INTRODUCTION
On 3 October 2008 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a series of recommendations ('Concluding Observations') setting out where they believed the UK was falling short of ensuring the rights of all children. The Scottish Government ( SG) has committed to responding positively to the Committee's recommendations the majority of which are of relevance to Scotland. In December 2008 SG issued a draft response to each of the Committee's recommendations through the consultation paper 'Improving the Lives of Children in Scotland - are we there yet?' The document-based consultation was complemented by four consultation seminars across Scotland and children and young people were involved through a variety of activities coordinated by Young Scot.
An independent consultant was engaged by the Scottish Government to summarise responses to the document-based consultation. The report which follows draws together comments from the 48 respondents (organisations, individuals and agencies) using the framework of ten themes and Row Numbers of the SG document. In the main body of the paper, in order to set the collated responses in context, each Row is prefaced by a shorthand version of SG's position and proposed action.
Short summary
SG asked respondents to identify what they saw as 'the most important issues for priority action'. Around one third identified their priorities separately from the main text of their responses and these are presented in the short summary. Where large numbers of comments were submitted concerning a particular action these have been highlighted so that something of the weighting of responses and key areas of interest comes through. Respondents were also asked to give a view on whether SG actions were considered to be 'proportionate and realistic'. Some key areas of disagreement and concern are therefore included in the short summary but comprehensive detail is provided in the main summary.
Main summary
The responses received were naturally very diverse and numerous given the comprehensive nature of the consultation paper. The 142 numbered rows attracted a total of 696 individual comments. The main summary is therefore fairly lengthy representing a huge range of carefully considered, experience-based and evidence-based feedback which will inform and add value to Scottish Government's consideration of the Action Plan on the implementation of the UNCRC.