BIG BROTHER
Government ‘state guardians’ are a massive invasion of family privacy
The vast majority of parents across Scotland are doing a good job. So why are state snoopers being assigned to oversee the ‘wellbeing’ of every single child in the country?
The introduction of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 sees an escalation in state intervention criteria from the current ‘serious risk of harm’ to a more vague children not meeting ‘ wellbeing outcomes’. Known as GIRFEC (Getting It Right For Every Child) the framework is due to be rolled out in 2016, but is already being used in some parts of the country.
Under the legislation, more than one million 0- to 18-year-olds in Scotland will be assigned a ‘ named person’ – usually a health visitor or headteacher – who will have the power to advise and inform the child, discuss or raise matters about t hem with relevant authorities, and share confidential information such as medical reports. Parents have already been shocked to discover post facto that parental consent or even knowledge is not compulsory.
Dubbed the ‘ state guardian’ legislation by objectors, the policy is as ludicrous as it is invasive. It undermines parents’ responsibility for their children and allows state officials unprecedented powers to interfere with family life.
Anecdotes from areas already following the GIRFEC framework include both state- and privately-educated children being pulled out of class and asked probing personal questions relating to the policy’s SHANARRI principals, which require everyone aged under 18 to be Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured, Active, Respected, Responsible and Included. Teenagers have been presented with surveys allegedly containing suicide questions, and younger children have been asked searching questions about the inner workings of their families and how they get on with their parents, particularly
‘The Named Person legislation allows confidential information about your child to be shared with social services’
their father. Subsequent requests by parents to see the information collated on their child, or even a copy of the questions asked, have been denied on the grounds of confidentiality.
As well as prying into family lives, the legislation allows information to be shared with agencies like the NHS, police and social services, even if it breaches a duty of confidentiality. Information indicating any concern about wellbeing must now be routed to the named person.
The Government insists that information should only be shared in a ‘ proportionate manner’, yet some letters sent out by NHS Forth Valley last year informed parents in Falkirk that copies of all future letters and reports would be sent to their child’s named person.
The Scottish Government claims the traditional roles of families, teachers and health practitioners will not change. But while there is a need for state intervention into some families – sadly abuse and neglect does happen in a small minority of cases – previous legislation enabling professionals to intervene when a child is at serious risk of harm already catered for this.
If the controversial new measures are merely to protect children, this legislation does not so much take a sledgehammer to crack a nut as throw a grenade at one and expect the shell to pop off – the collateral damage could be extensive and damaging to families, authorities and society. With their right to privacy snatched away, sidelined parents will bitterly resent a third party prying into their children’s psyche and family life, resulting in strained relationships between families and authorities; while the lower threshold for sharing information about children without consent could lead to children being reluctant to engage with confidential services, and therefore unable to access the help they need. The Mackie family, for instance, found Highland Council’s implementation of the new powers so invasive that Donna Mackie moved to Edinburgh with her two teenage children, including severely disabled son Jozef, rather than be subject to what she called ‘a Named Person process that is an invasion of privacy for the whole family’.
The named person provision also represents an absurd waste of resources which might otherwise go to children and families who genuinely need the support. By stretching social workers, teachers and medical professionals even thinner to encompass GIRTEC, the future looks bleak for those vulnerable children who really need help. Identifying and protecting the small minority of children who are abused or neglected will only become harder when they are lumped in with the entire population. As child protection expert Eileen Munro pointed out: ‘It doesn’t get easier to find a needle in a haystack if you make the haystack bigger.’
The reality is that very few children need state intervention in their lives. Eroding the presumption of innocence on the basis of ‘if you’ve got nothing to hide...’ is ludicrous. Citing the importance of improving our childrens’ general wellbeing is equally flimsy.
A petition for judicial review of the legislation brought by opposition campaigners No2NP (No to Named Person) – who argued it was outwith Holyrood's powers, breached human and constitutional rights and amounted to ‘unjustifiable interference by the state’ – was dismissed in January by Judge Lord Pentland. However, Clan Childlaw, a charity that gives legal help to children and young people in Scotland, has since also questioned the legality. It believes the sharing of a child’s information when there is no serious risk of harm unlawfully interferes with a child’s right to privacy. An appeal was due to be heard on June 3-4.
The named person is essentially someone who the state has decided needs to keep an eye on your child. Whether proved to be illegal or not, the Government should not dictate how we should bring up our children – parenting is individual to each family, not a process of ticking a series of state-prescribed boxes.