A/HRC/31/33 E. Child rights impact assessments 22. States are in a better position to budget effectively for children if they embed measures to ensure their best interests within the mainstream budget cycle and other fiscal processes. Systematic child rights impact assessments can help to translate this principle into practice by evaluating how social and economic policies, resource mobilization, budgets, spending and other fiscal processes have an impact on children and the realization of their rights. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has recommended that States parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child to use impact assessments to analyse how investments in any sector may serve the best interests of the child. 19 23. In the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner published a report, entitled “A Child Rights Impact Assessment of Budget Decisions”, in which it considered the impact of tax, tax credit and welfare benefit changes and of changes to spending on public services implemented (or scheduled to be implemented) between May 2010 and April 2015. The purpose of the assessment was to identify the likely impact of budgetary decisions on the realization of the rights of the child in the United Kingdom, and to assess how far the Government had met its obligations to make the best interests of the child a primary consideration in decisions – including budgetary decisions – affecting children.20 F. Collection of comprehensive, disaggregated and timely data 24. In order to implement a child rights-based approach to public budgeting successfully, States must ensure that timely, comprehensive and disaggregated data are collected, including in relation to the most vulnerable and deprived children, to inform resource planning, allocation and spending. An example of this approach can be seen in Argentina, which established the National Council for Social Policy in 2000 to ensure efficient and effective management of State resources for social policy, with emphasis on policy childhood. In 2001, the Council in turn established SIEMPRO (sistema de información, evaluación y monitoreo de programas sociales), a system used to design and implement tools to produce information for diagnosing and monitoring the socioeconomic situation of the population (including children and adolescents) and for evidence-based policy formulation. In doing so, it captures information on current social programmes, monitors progress in meeting the goals set by the programmes, and evaluates the degree to which planned impact achieves that actually made. V. Accountability 25. To monitor the quantity of resources allocated to children it is not enough; States should also develop methodologies to assess the extent to which investment has been spent as intended and translated into the guarantee of rights and improvement of quality of life for children. In its submission to OHCHR for the previous report (A/HRC/28/33), the Government of Thailand explained that the main challenge faced in budgeting did not lie in the amount allocated, but rather in how it is spent. Similarly, in its submission, Estonia 19 20 See CRC/C/44/3, annex II. See also “Integrating a Child Focus into Poverty and Social Impact Analysis”, a UNICEF – World Bank Guidance Note, 2011, available from www.childimpact.unicefirc.org/en/psia-cria/child-centered-psias-unicef-world-bank-guidance-note. Submission from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). 7