Frances Rickford reports on what MPs heard from European children’s commissioners at a recent Westminster seminar.
Question: what do the countries of Wales, Spain, Norway, France, Scotland and Georgia have in common? Answer: they all have, or are about to have, an independent ombudsman for children.
Twenty seven countries now have someone in the role of children’s commissioner or ombudsman and Scotland and Northern Ireland will soon join the list.
Last month MPs at Westminster had a chance to find out more about just what a children’s ombudsman does. With support from 0-19 and the National Family and Parenting Institute, the All Party Group for Children and the Associate Parliamentary Group for Parents and Families invited Trond Waage the Norwegian children’s ombudsman, and Peter Clarke the children’s commissioner for Wales to explain how their respective systems work, and what they achieve for children.
Norway was the first country to legislate to establish a national ombudsman for children, and Waage is the third person in the post. The law was passed in 1981, and split the Norwegian legislature with a 49-51 vote in favour. Opponents were anxious that parental authority and responsibility could be undermined by a children’s ombudsman. Now there is no significant political opposition to the existence of ombudsman, said Waage, and parents are supportive of the ombudsman’s office. "They are demanding quite a lot on behalf of their child, and children in general - they are fighting for children’s rights rather than parents’ rights."
His office has a staff of 15, including a lawyer, a psychologist, a sociologist, an economist, and a doctor. His role is both reactive as a watchdog, and proactive in proposing change and setting the agenda, and he’s in regular touch with children through direct calls and e-mails to his office, special hearings held in schools and an "internet parliament" in which students from 10 schools across Norway feed in their ideas and opinions. "The best protection and the best provision is when children participate" said Waage.
Because of the suspension of the Northern Ireland assembly last autumn, the final step in legislating for a children’s commissioner in Northern Ireland was an order introduced in the House of Commons in January, but the groundwork had already been done. The post is due to be advertised this month (April) and the first commissioner is expected to be in post by the summer.
In Scotland too the process of establishing an independent voice for children is well under way. A bill was laid before the Scottish parliament in December and was last week expected to go forward for Royal Assent after a debate on the third stage. The new office’s £1.2m budget includes funds to enable the commissioner to get out to meet and listen to as many children and young people as possible.
The first country in the UK to appoint a children’s commissioner was of course Wales. Commissioner Peter Clarke told the seminar his office’s independence was critical. He’d been appointed by the National Assembly for a period of seven years, with no possibility of reappointment, but he does not report to the national assembly. He has powers to conduct reviews, to require documents from public bodies and to conduct examinations in the same way as a public inquiry.
He said he only got involved in individual cases when every other route had been explored, but would suggest to young people who approached him about individual cases that they copied all correspondence to him, and told the other parties they are doing so. "It’s surprising how things seem to speed up once we’re included in the correspondence over a case!" he said.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended last autumn that the UK establish an independent body "to monitor, protect and promote all the rights of the Convention (on the rights of the child) for all children."
England’s 11 million children still have no independent voice, and Lord Laming’s proposal that the chief executive of a national agency for children and families could also fulfil the functions of a children’s commissioner misses the crucial point of independence from government, said Veronica Plowden, joint national co-ordinator of the Children’s Rights Alliance. "A children’s commissioner is an independent children’s rights champion. English children should have the same protection of their rights as their peers in the other countries of the UK," she said.
Countries with independent bodies that protect children’s rights
Australia, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Columbia, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Georgia, Guatemala, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, Macedonia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Wales.
Source: Children’s Rights Alliance