Translating Grand Designs into Grassroots Policy and Practice

Abstract

This chapter explores the meta-level of policy enactment, using the accounts of middle-level policymakers to analyse how international human rights principles are understood and implemented. Despite much evidence to the contrary, politicians often believe that once a law is passed, practice on the ground automatically changes. However, even those involved in drafting policy and legislation may have different ideas about what they want to achieve, and systemic inertia may ensure that some parts of legislation may have little impact on grassroots practice. A common theme in the English and Scottish interviews was the potential of the legislation to exacerbate tensions between parents’ and children’s rights. Some local authority staff believed that parents exerted undue influence in areas such as placing requests and disputes, and that greater weight should be given to children’s views in order to downplay parental power. In Scotland, an interviewee from a parental advocacy group suggested the possibility that enhancing children’s rights might be used to undermine parents’ rights. Since parents acted as children’s most effective advocates, this would ultimately work against children’s interests. Finally, particularly in Scotland, some practitioners and parents worried that children were being accorded too much decision-making power, which they might experience as a burden or use unwisely.