Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the (a) quality of child's rights impact assessments prepared by Government Departments on (i) reserved and (ii) other matters and (b) extent to which children’s (A) views and (B) experiences have been taken into account in these assessments.

Departments are responsible for carrying out assessments on their policy or legislation area. The Department for Education does not collect information centrally on the number or quality of assessments carried out and the extent to which children’s views and experiences have been taken into account in those assessments. This is the responsibility of individual departments and their policy teams to oversee.

Child’s Rights Impact Assessments are encouraged to be used across government to ensure new or significant changes to policy or legislation do not adversely affect children’s rights and wellbeing.

The department co-produced, with civil society experts, a Child’s Rights Impact Assessment template with guidance that has been shared with other departments. Within the template, the guidance prompts the departments to detail what steps have been taken to directly or indirectly gather the views of children and young people.

We value the voices and lived experiences of children and young people and recognise the importance of listening to how decisions made in government impact them.