August 2026. We responded to the Scottish Parliament’s Public Service Reform Committee’s call for evidence on public service reform.

What actions can the Scottish Government take to ensure these workforce reductions are delivered in a managed way which best supports effective government and public service delivery?

We support an approach to public sector reform which focusses on improving service-user experiences, particularly for children, and increasing efficiency across public services. Any reform must be compatible with the UNCRC as incorporated by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Scotland) Act 2024 (“the Incorporation Act”). Improving the realisation of children’s rights will best be achieved through effective, efficient and responsive public services that work together to fully realise children’s rights rather than as sometimes competing silos.

Public services are interconnected through the lives of the people they serve, but many continue to operate as silos at delivery level and within the Scottish Government. It is not unusual for our office to find ourselves being the communication conduit between different parts of Scottish Government or between civil servants and public authorities, sometimes at their request.

In our 2023 response to last session’s Finance and Public Administration Committee’s inquiry into Effective Scottish Government Decision-Making, we highlighted the impact Scottish Government directorates working in silos has on policy development. We provided the example of our work on restraint and seclusion, which requires a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing on expertise from different directorates and agencies.[1] In other areas, we continue to experience different teams working in silos, sometimes even within the same directorate.

It is important that Scotland has sustainable public services that provide all children in Scotland with the support they need. We are concerned with the emphasis placed on cuts to public services as an objective of the public sector reform agenda. Efficiency savings are likely, but they should be a result, rather than the target, of public service reform.

By incorporating the UNCRC, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament made a commitment to children in Scotland to always act in a way compatible with children’s rights. This means putting human rights and particularly the UNCRC at the heart of decisions about how services should be resourced and delivered.

Article 4 of the UNCRC requires states to “undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative and other measures for the implementation of the rights recognised in the Convention”. They must also make maximum use of available resources to realise children’s economic, social and cultural rights.[2] This includes financial, natural, human, technological and organisational resources.[3]

In General Comment No. 5 (2003) on the General measures of implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child elaborates on the obligations the UNCRC places on governments. It outlines the General Principles of the UNCRC which underpin all the other rights in the UNCRC. These are:

• the obligation to respect and ensure the rights of all children without discrimination (Article 2)
• the best interests of the child (Article 3)
• the child’s right to life, survival and development (Article 6)
• the child’s right to participate when decisions are made about them (Article 12)[4]

General Comment No. 5 also highlights the importance of ensuring that children are visible when national and other budgets are being set, saying “no state can tell whether it is fulfilling children’s economic, social and cultural rights to the maximum extent of … available resources, as it is required to do under article 4, unless it can identify the proportion of national and other budgets allocated to the social sector and, within that, to children, both directly and indirectly.”[5]

Finally, General Comment No. 5 outlines how other human rights concepts interact with the UNCRC. The concepts of progressive realisation and non-retrogression are particularly important in the context of public sector reform, and the Scottish Government has acknowledged its obligations in light of UNCRC incorporation.[6] We draw particular attention to the principle that even in times of economic crisis, regressive measures may only be considered after assessing all other options and ensuring that children are the last to be affected, especially those children whose rights are most at risk.

General Comment No. 19 (2016) on public budgeting for the realisation of children’s rights reiterates the importance of ensuring children’s rights are prioritised and calls on governments to safeguard “the resources available to advance children’s rights by preventing wastage of resources due to inefficiency [and] mismanagement…” ^[7]

Our colleagues at the Scottish Human Rights Commission have produced a comprehensive body of evidence on Human Rights Budgeting and the importance of reflecting human rights standards in the process of formulating, approving, executing and auditing budgets. This includes a series of briefing papers covering all aspects of human rights budgeting.[8] The Scottish Government must ensure that it follows these principles to ensure compliance with both international and domestic legal requirements.

