Education, Children and Young People Committee 10 September 2025
Yes, there is a fair reason why it could not all have been done in one bill. With a 10-year change programme, you bump into things that get in the way as you make changes. As we are in year 5, we are starting to identify where a legislative change could speed up the pace.
Fraser McKinlay just mentioned restraint, and children can be restrained in care settings, education settings, justice settings and health settings. If you deal with education legislation, you will ensure that children are not unnecessarily restrained in an education setting, but, for some children, the care setting and the education setting are the same place. Therefore, to ensure that Scotland becomes a nation that strives not to restrain its children, the approach to ending restraint is through scrutiny. It is about having a single definition of restraint and a single reporting approach that reports in real time on the child who is restrained, the staff member who is restraining and a whole bunch of other complexities that we do not have time to get into.
We are getting to the point where we recognise what that would mean and what that would look like. As we get close to 2027-28, it is about having a final piece of legislation that really cements the work, so that the Promise is not something that a committee talks about as a special thing that Scotland is striving to keep, but just the way that we do business. Scotland is keeping the Promise to all children and families in and around the care system, as well as care-experienced adults.