnic minority groups etc. NICCY should look at ways to ensure that these children are targeted in order to hear their views on the issues which affect their lives.

While we welcome the fact that in carrying out the consultation on NICCY’s draft priorities, consultation took place with children and young people in schools, we also wish to encourage NICCY to examine ways to ensure that the voices of children who are not in conventional schooling are heard and taken into account. It is vital that NICCY takes the lead in developing, using and promoting the use of new and more effective models of participation and we feel that a firm, stated commitment to innovative consultation methods in order to hear what all children and young people have to say would be a welcome development in the NICCY Equality Scheme.

NICCY’s recognition that some groups will need sufficient time to consult among themselves in order that their contributions to any consultation may be informed is a very welcome statement. While we understand that emergency situations may arise, as NICCY outlines at papa 4.6, which may necessitate a reduction in the consultation period minimum of eight weeks, we are pleased to note, and support, NICCY’s intention to keep these situations to an absolute minimum and to provide detailed justification for such instances.

We are pleased to note at para 4.8 that NICCY intends to work with both representative groups and individuals in order to identify how best to obtain their views and makes a number of innovate suggestions in terms of consulting with these groups and individuals. As stated above, this is an extremely important role for NICCY and we encourage the development, use and promotion of innovative consultation models to facilitate wider participation of children and young people.

We feel that the issue of participation and meaningful consultation is perhaps more relevant now than ever before. This is most apparent in the recent judgement of Judge Girvan in the recent case taken by NICCY in relation to the proposed introduction of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders. His view that consulting children would always be tokenistic because they cannot be expected to get their heads around the lofty ideas at stake - articulated what, perhaps, policy makers and public bodies believe, i.e. that there is no point in engaging with children and young people. (NICCY Research – Children’s Rights in Northern Ireland 2004 Pg. 35) It is important that NICCY does everything in its power to reassert the statutory obligation and need to consult with children as well as the value in carrying out this consultation.

NICCY clearly displays a firm commitment to inclusive consultation and states at para 4.10 that they will have systems in place to ensure that when carrying out consultation exercises, information will be available in alternative formats on request and lists a number of formats. We note that the production of child accessible documents, while this may be implicit, has not been included and feel there is merit in clearly stating that child accessible documents will be available and including “…and any other formats which may be required,” to ensure that the list is not exhaustive and to further illustrate NICCY’s commitment to inclusivity and participation.

Para 4.11 asserts a commitment to consultation with children and young people through the timely provision of documents in accessible formats and also through the NICCY Youth Panel and groups which represent the interests of children. We reiterate the need to seek innovative methods to meaningfully, directly consult with marginalised children and young people to ensure that the voices of all groups of children and young people are heard.

NICCY states at para 4.14 that in carrying out consultations, NICCY will make both qualitative and quantitative data available. While this is admirable, we stress the need for the collation of this valuable data at this stage in the document as at present it is not available. We do note however that NICCY states that it will undertake collation and collection of data and undertake or commission new data if necessary at para 5.13 and we welcome this.

Assessing the Impact of Policies on the Promotion of Equality of Opportunity

There appears to be an error at para 5.3 of the NICCY Draft Equality Scheme which refers consultees to Appendix 2 for a list of the identified main groups within each of the section 75 categories. This can actually be found at Appendix 4.

Para 5.8, in relation to screening, states that NICCY will consult with a number of organisations when carrying out screening consultations. We assume that there has been an oversight as those directly affected by the policies are not included in the list of potential consultees. While it may be implicit, we feel that NICCY should clearly state that it intends to carry out direct consultation with children and young people during the screening process, as it is clearly inadequate in fulfilling its section 75 duty and in the promotion and safeguarding of children’s rights not to.

At para 5.20, NICCY states that it will inform the general public about the availability of EQIA’s and Monitoring material through press releases and media coverage, as well as through placing information in publications associated with the section 75 categories. Again, we feel that more can be done to raise the awareness of children and young people to the availability of such data. As children are the group most likely to be affected by this information, it is essential that they are made aware of it existence and the fact that it is being consulted on. NICCY should look at effective methods of targeted delivery and innovative awareness raising campaigns in relation to children, especially in terms of targeting marginalised groups of children and young people and this should be clearly stated at this point.

