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The Children’s Commissioner for Wales, Rocio Cifuentes, has launched a new practical guide designed to support public bodies across Wales to better understand the relationship between budget decisions, children’s rights and outcomes for children and young people.
Children’s Rights Budgeting: A Guide for Public Bodies (and Others) in Wales has been developed with Dr Rhian Croke and Professor Simon Hoffman from the Observatory on Human Rights and Social Justice.
The guide offers practical support for organisations wishing to embed a children’s rights approach within their budgeting processes. It:
- provides a step-by-step framework for undertaking a Children’s Rights Budget Analysis, helping organisations assess how effectively resources are being used to realise children’s rights
- highlights the role of Child Rights Impact Assessments (CRIAs) in understanding, assessing and mitigating the impacts of policy and budgetary decisions on children and young people
- offers practical guidance on participatory budgeting and involving children in financial decision-making, ensuring that children’s views help inform spending priorities and resource allocation.
The guide is intended both for public bodies seeking to strengthen their own budgeting processes and for practitioners, elected members, scrutiny bodies and civil society organisations seeking to understand how resources are allocated to support children’s rights and wellbeing.
Launching the new guide, the Children’s Commissioner for Wales said:
‘At a time of increasing pressures on public finances, it is more important than ever that decisions about resources are informed by evidence, focused on outcomes and grounded in children’s rights. We hope this guide will support organisations across Wales to embed a children’s rights approach in financial decision-making and strengthen their contribution to improving the lives of children and young people.’