Will year of young people see demise of the named person plan?

John Swinney’s attempts to salvage a key but controversial policy will distract from education reform, says Tom Peterkin

Four years ago Alex Salmond announced that 2018 would be Scotland’s “Year of Young People”.

With an aim of celebrating the talents of Scotland’s youth while inspiring young people to achieve their ambitions, the events planned for 2018 promise to be uplifting.

The Year of the Young People organisers are promising an extravaganza of cultural, sporting and educational events with an emphasis on six key themes: culture; participation; enterprise and regeneration; equality and discrimination; health and well-being and education.

Standing on the cusp of this praiseworthy initiative, however, it is also clear 2018 will see the latter two themes (health and well-being plus education) becoming battlegrounds for a baser form of politics than the lofty ideals promoted by the Year of Young People.

In the case of young people’s health and well-being, Education Secretary John Swinney is bracing himself for yet more fights over the deeply controversial named person scheme.

The proposal to give every child in Scotland a named person with responsibility over their well-being has suffered the indignity of being blocked by a Holyrood committee.

The whole thing has turned into an unholy mess and the delays which have beset the plans mean that the fight for their future will overrun into a parliamentary session which Mr Swinney has already earmarked for another raft of legislation that lies at the heart of young people’s education.

Next session will see the named person legislation overlapping with Mr Swinney’s much vaunted – and also controversial – Education Bill, which aims to introduce the most radical school reform seen in Scotland for a generation.

The clash of these two tricky pieces of legislation will cause all manner of challenges for Mr Swinney, who must be looking towards 2018 with trepidation.

Recognised as Nicola Sturgeon’s most capable minister, Mr Swinney has been given the education brief because he is one of the few politicians at her disposal with the ability to deliver the turnaround she has promised for Scottish education.

With that in mind, Mr Swinney’s Education Bill promises a restructuring of the education system that will see the establishment of six regional bodies or Regional Collaboratives, which aim to share good practice across council boundaries.

There has, however, been resistance from councils, who were concerned that democratically elected local authorities were being sidelined. A compromise was eventually brokered that satisfied some of the councils’ concerns.

There remain local government concerns, however, about the most eye-catching aspect of Mr Swinney’s reforms – to hand more power to head teachers over the running of their schools.

Time and again education experts have pointed to the excessive bureaucracy, the teacher recruitment crisis, low morale in schools and the confusion which is endemic in the flagship Curriculum for Excellence.

Mr Swinney is under enormous pressure to succeed in his quest and he believes giving schools more autonomy will move things in the right direction – in particular when it comes to closing the iniquitous attainment gap that sees children from richer backgrounds do better in the classroom than their poorer counterparts.