Children’s Rights Impact Assessments (CRIAs) are an internationally recognised way of ensuring that decisions are compatible with children’s rights.[9] The Scottish Government has developed a Children’s Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment (CRWIA) tool and the UNCRC Incorporation Act requires Scottish Government to undertake a CRWIA on “a legislative provision on, or decisions of a strategic nature relating, to the rights and wellbeing of children”.[10] CRIAs should be living documents which are prepared alongside policy developments and should be available before any options are presented for consideration. This will enable both decision-makers and those scrutinising them (including members of the Public Sector Reform Committee) to fully understand the impact that proposals may have on children’s rights.

Much emphasis has been placed on the importance of empowering communities as a part of Public Sector Reform. Empowering communities also means empowering children. Children have a right to participate in all decisions which affect them (Article 12 UNCRC).[11] If empowering communities is restricted to empowering existing structures, we risk embedding existing power imbalances in communities which affect a range of groups, including children. 

The PSR strategy states that it will protect frontline services. To what extent is there sufficient clarity about how frontline roles are defined and how efficiencies in back-office functions can be delivered in a way that minimises impact on the delivery of public services? 

It is important to recognise that “protecting frontline services” cannot be achieved without understanding the impact the removal of other roles within public services will have on frontline services. Often non-frontline roles play a vital part in supporting frontline services. Their removal can result in increased workload for frontline staff, reducing their ability to effectively deliver services.

During the last session, the Education, Children and Young People Committee heard evidence that reductions in resource had resulted in less access to specialist support and expertise in additional support for learning.[12] These roles may not be seen as frontline, they do not deliver services directly to children, however they play a vital role supporting teachers to meet the needs of all children in their class. Removing these roles increased the workload of teachers.

The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists last year produced a report which highlighted the important role that speech and language therapists play in supporting, not just children with additional support needs but upskilling staff working directly with children.[13] This can have a transformative role on children’s ability to learn. However, the report also highlighted the impact that funding challenges, including reductions in funding for Allied Health Professionals, have had on the ability to meet children’s needs. Children face long waiting lists or access only to limited support. Again, speech and language therapists’ role, especially in supporting education staff, may not be seen by decision-makers as frontline, but reduction in provision can have a serious impact on classroom teachers.

Beyond the financial benefits that the Public Sector Reform (PSR) Strategy aims to achieve, what are the key outcomes that reform should be aiming for? 

Children’s lives are complex and they interact with a range of services. Their rights and their needs do not exist in silos. They interact and overlap. Realising their right to education requires not just the provision of education and meeting any additional support needs. Children must also have their right to an adequate standard of living addressed through welfare services and their right to the highest attainable standard of health realised through timely access to health services.

This is particularly true for children who need the highest levels of support.

Yet in both Children’s Hearings and Additional Support for Learning legislation, legal duties fall on the local authority (in the latter case as the education authority) alone. Neither a Children’s Hearing nor the First Tier Tribunal Health and Education Chamber can require other public services to provide children with a service. Both tribunals have embedded children’s rights in their work and take a holistic approach to the needs of the child. They often identify needs beyond their remits that must be met. But while, for example, it may be clear that the child has complex mental health needs and this is impacting on their welfare and education, the NHS cannot be compelled to provide those by either tribunal. This leaves the child without the support they need to realise the full range of their rights.

Third sector organisations play a vital role in supporting children, particularly those furthest from having their rights realised. For some children and young people, third sector organisations provide services, approaches and cultures public sector equivalents cannot. It was clear during the Covid-19 pandemic that third sector organisations were able to adapt to changing circumstances and needs.

Both local authorities and the Scottish Government rely heavily on third sector organisations to deliver services but much of the funding for those services is short term and/or project-based. This has an adverse impact on their ability to deliver those services and to provide effective support to children, young people and their families. And, as we highlighted in our evidence to last session’s Social Justice and Social Security Committee Pre-budget 2025-26 Scrutiny of Third Sector Funding Principles call for views, it results in many of those staff delivering those services in insecure, low paid work.[14]

The PSR Strategy includes 18 different workstreams which aim to remove barriers to reform.

