SNP FORCED TO BACK DOWN OVER NAMED PERSON
Swinney caves in after explosive Holyrood debate New guidelines set to be issued over ‘illiberal law’ Government WILL now listen to social workers’ concerns
THE SNP has been forced into a last-minute overhaul of its ‘state guardian’ scheme after the law was branded the ‘most illiberal’ in Holyrood’s history.
After an explosive parliamentary debate on the Named Person project, Education Secretary John Swinney bowed to pressure and agreed to ‘refresh’ the guidance for professionals and the Government’s ‘communication’ strategy. He also agreed to listen to the growing concerns of health visitors, social workers and school staff after coming under intense pressure ahead of the scheme’s August launch date.
And ministers promised that parents would be able to request an ‘alternative’ Named Person in ‘reasonable’ circumstances, if the relationship breaks down.
But campaigners last night condemned the ‘extreme makeover’, raising fears that it could cost Scotland’s public purse even more through an ‘expensive spin campaign and publicity drive’.
Ultimately, a Tory attempt to pause the legislation dramatically failed after the Lib Dems and Greens sided with the SNP in a crunch vote.
Labour abstained, with the exception of party rebel Jenny Marra who had told
voters that she could no longer support the scheme.
Amid furious exchanges in the chamber during the course of the afternoon, Mr Swinney accused the Tories of ‘utterly misrepresenting’ the plan. But Conservative MSP Adam Tomkins, in a tirade against the SNP and Lib Dems, denounced ‘the single most illiberal law that this parliament has passed’.
As part of the state guardian scheme, the NHS must appoint a health worker to act as the Named Person for every child until the age of five – despite a crippling staffing shortage. The responsibility will then pass to councils until the child reaches 18, with teachers likely to be asked to take on the role.
Earlier this week, an exclusive opinion poll for the Scottish Daily Mail revealed that nearly two-thirds of Scots believe appointing a Named Person to every child is an ‘unacceptable intrusion’ into family life. That followed a survey in April which found that health visitors fear the policy will put families at risk, while they will be made scapegoats.
The legislation was approved at Holyrood in 2014 following five hours of debate, with Labour and the Lib Dems eventually siding with the SNP, while the Tories abstained.
But the Mail revealed during the election campaign how Labour shifted its position to back a ‘pause’, while the Lib Dems also expressed concerns.
The Tories have toughened up their stance and went into the election campaign proposing the repeal of the law, but they only suggested a pause during yesterday’s debate in a failed attempt to win cross-party support.
Tory education spokesman Liz Smith said: ‘We believe that we have an obligation to address the practical concerns of professionals and parents about the workability of the If that is not dealt with, it could seriously undermine the welfare of children across Scotland. That outcome would be unforgivable.’
Mr Tomkins added: ‘As for the Lib Dems, I have to say I still can’t understand why Scotland’s so-called “liberal party” supports the single most illiberal law that this parliament has passed since its creation 17 years ago.’
After the vote, Mrs Smith rounded on Labour and the Lib Dems. ‘Instead of backing up what they said in the election about the need for a pause, they seem to have changed their mind again,’ she said. ‘Even the Scottish Government has admitted there are issues with this policy. We remain utterly opposed to this legislation, as do many professionals, experts and parents.’
But Mr Swinney said: ‘The Conservatives fought a vitriolic campaign on this issue at the election. They disparaged a sound concept, well researched and widely debated, and characterised it as something it is not. Then they come to parliament expecting us all to take them seriously when they talk of a “pause”.’
In response to an intervention from Mrs Smith, he said: ‘When Liz Smith comes to parliament and asks me today why I think there is opposition to this policy in the country, it is because the Conservative Party have gone round the country for months utterly misrepresenting the policy.’
However, the SNP’s amendment to the Tory motion pledged to acknowledge ‘concerns that some people have expressed about the implementation of the policy, and agrees that more must be done to ensure that implementation is successful and that the Scottish Government should, therefore, refresh the guidance provided to professionals and the communicapolicy. tion of the policy to the public’. Mr Swinney said: ‘I accept that the Government now has work to do to build confidence in this policy, to ensure the guidance is appropriate and to ensure that the public are fully and properly aware of the intentions behind this policy.
‘We understand the challenges of communicating this change to the public, not least in a climate thick with misinformation and, frankly, scaremongering.’
