Awareness is key to understanding charities say
Named person legislation needs an awareness campaign to achieve greater clarity of the legislation, campaigners have said.
Sally Ann Kelly, chief executive of Aberlour, called on the Scottish Government to front a drive to increase understanding of the scheme.
Kelly – who heads up a coalition of charities backing the scheme – told the Scottish Parliament’s education committee: “I think there has not been proper public clarity in relation to named person and I think that’s something the government needs to pay a lot of attention to.”
Fresh legislation bringing changes to the policy is currently being investigated by the committee, under which every child will have a single point of contact, such as a teacher or health visitor, appointed to look out for their welfare.
A new bill was needed after the Supreme Court ruled last year that information-sharing provisions in the original legislation were incompatible with the right to privacy and family life as set out in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
One of the main changes proposed is that a duty to share information which could support, promote or safeguard the well-being of a child would become a duty.
Kelly said there would only be a “very small number of cases” where sharing information would become an issue.
She told the committee: “One of our concerns at the moment because of the Supreme Court ruling and the period in between, and the uncertainty that that has created for people, is that we certainly know of some examples where people have been unsure or unclear about whether they can in fact share information , certainly in our services.
“Part of what we have argued for as a coalition is comprehensive training for people because it’s really important that that situation doesn’t prevail and that children and families feel properly supported.
“We’ve also argued for a nationwide campaign to clarify what the named person service is and what it isn’t, and within that be very clear about what circumstances families can expect their information … what their rights are in relation to the named person service.”
“I think what adds to the confusion for practitioners is a wider confusion in the public around the status of the named person – what it is, what it means for them.
“A lot of our practitioners are parents too, so there needs to be a very clear statement and response from the government around all of this to clarify that.”
But Alison Reid, principal solicitor at Clan Childlaw which gives free legal advice and representation to children and young people in Scotland, contested the need for further legislation.
She said: “In my view, legislation is not the way that you encourage or prompt information sharing … what we think is that actually we don’t need any further legislation.
“We have a current legal framework within which this information-sharing part of this bill could operate but what we do need is to have clear, robust, accessible national guidance which is not on a statutory footing.”
