Row as controversial children’s bill put back to next year

News that the Scottish Government is to delay the introduction of the controversial Children’s Hearings Bill until early next year has been welcomed by leading social workers and the charity which represents children in care.

A draft bill, published in June, has been increasingly heavily criticised by a number of interested parties, including many children’s panel members. As reported in The Herald earlier this month, the chair of Argyll and Bute children’s panel, Philip White, wrote to ministers warning that up to 40% of Scotland’s 2500 panel members might quit if the plans for a new Scottish Children’s Hearings Tribunal went ahead unchanged.

Children’s minister Adam Ingram has also faced criticism over the bill from Who Cares?, the charity which promotes the interests and views of children who are looked after by local authorities, usually as a result of decisions made by panels.

Who Cares? director Heather Gray wrote to Ingram warning that she was extremely concerned about the impact of the changes, which she sees as having the potential to put children at further risk.

She said it would also lead to added bureaucracy and undermine key aspects of the existing Scottish system, including the child-centred approach focusing on needs not deeds’.

A political row broke out yesterday after the Labour Convener of the Education and Lifelong Learning Committee Karen Whitefield issued a press release saying that the government had been unable to produce a workable plan and that the bill had been scrapped in its current form’.

This was swiftly denied by the government. Fiona Hyslop said the delay would give more time to discuss the proposals with stakeholders.

The Cabinet Secretary for Education said: “We published a working draft of the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Bill in June specifically in order to allow people to comment on our proposals. It is unusual for a working draft to be published in this way but we deliberately did so because of the importance of the hearings system and to allow people to make comment and suggest changes.”

Nevertheless Harriet Dempster, president of the Association of Directors of Social Work, welcomed the Scottish government’s decision to allow more time to consider changes to Scotland’s children’s hearing system.

“This is an important Bill dealing with the children’s hearings system; a system recognised the world over because it takes a child-centred approach and because of its link with communities.

“The system has been in place for almost 40 years and reform is necessary but any change must be right for Scotland’s children,” she said.

“Deferring the introduction of the Bill allows more time for reasoned debate and a chance to gain consensus. ADSW looks forward to participating in the next stage.”

The government says the changes it proposes will strengthen the system, particularly to protect it from the “increasing threat” of legal challenge under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Scotland’s unique juvenile justice system will benefit from a streamlined system which unites the work of 32 children’s panels and 30 children’s panel advisory committees, they argue. However, critics fear the bill will lead to hearings being run more like court cases.

Gray told The Herald: “We believe the draft Bill has the potential to put children at further risk and lead to a more complex system for them that moves away from the current child-centred approach.

“The proposed changes move Scotland’s juvenile justice system away from a needs not deeds’ non-adversarial approach towards court processes, shifting the focus from addressing care and protection and welfare needs to dealing with children and young people in a punitive manner.

“Most children are referred to hearings because they are in need of care and protection and even those referred on offence grounds will usually be living in difficult circumstances. We believe that the changes will result in children and young people being problematised and further stigmatised.”

She added that far from streamlining, the proposals would make the system more complex, particularly from the perspective of young people.

“The responsibilities given to the Scottish Children’s hearing Tribunal will split the system, leading to the loss of the current holistic approach.

“A more fragmented process, added levels of bureaucracy, with children and young people having to deal with more professionals and processes, is likely to be both frustrating and very confusing for children, young people and their families.”