LEDS Child Rights Impact Assessment (CRIA)

Product Description

A Child Rights Impact Assessment (CRIA) is a process that helps people understand how a proposed law, policy or decision might affect children’s human rights. A CRIA can be used as a tool for looking at decisions, practice, policy or legislation to identify and measure their effect on children and young people. It is considered good practice in examining impacts to be predicted, monitored and, if necessary, avoided or mitigated. This assessment requirement has its origins in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The UNCRC is a legally binding international agreement setting out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of every child, regardless of their race, religion or abilities. One hundred and ninety-six countries have signed up to the UNCRC, including the United Kingdom (UK).

Like other countries that sign up to the UNCRC, the UK is bound by international law to ensure it is implemented. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child monitors the implementation activities of stages. The UK is required to submit periodic reports on the national situation of children’s rights to the Committee for examination, including information on the measures adopted to protect the rights of children. The UK Government has therefore made a public commitment to give due consideration to the UNCRC when making new policy or legislation. The UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 made Scotland the first part of the UK to incorporate the UNCRC into domestic law. The Department for Education (DfE) developed a CRIA template for use within government departments, to consider the impacts on children’s rights when developing new policy or legislation, and this has been adapted for this assessment

The Law Enforcement Data Service (LEDS) is a new law enforcement data system, which is currently under development. The LEDS Programme, which oversees that development, has determined that undertaking a CRIA for LEDS will help identify which children’s rights could be impacted by the policy decision to build a new data system for policing and assist in ensuring the protection of children’s rights within LEDS as the resulting entity. The LEDS Programme has been in place for several years but as the system comes closer to implementation, the implications for children’s rights have been brought into consideration. LEDS is a national service, processing data for law enforcement purposes, which is mostly collated from local policing data systems and other law enforcement sources across the UK and Crown dependencies. Children’s data will be included amongst LEDS data.

The LEDS CRIA has sought to identify any changes in the planning and development of LEDS that might mitigate the negative impacts on children’s rights and maximise the positive impacts for children and young people. This CRIA has been initiated part way through the development process, but the desired outcome is that the impact assessment process be absorbed into the design and development structures as an organic design process. This is subject to any proposals for LEDS enhancement post March 2026.