NAMED PERSON SCHEME AN UPDATE

You may have seen today that the Deputy First Minister gave a short statement in Parliament regarding sections 4 and 5 of the Children and Young People Act 2014. This statement essentially dealt with Information Sharing and the Named Person Service.

The DFM updated parliament on the GIRFEC Practice Development Panel’s findings and outlined a series of measures to provide further guidance and support to practitioners and families so that they can be confident that personal information is handled in a way that respects the rights of individuals while ensuring that children, young people and families can get the help they need when they need it.
https://www.scottishparliament.tv/meeting/ministerial-statement-getting-it-right-for-every-child-september-19-2019
The Panel’s report and the Scottish Government’s response – can be found below-

Https://www.gov.scot/publications/getting-right-child-girfec-practice-development-panel-report-scottish-government-response
Https://www.gov.scot/publications/getting-right-child-practice-development-panel-report

I have also enclosed a letter from the Scottish Government’s Children & Families Director, Michael Chalmers which sets out their ongoing commitment to support and promote good practice with practical help and guidance.

Some reps will know that the NPFS took a vote at the start of the C&YP Bill journey to “broadly support” the policy and Fiona, our Shetland rep, has been a member of the National Implementation and Strategy Group (NISG) for years. I was a member of the GIRFEC Practice Development Panel which met every month for the whole of 2018 to try and resolve the information sharing issue.
The NPFS is not, at this time, planning to release any statement regarding this announcement. I am, however, considering writing a letter to The Herald/Scotsman etc asking how we can ensure that the safeguards of a Child’s Plan can be carried forward in a non-mandatory scheme.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have on the facebook group or directly by email. I can’t promise to be able to answer them all immediately but we can ask and Fiona can take our concerns to the next NISG meeting