SNP PLEDGE MORE CASH FOR STATE SNOOPERS

After party squanders £2bn on doomed projects, ‘unworkable’ Named Person plan gets extra money

MORE taxpayers’ money will be ploughed into the SNP’s state snooper scheme – despite growing calls to scrap it. Ministers had been urged by MSPs to rethink plans for the controversial Named Person initiative, as some of its previous backers now warn that it is unworkable.

But Education Secretary John Swinney yesterday claimed parents had asked for the scheme and stressed the Scottish Government is committed to implementing it.

A ‘positive’ Government-led public awareness-raising campaign will be launched to convince parents of the benefits of the Named Person plan, which aims to monitor the ‘wellbeing’ of all children.

The use of more public money on the project comes as the SNP’s spending is under public scrutiny.

The party has been accused of wasting £2billion in the past decade – and it is preparing to hike taxes for more than a million Scots earning as little as £24,000.

Childcare professionals desperate

for guidance on how the chaotic Named Person scheme will work may have to wait months for a code of practice, as Mr Swinney said officials would have to start ‘with a blank piece of paper’.

A Supreme Court judgment last year found Named Person was largely unlawful, forcing the Scottish Government back to the drawing board.

But frontline social workers and health visitors are increasingly concerned about how it will work in practice.

Under the proposals Named Persons, such as teachers or health visitors, will operate as single points of contact, appointed to safeguard the welfare of every child in Scotland.

Mr Swinney, who will appear before Holyrood’s education committee tomorrow, said that ‘the time is right for a positive awareness-raising campaign, to be led by government’.

It would ‘make clear for children, young people, parents and practitioners what the Getting It Right For Every Child approach [underpinning Named Person] is about and how the Named Person service will support them’. Mr Swinney said: ‘I have also listened closely to what has been said to the committee on resources and support for implementation.

‘I accept that further financial resources… will be required to assist implementation and that this will be required over a longer period of time than the first year of implementation.’

A proposed ‘code of practice’ on information-sharing between different agencies about children, which will hinge on parental consent, faces a major delay because Mr Swinney said it will be influenced by ongoing changes to data protection legislation at Westminster.

In a letter from Mr Swinney to Nationalist education committee convener James Dornan, the Education Secretary suggests the code will be included in the new legislation. Defending Named Person in his letter, Mr Swinney said: ‘At its heart, it is a simple concept. It is about ensuring a clear point of contact so that children and young people and their parents can get access to the help and support they need when they need it. This is something parents have asked for.’

But last year a poll found nearly twothirds of Scots believed appointing a Named Person for every child is an ‘unacceptable intrusion’ into family life.

Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie, once a prominent supporter of the proposals, said: ‘[The move] has lost the confidence of parents and many professionals.’

Last night, Scottish Tory education spokesman Liz Smith said: ‘Legal experts are telling the Scottish Government the new Bill does not address all of the concerns of the Supreme Court, the Information Commissioner has made plain the illustrative code of practice is “not fit for purpose” and the delegated powers committee has questioned whether there can be effective parliamentary scrutiny. ‘John Swinney, however, seems to think all these problems can be resolved by establishing a new GIRFEC [Getting It Right For Every Child] advisory panel and asking parliament to vote on a new code of practice.’

She added: ‘It is a shambles and, worst of all, it is distracting the attention of practitioners away from getting on with the job of assisting our most vulnerable children.’