Public Access to Information and Services

NICCY states at para 6.1 that it is committed to ensuring that the information it disseminates and the services it provides are made accessible to ensure equality of opportunity. NICCY also lists a number of groups who may have difficulty accessing information and states that “consideration” will be given on how to provide accessible information in a timely manner to all these groups. While we are sure that NICCY is carrying out a great deal of work on this, we strongly recommend that the wording be changed to give some indication of what NICCY is undertaking to ensure that these vulnerable groups can access information. We are aware of NICCY’s commitment to inclusivity and participation and feel that this could be clarified to illustrate the work that NICCY intends to carry out rather than only giving the area consideration.

NICCY states at para 6.2 that it will review its arrangements for providing information in various formats a year after the NICCY Equality Scheme is approved. Unfortunately, NICCY has omitted to include any details of the current procedures and while we welcome regular monitoring and review of all procedures as a matter of good practice, we cannot comment on areas which require particular attention in carrying out such a review as we have no information about the current procedures.

Training and Communication

NICCY’s detailed training and communication section is welcome as it is vital that all staff are properly and comprehensively trained to ensure that equality of opportunity is mainstreamed within NICCY.

Implementing the Scheme

At para 9.2 NICCY states the arrangements which will be made for the publication of its Equality Scheme. NICCY again states that ‘consideration’ will be given to how best to communicate the Scheme to young people. NICCY should provide and expressly state that a child friendly format of the Equality Scheme will be made available for children and young people.

Appendix 5 – Action Plan for Implementing Equality Scheme

We would stress the importance of the Action Plan for Implementing the Equality Scheme being utilized as a working document to ensure the mainstreaming of Equality of Opportunity. While it is important to have target dates for the fulfilling of aspects of the Equality Scheme, we feel that targets such as ‘Ongoing’, ‘Quarterly’ and ‘Annually’ are insufficient in demonstrating how and when aspects of the Equality Scheme will be implemented. If the Action Plan is used as a working document, there is no need for the omission of dates in favour of these much more general targets. NICCY needs to set measurable targets to ensure that the necessary aspects of the scheme are actually being carried out. We suggest that once a cyclical target is met, for example, Quarterly, the date be amended on the action plan to reflect the date of the next quarterly meeting/report. We feel that this is vital in carrying out effective measuring of specific targets.

We respectfully draw your attention to two errors on page 39 of the document, in the Performance Indicator column, both the seventh and tenth bullet point appear to have text missing and as a result NICCY’s intention is unclear.

High level commitment is very important in mainstreaming equality of opportunity and while we are impressed that the NICCY Corporate Services Manager and the NICCY Senior Management Team (SMT) are so involved with the Equality Scheme and its implementation, we have a number of concerns. Responsibility for the implementation of all aspects of the Equality Scheme, with the exception of complaints, is that of the Corporate Services Manager. This is an incredible amount of responsibility for one person, presumably in addition to all the other general duties of the position. There is also a lack of information around the level of training the Corporate Service Manager will receive in order to carry out such a wealth of duties and around the accountability and reporting arrangements. Perhaps there is merit in sharing the responsibility with other members of staff and reporting on progress made in implementing the Equality Scheme on a quarterly basis to the Corporate Services Manager and the SMT. This would not only ensure that there is not undue responsibility placed on one person in relation to the implementation of the Equality Scheme, but also it would go some way towards mainstreaming equality of opportunity throughout the organization, thus reducing the fragmentation of this very important aspect of NICCY’s work.
Conclusion
We are delighted to have the opportunity to comment on and inform the NICCY Draft Equality Scheme. We look forward to working in partnership with NICCY to promote and safeguard the rights and best interests of all children and young people in Northern Ireland. We hope that our comments have been constructive and useful to NICCY, as is our intention, and are more than happy to meet with NICCY staff to discuss anything in this response. We wish to be kept fully informed of progress in the development of the NICCY Equality Scheme and look forward to the issues raised being addressed in the development of the final document.