One workstream focuses on “simplification”, recognising that “complexity of processes, structures and reporting requirements is a key barrier to effective and efficient service delivery”. 

“Prevention” is one of three pillars providing structure to the Strategy.

The Christie Commission recognised, almost a generation ago, the extent to which investing in early intervention and preventative programmes would progress the realisation of children’s rights. Their report said “if we do not manage to effect a shift to preventative action, increasing ‘failure demand’ will swamp our public services’ capacity to achieve outcomes”[15]. A shift from crisis response to early intervention and prevention requires extra resource in the short term. The result of austerity and the Covid 19 pandemic has brought a focus on acute and high-level needs across services and an erosion of universal supports due to a failure to recognise that these form a vital role in preventing escalation of needs. This is compounded by the effects on families of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

There can’t be a resource-neutral shift from supporting acute, high-level needs to preventative interventions – a reduction in acute and high-level demand will take time. It may take a generation before the full benefits of preventative budgeting are realised.

For example, the political focus on mental health has often been on children with the highest level of needs, requiring support from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). Yet children tell us that they struggle to access mental health support in their communities or schools. Investment in these services would, over time, reduce the risk of children becoming more unwell and needing CAMHS support. Similar patterns can be found across children’s services. In education, a reduction in pupil support assistants has resulted in a now-scarce resource being focussed on children with the highest level of needs. This leaves those with moderate levels of needs, requiring relatively minor interventions, unsupported and potentially increasing the educational disadvantage they experience

[1] CYPCS, 2023. Scottish Parliament Inquiry into Public Administration – Effective Scottish Government decision-making.  https://www.cypcs.org.uk/resources/scottish-parliament-inquiry-into-public-administration-effective-scottish-government-decision-making/

[2] Article 4 UNCRC https://www.cypcs.org.uk/rights/uncrc/full-uncrc/#4

[3] Scottish Government, 2024. United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC): clarification of inherent obligations.  https://www.gov.scot/publications/clarification-inherent-obligations-united-nations-convention-rights-child-uncrc/pages/5/

[4] Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2003. General Comment No. 5 (2003) on the General measures of implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. https://www.refworld.org/legal/general/crc/2003/36435

[5] Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2003. General Comment No. 5 (2003) on the General measures of implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. https://www.refworld.org/legal/general/crc/2003/36435 paragraph 51-52

[6] Scottish Government, 2024. United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC): clarification of inherent obligations.  https://www.gov.scot/publications/clarification-inherent-obligations-united-nations-convention-rights-child-uncrc/pages/5/

[7] UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. General comment No. 19 (2016) on public budgeting for the realization of children’s rights (art. 4) https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/838730?ln=en&v=pdf

[8] SHRC. Human Rights Budget Work. https://www.scottishhumanrights.com/projects-and-programmes/human-rights-budget-work/

[9] European Network of Ombudspersons for Children, 2020. Children’s Rights Impact Assessment – 2020 annual theme. https://enoc.eu/what-we-do/annual-advocacy-areas/child-rights-impact-assessment/

[10] United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024. s17. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2024/1/section/17/enacted

[11] Article 12 UNCRC https://www.cypcs.org.uk/rights/uncrc/full-uncrc/#12

[12] Scottish Parliament Education, Children and Young People Committee, 2024. Additional Support for Learning inquiry. https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/committees/committee-reports/ecyp/2024/5/15/ecyps62402/pdf  p41

[13] Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists Scotland, 2025. https://www.rcslt.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Transforming-support-for-CYP-in-Scotland-Report-August-2025.pdf p7

[14] CYPCS, 2024. Pre-budget 2025-26 scrutiny – Third sector funding principles. https://www.cypcs.org.uk/resources/pre-budget-2025-26-scrutiny-third-sector-funding-principles/

[15] Scottish Government, 2011. Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services (Christie Commission). https://www.gov.scot/publications/commission-future-delivery-public-services/documents/.  p 56