Ministerial priorities affect child welfare law rollout

Different priorities among governments and ministers’ interest in particular projects can negatively affect progress, especially in sensitive areas such as children’s affairs, Iceland’s Ombudsman for Children Salvör Nordal said on mbl.is’s Dagmál programme this week.

A report by the Icelandic National Audit Office published in June found that the implementation and operation of the so-called child wellbeing laws had not delivered the intended results.

The laws, which took effect on January 1, 2022, were intended to promote children’s wellbeing and ensure that children and parents could access suitable, integrated and continuous services without barriers.

According to the report, the laws have not ensured increased prevention or early support for children. Inadequate preparation before their adoption has also negatively affected their implementation. The rollout was expected to take five years, but it is far from complete and it remains unclear when it will finish.

“When you are making changes on this scale, so much can go wrong. It also takes a long time. Ministers are only in office for four years, and then different decisions may be made,” Nordal said.

She said the question was whether the next minister, and the one after that, would remain interested in continuing the project so it could deliver the results originally intended and avoid disruption.

“A project may be started without being completed, and then something new is launched. A new minister arrives with different ideas. Services may suffer as a result, both those providing them and those receiving them. It creates a great deal of instability,” Nordal said.

Asked whether frequent ministerial changes in the ministry responsible for education and children’s affairs had negatively affected the sector, Nordal said it was difficult to say. “Of course, it is not good to change ministers frequently in one area. This is a very sensitive area,” she said.