3. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on how the Welsh Government embeds in its work the principles set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? OAQ(5)0145(CC)

I thank the Member for his question. Our approach is to put children’s rights at the centre of our policy making. How we do this is set out in our children’s rights scheme and our compliance report provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the effectiveness of the arrangements to implement the UNCRC and amend where necessary.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for that. The national participation standards set out what children are entitled to expect from the services they are involved in. These standards, as I understand, were reviewed last year and, as a consequence, updated guidance was necessary to local authorities to improve their self-assessment. I wonder if that guidance has been issued and whether we are likely to see more best practice along the lines developed by Torfaen council, where services that are for children or interact with children must clearly set out how they consult properly with children as service users.

I will write to the Member in terms of the detail of completion of that advice and whether that’s gone to local authorities; I don’t have that detail available for me today. But I do agree with the Member that there are some great value-added aspects of this. And where authorities are delivering very well, such as Torfaen council, we should replicate that across the 22 authorities, making sure that children really are the centre of our decision-making processes, rather than just an add-on and retrofitted into a policy. It is an important point the Member raises.