The SNP later accepted a further amendment from the Lib Dems, which stated that parliament ‘notes the concerns of health visitors, social workers and school staff concerning the resources needed to implement the Named Person policy, and calls on the Scottish Government to ensure that resources can support the effective implementation of measures for children and young people who are at risk of significant harm’. The combined SNP/Lib Dem wording passed with 74 votes. There were 31 votes against from the Tories and Miss Marra, and 21 abstentions from Labour.
Lib Dem MSP Tavish Scott said: ‘Parents and carers clearly have real concerns over this scheme and we will hold John Swinney to the assurances that the Government offered during the debate.’
But Simon Calvert of the No to Named Persons (NO2NP) campaign group said: ‘The Government is trying to rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic. What is being proposed is simply a waste of time.
‘They are giving the Named Person scheme an extreme makeover through a proposed expensive spin campaign and publicity drive which will mean more money being thrown at a fatally flawed policy which is part of a project which has already eaten up more than £60million.’
Labour MSP Iain Gray said the SNP had ‘made a mess of implementing this policy’ and called for a pause in its roll-out to allow the Children and Young People’s Commissioner to carry out a ‘full review of its implementation’.
But he refused to back the Tories because ‘they are against it... they will get it repealed, scrapped and binned’.
However, his colleague Miss Marra said after the debate: ‘I voted against Named Person in parliament because the SNP will not solve child abuse, neglect or poverty by tinkering with reporting mechanisms and putting more responsibility on the shoulders of teachers and health visitors when already there are not enough of them to do their day jobs.
‘If there needs to be a review of
‘An expensive spin campaign’
how professionals report concerns about children, then that should happen, but it would make much more sense for additional support to be targeted to those who need it most.
‘People like deputy headteachers usually pick up so many child welfare concerns but they are now so busy covering classes because of the SNP’s disgraceful teachers shortages that schools are stretched.
‘Social workers are dealing almost exclusively with high tariff cases leaving little or no time for preventative work like parenting support.’
A Scottish Conservative source said: ‘Well done Jenny Marra for opposing the SNP. It’s just a shame that everyone else in Scottish Labour sat on their hands and did nothing.’
AT last the SNP seems to be taking the first painful steps toward grasping just how much genuine concern there is from both parents and professionals about its flagship child protection policy, the Named Person scheme.
An explosive debate in Holyrood forced John Swinney to promise to refresh the guidance surrounding one of the most ill-considered and illiberal pieces of legislation ever to be foisted on Scots.
Forget the SNP’s shabby complaint that any criticism of the scheme is nothing more than political point-scoring.
Today we carry a devastating critique of the Named Person system from someone at its very heart.
Dr Simon Knight is both a youth work practitioner and designated Named Person. He is scathing about the meddling nature of the SNP and says the threshold at which the state can now intervene in people’s lives is set far too low. ‘Minor issues will be prioritised over other important work. Cases of serious harm will get lost in all the clutter,’ he warns.
Several MSPs yesterday also pointed out that the wider public have simply lost faith in the scheme.
Parents grasp its original high-minded intention to safeguard youngsters has been lost in an ill-defined scramble to protect their ‘wellbeing’.
By assuming all children are somehow at risk in this fashion, those genuinely in peril may very well be overlooked.
That is why yesterday’s debate was so important. The original legislation was passed in 2014 by 103-0 with 15 abstentions and an opportunity to properly consider the risks of such a far-reaching change in child protection was long overdue.
Crucially, the Named Person pilot projects have thrown up serious concerns. In Fife as far back as 2013, Named Person was generating 400 cases per month in one of the country’s smallest local authority areas. Amid that gargantuan caseload, toddler Liam Fee was murdered by his mother and her partner. Fife social work say he ‘slipped off their radar’.
That should have set alarm bells ringing, should have told those genuinely interested in welfare and not narrow party advantage that all was not well on a systemic level. There was a straw in the wind too when one of the first named persons – a Moray teacher – was convicted of child sex offences.
Instead, the public are being told the pilots are operating well and even that they are ‘a step forward’.
Surely now the most ardent supporters of the Named Person project must grasp that the public and many professionals – especially teachers and social workers on who so much of its workload and responsibility will fall – are deeply concerned. And those concerns are not just kneejerk, anti-SNP carping.
Amid all this, Labour MSPs should hang their heads in shame. They went into the election committed to tackling the flaws in the Named Person scheme but yesterday – with the honourable exception of Jenny Marra – vanished.
Still, a torrid day at Holyrood forced the SNP to recognise the first cracks in the Named Person edifice.
Those cracks will widen so long as the public discern that their worries are being brushed aside.