What to think about the ‘named person’ scheme?

(First published in the Morning Star on 3 Sept 2019)
In a 40 year social work career, I don’t think I’ve come across legislation more controversial than the Named Person scheme in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act. 

 You know it’s controversial when it is attacked jointly by a Christian group that’s anti-abortion, the Manifesto Club, and a left wing social work writer, all under same NO2NP banner.

To be fair, part of the controversy is the complexity of sharing information about a child, a key criticism in most inquiries into the deaths of children.

That complexity is exposed by recent reports that a Scottish Parliament appointed expert panel tasked with writing a workable code of practice has failed to come up with one.

MSPs had called for the code after a Supreme Court ruling that some information sharing plans breached the right to privacy and a family life under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The idea behind the Named Person was for a clear point of contact for a child, young person or parents for information or advice. They would also be a single point of contact for agencies under the Getting it Right For Every Child (GIRFEC) framework.

From birth to school age, the Named Person would be the health visitor, then specified primary school and secondary school staff.

UNISON and the STUC backed the concept of simplified access to services and early recognition of children whose well-being may be affected by issues like disability, education or social needs.

However, both were very clear that resources were a major issue.

A fact graphically illustrated by Labour MSP Neil Findlay in questioning me at a Scottish Parliament Committee. He calculated that health visitors would get just over a minute with each child each week.

I assure you I am not normally long-winded in my answers but Neil observed that it took me longer to answer his question than health staff would have each week to address their Named Person role.

There was also a problem of defining well-being. Nothing in child protection is easy but there is a Data Protection clarity about the justification for sharing information when it concerns significant harm.

It becomes less clear when the issue is well-being. That can be a subjective assessment varying from agency to agency and person to person.

Without guidance, the risk is that agencies bureaucratise the process, routinely sharing information just in case - irrespective of threshold or consent.

The advice to workers on the ground was to use their judgement. The difficulty is that they, as individuals, were left wrestling with the complexity of data protection.

As a social work manager, I consistently said we would never be fully clear about what information we could share until someone took us to court. That, to my knowledge, has not happened in any significant case. It may be because many of the people we work with have to disclose so much information to so many agencies that they lose the concept of their right to privacy.

That is not to say that GIRFEC and the Named Person does not have advantages for the children, young people and families at the centre of it.

In Edinburgh, the GIRFEC approach saw better joint working between social work, schools, health and police. More children at risk were supported and protected through a less intrusive collaboration between agencies and families. Fewer had to go through the stresses of Child Protection Case Conferences. The key was seeking a shared proportionate response. Doing with, rather than to or for.

That takes work, a will and a level of resource. It also takes a modicum of courage. As it stands, the lack of guidance tests that courage.

There is also a problem with the vaunted child-centred approach. The child is often not at the centre. I recall during campaigning for asylum seeker children that the concept of human rights applying equally to children (relative to their age and stage) as they do to adults is not always fully understood, even by lawyers.

Some of the opponents of the Named Person seem to have a similar difficulty.

The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act put the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scottish statute. Yet, we still hear of meetings about children without them having the choice to participate - and more importantly the choice to participate in a way that they can understand. That right under the UNCRC is often overlooked.

Any social worker will tell you that the treasured Children’s Hearing system in Scotland risks degenerating into Adults’ Hearings with a more adversarial approach focussing on the adults’ rights as opposed to the child’s.

And while the adults argue it out, the child gets lost in a forum that was originally designed to put them at the centre. That risk is there in the Named Person issue unless we can get clearer guidance.

In the meantime, trade unions, by far the biggest organisers of workers in the field, have a major role in supporting them in these difficult jobs, and contributing to the wider political debate.

As outlined in successive UNISON Scotland submissions to the Parliament, the best advice will always be to engage with families honestly and put the child at the centre and you won’t go far wrong.