Finally, does this mark the death of the state snooper?
More delays cast fresh doubt on unpopular Named Person plan
JOHN Swinney was last night facing demands to scrap his Named Person plans after the ‘toxic’ policy was hit by yet another delay.
The Education Secretary had promised an update on the blighted ‘state snooper’ scheme in the autumn. But as Holyrood comes to a close this week, he is no closer to answering the 2016 Supreme Court verdict that found the policy breached children’s human rights.
Last night, Mr Swinney faced calls to put parents’ minds at rest and ‘consign the legislation to the Holyrood dustbin’.
The Scottish Government unveiled plans to assign a Named Person to every child under 18 in 2013, but several charities launched a legal action and took their case to the Supreme Court in London.
In 2016, the court found the plans to share information between doctors, teachers and social workers – behind the backs of children and their families – breached their human rights. Mr Swinney then vowed to return with a new Bill on sharing personal information that would make the scheme legal.
He appointed an independent panel to look at solutions and promised it would report back in the autumn. But it is now clear it will be next year at the earliest before the next steps are unveiled, while campaigners believe the delay and confusion is further proof the scheme is unworkable.
Simon Calvert, of the No to Named Persons (NO2NP) campaign group, which defeated Mr Swinney at the Supreme Court, said: ‘Instead of dumping the state snooper plan, he called in so-called experts to try to come up with a new version. His plan was that an “independent panel [would] develop a workable, comprehensive and user-friendly code of practice”. But no one wants the Named Person scheme. The whole idea is toxic and the Supreme Court ruling makes it impossible to resurrect the scheme they originally wanted. It’s time Mr Swinney consigned this legislation to the Holyrood dustbin.
‘It’s clearly not fit for purpose. MSPs know that. Parents and practitioners know it, too. In fact everyone seems to know it except the Scottish Government.’
Eileen Prior, of parents’ group Connect, said: ‘The current situation is very confusing for parents. Our position is that the legislation is not able to be enacted within the context of other legislation and should be struck down.’
Liz Smith, Scottish Conservative education spokeswoman, said: ‘The public remains wholeheartedly opposed to this policy which is why it should be scrapped.’
But a Scottish Government spokesman said the delay was merely to consider developments in child protection south of the Border ‘following publication of UK Government advice for practitioners about providing safeguarded services to children, young people, parents and carers in England’.