Reforms will 'better protect children'

Thursday, February 25, 2010

A new national body could be created as part of changes to "strengthen and streamline" children's hearings.

Children's Hearings Scotland would be responsible for setting standards for the recruitment, support and training of local panel members, and for monitoring their implementation.

The move forms part of the new Children's Hearings (Scotland) Bill to improve children's rights and introduce national standards.

It comes as official statistics showed that at the end of March last year there were 15,288 youngsters in care across Scotland – three per cent more than the previous year and the largest number since 1983.

In 2008-09, the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration (SCRA) received more than 90,000 referrals, involving 47,718 children, with the majority related to care grounds such as parental neglect.

Minister for Children and Early Years Adam Ingram said: "Early intervention lies at the heart of the Scottish Government's approach to improving people's life chances and our unique, welfare-based Children's Hearings system exemplifies this principle.

"That system - in which local volunteers make decisions to improve the lives of local young people - remains the best way of offering support, but children and families today are facing significantly different challenges and circumstances from when it was created."

Under the plans, SCRA will continue to run the Children's Reporter Service for Scotland which makes decisions on whether a child should be referred to a hearing, and on what grounds.

COSLA Education, Children and Young People spokesperson, councilor Isabel Hutton said reform of children's hearings system was "long overdue".

"The measure of success of any legislation has to be whether it delivers improvement, and sadly the Scottish Government have, in our view, failed to evidence how the Bill will improve outcomes for children or deliver change in certain key areas."

COSLA says the existing system should be improved rather than "thrown out" by choosing wholesale structural change and that panel members should be recruited, appointed and managed by local people.

Hutton added: "We will continue to work constructively with Scottish Government and Parliament on areas of the Bill that we support, as well as the areas on which we have concerns. Our goal is to produce an Act that will live up to our shared aspiration for the Children's Hearings System, and help improve lives of Scotland most vulnerable children."