Addicts face drug tests to see if they can care for their children

Addict parents may have to undergo drug tests to establish whether they are fit to look after their own children, it emerged yesterday.

 The idea has been put to Peter Peacock, the children’s minister, who is now considering whether parents who are drug users could be forced to take drug tests to find out whether their children are likely to come to harm.

They could undergo the tests voluntarily, the tests could become conditions of parenting orders imposed by the courts, or they could be sought by a children’s hearing.

Ministers are looking for ways to improve the care of vulnerable children. Jack McConnell, the First Minister, has ordered his cabinet to come up with ways of strengthening the law following the death of a two-year-old boy in East Lothian, who drank his parents’ methadone.

The idea was floated by a senior figure in the Association of Directors of Social Work, which has raised it with Mr Peacock.

An Executive spokeswoman said: “They raised it with ministers and it’s something that ministers are seriously looking at.

“Officials are looking at how this could be practically implemented.”

Bernadette Doherty, the chairwoman of the association’s child and family care standing committee, said social workers were hampered by a lack of objective evidence in establishing grounds for either removing children, or returning them to their parents.

“Parents can say they are drug-free and in the absence of objective evidence it’s difficult for us to prove to the contrary,” she told BBC Radio Scotland.

Speaking after meeting Mr Peacock, she said: “I think we share concerns about what is happening to children.

“We know there is a rising population of children living with drug-addicted, chaotic parents and he was interested to know what we thought would help from a social work perspective.”