Children's rights torchbearer

Keith Towler, is looking rather flushed after a taxing meeting with some youth justice professionals. “This may be a dramatic thing to say, but it feels as if the eyes of the world are on us,” he says. “We have created this pressure on ourselves, which is exciting.”

He is referring to the new duty, which came into force this month, requiring Welsh ministers to pay regard to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) when they change or create any policy.

Towler’s enthusiasm is palpable. The opportunity for Wales to be a leader on children’s rights, and for Towler to be at the forefront of seeing this ambition through as the nation’s children’s commissioner, is clearly something he relishes.

Wales was the first country in the UK to appoint a children’s commissioner in 2001, and the latest measure entrenches the country’s forward-thinking reputation on children’s rights. But has the duty made Towler’s job any easier?

“For the Welsh government to look at the UNCRC and say that we are going to embed this in the way we do our business is really quite huge,” he says. “But in a sense the implementation of the measure is about encouraging everybody to contribute.

“The job of the children’s commissioner is to see the world through children and young people’s eyes, hear what they are saying, to respect those views, and to encourage and influence people to do the right thing by our children and young people. To do that you need to create a cultural shift.”

Closing the gap
More than four years into his seven-year term as children’s commissioner, Towler is acutely aware of the distance yet to travel to reach this goal.

“There is without doubt the need to close that gap between the policy aspiration and the everyday living experience, which is less than great for many. When I became the commissioner four years ago there was one ?in four children living in relative poverty in Wales; it is now one in three.”

Sitting in his offices in a Swansea industrial estate, flanked by children’s toys, Towler punctuates each of the points he makes about policy with stories of the children he has spent time with during the visits he carries out at least two days a week. From a group of Gypsy and Traveller children who have a problem with rats on their caravan, to young carers who so overwhelmed him that he had to hide tears from his colleagues, these stories underpin his belief that both government ?and communities can and should do better for children.

“My call to the Welsh government is: ‘no more strategies, no more policies, let’s absolutely focus on practice’,” he says.

“We all know resources are depleted, but I am hoping that the UNCRC duty will drive us to value frontline practice. Sometimes we get so bound up by performance indicators, inspection regimes, and policies that we take our eye off the child’s experience.”

Towler is pleased with the Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones’s commitment to eradicate child poverty by 2020, and his pledges to improve outcomes for children and young people. He is also heartened by the Welsh government’s ambition to strengthen the role of the children’s commissioner in light of the new legal duty on the UNCRC.

But Towler voices grave concern over the impact of the UK government’s welfare reforms, which he fears may drive up poverty and in turn drown out the voices of the most vulnerable children. “I’ve just spent some time travelling around the whole of Wales meeting with children and families who are on benefits or suffering in-work poverty and I really don’t think the majority understand what is coming,” he explains.

“It is a real challenge for the Welsh government given Carwyn Jones’s aspiration to maintain the 2020 target to eradicate child poverty. I don’t know how the UK government can hold on to that target with any real conviction.

“I met some families in South Wales making choices not to eat so their children can; where mum and dad don’t see each other because they are working different shift patterns, doing two or three jobs each on very low incomes. I think the welfare reforms will have a devastating impact on these children, young people and families.”

Every five years the UK goes before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to report on its progress on the UNCRC. The next visit to Geneva will be in 2014 and Towler is adamant that he will be asking the committee to look very seriously at the UK’s welfare reform agenda.

Devolved powers
In previous reports, the UN committee has criticised the UK’s record on young offenders and child asylum seekers. Both these areas are out of the control of the Welsh government, given that they are not devolved, which also means that Towler’s hands are somewhat tied.

But he says this does not stop him from trying to intervene in situations where young people are not getting a fair deal. With the co-operation of prison governors, Towler and his team visit Parc Young Offender Institution and other parts of the secure estate regularly to meet young people.

“Often the matters they raise with us are things that are devolved, such as health issues, education, worrying about being homeless when they leave prison; so there are ways around it,” he says.

He also praises the UK’s three other children’s commissioners and says his collaboration with them has made a significant impact on influencing the UK government on matters that are not devolved to Wales.

One thing that Towler is tackling with some urgency is the need to improve the image of young people, particularly as portrayed in the mainstream media.

During his last trip to report to the UN committee in Geneva, Towler recalls one member asking why the UK dislikes its children so much. “Each commissioner in the UK has a responsibility for countering negative stereotypes,” he says.

The Office of the Children’s Commissioner for Wales has therefore undertaken a campaign to promote positive images of children and young people through a combination of youth-led work and collaboration with the media. Guidelines on appropriate language for journalists and a bank of images of children have been made available as well as stories from children about positive things they are doing in their communities.

With the role of the commissioner established for more than a decade in Wales, Towler is pleased that his office has grown into a recognised and respected institution. And with three years of his term left, Towler wants to continue down this path and reach out to groups of children who can often find themselves marginalised.

Over the next few years he intends to focus on Gypsy and Traveller children and children and young people with disabilities, and is keen to reach a solid point from which the next children’s commissioner can build.

“When I explain to children about the seven-year cycle of each children’s commissioner I say it is like being Doctor Who,” says Towler. “He was David Tennant and he is now Matt Smith. The commissioner was Peter Clark and it is now Keith Towler and it will be someone else after that.

“I hope by the time my term comes to an end and I shake the hand of the next commissioner that they don’t do what I have done, but they build on what is in place. Over the past 10 years we have got that momentum working in the right direction.

“More than halfway into my term it feels we are beginning to jog and we will be running soon.”

The children’s commissioner in Wales