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Children and Families Act 2014

Part 6: The Children’s Commissioner

24.Part 6 of the Act implements the recommendations from John Dunford’s independent review of the Children’s Commissioner (Review of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner (England): December 2010), which concluded that there were strong arguments for retaining the office of Children’s Commissioner (“OCC”), but that the legislative framework had prevented the Commissioner from having sufficient impact on children’s lives. The provisions in the Act aim to remove the barriers that John Dunford identified, in particular by:

  • Amending the Commissioner’s primary function to one of promoting and protecting children’s rights;

  • Making the Commissioner more clearly independent from Government;

  • Providing for greater scrutiny of the Commissioner’s impact, through an annual report to Parliament;

  • Combining the functions of the Commissioner with the activities currently carried out by the Children’s Rights Director;

  • Clarifying the Commissioner’s powers and remit.

25.Pre-legislative scrutiny of the OCC sections was undertaken by the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR). The Government’s response to the report was published on 5 February 2013 (Children and Families Bill 2013: Contextual Information and Responses to Pre-Legislative Scrutiny).

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