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Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee 19 January 2011

19 Jan 2011 · S3 · Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee

Item of business

Public Records (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Tom Shaw (Scottish Government Directorate for Health and Social Care Integration) Watch on SPTV

I echo what Lorna Patterson has said. Five years ago, I was asked to conduct a review of the legislation and provisions that were designed to protect children in care from 1950 to 1995. To do that, I felt that I had to look at records and, while it was possible to research the legislation and establish what it was and what its provisions were, we needed evidence of how things had worked in practice. Therefore, we contacted all the local authorities and all the voluntary organisations and institutions in Scotland that had provided residential care over the period concerned. We did that as far as we could, given that there was no central database of all the providers; that was another problem that we faced at that stage.As we made our inquiries, it became clear that there was a good deal of confusion about what records existed, where they were, what they contained and, indeed, how they might be accessed. Although I am concerned not to be insensitive in saying this, in some measure our experience in trying to find the records reflected—I think—something of the experience of the former residents and survivors.There were other issues around those records that we found, because they indicated evidence of poor record keeping. That is not part of the ambit of the bill, but I am confident that the bill’s requirement for the proper management of records and for the planning of that management will contribute to the raising of standards in the keeping of records.One of the biggest problems—Lorna Patterson echoed this—for a former resident or survivor who is looking for their records is being told, “This is all we’ve got.” Very often, when they look at it, they do not know whether, in fact, that is all that exists. Secondly, if that is all there is, is it all that there ever was? Have things been removed, destroyed or lost? That creates a huge problem for individual survivors, who feel very discouraged and disheartened whenever they see incomplete pictures of places that, after all, even given their experiences there, were their homes. Many people who have not been in residential care find it difficult to identify with that problem. We all had a family home, with all that that meant to us. However, for individuals who lived in an institution for 10, 14 or 15 years and sometimes longer, that was where their home was. They look in the records for evidence of the sort of thing that a family would have, such as photographs, letters and correspondence, as well as for the official contents.Our review identified a range of weaknesses, gaps and inconsistencies in records, which it seems to me the Public Records (Scotland) Bill has the potential to bring to an end. Former residents also face the difficulty that, depending on where they lived in Scotland or where they were cared for, different approaches were taken to managing and planning records and, indeed, to what is held in the files. Some people were in care in a range of places; they were not in one place for the whole time. As a result, they get different responses to their requests in different authorities and settings. The bill has the potential to introduce, appropriately, consistency of standards and practice across Scotland, which would be in the interests of future former residents of care, of whatever form that care might be, as well as of those who were in care in the past.

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Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee 19 January 2011

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