Hansard

I absolutely agree, and I have had the same experience when listening to such comments. However, we must recognise that the committee’s initial inquiry identified that we were letting down our looked-after children. The second inquiry that we have undertaken in that area is a new piece of work, and perhaps enough prominence has not been given in Parliament to some of the issues and problems that existed before.

I would like to thank Jayne Baxter, a new member of the committee, and to recognise the hard work of colleagues on her own benches and across the Parliament in bringing together the report that we are discussing and that I am so pleased to be able to speak about this afternoon.

When we discussed permanence last year, my colleague Willie Coffey spoke about the scale of the problem. It is worth repeating some of the facts that he mentioned. He said that

“there are 16,000 children who are being looked after by Scotland’s local authorities, and that there are possibly up to another 15,000 being cared for by relatives under informal arrangements.”—[Official Report, 6 November 2012; c 13073.]

It is vital for families that the Scottish Government works with local authorities and other partner organisations in this area.

In December last year, I highlighted a report from Who Cares? Scotland, which has contributed a great deal to the committee report that is before Parliament today, both in its support of young people who wanted to give evidence to the committee and in its briefings.

In April last year, Who Cares? Scotland conducted a survey in which it spoke to 116 young people about their experience as care leavers in the system. One young woman said:

“It was all too quick and I never got the time to pack my things. I would have liked more time to prepare and also to be told that going into care was an option as it was all a shock to me when it happened. I never got to say goodbye to my friends either which I didn’t like.”

That quote sums up a lot of the concerns that were raised by many young people who we spoke to in the course of our deliberations.

I want to talk briefly to the four themes in the report. On the early intervention theme, we have made quite a bit of progress with the roll-out of GIRFEC across Scotland, which will be put into statute in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill. That goes some way to improving what we mean by early intervention.

Ken Macintosh talked about the challenges for social work. Under theme 2, on assessments, we must not underestimate the huge amount of pressure to get it right for social workers to ensure that assessments are at a standard that is acceptable to decision makers about young people. Again, GIRFEC has gone some way to improve interagency and interdepartmental co-operation and to improve confidence that assessments meet requirements.

The report also asks the Government to consider the concerns that have been raised and the commitment to GIRFEC that a clear timescale should be given that will demonstrate that integration is working and that we have improved confidence in the decision-making process and assessments. We must not underestimate the importance of the establishment of CELCIS in contributing to the improved confidence in assessments. CELCIS was set up with the aim to

“promote effective professional engagement with families, promote the planning for and the management of high quality assessments, reduce unnecessary delays and drift in permanence planning and promote a new ‘whole systems’ approach to permanence planning.”

Again in 2012, the early years collaborative, which is looking at evidence-based decision making, was created. Together, the two have the potential to do transformational work in this area. The challenge for the Government and local authorities is to ensure that the sharing of the findings, the adoption of best practice and the research from CELCIS and the early years collaborative can be used to maximum effect across Scotland.

Mr Macintosh has already mentioned the importance of training and assessment in these areas. We must not underestimate the concerns that social workers have raised about the demographic challenges in their profession and the claim that post-qualification training and career development have disappeared. In paragraph 63, the report asks the Government to take seriously the concerns raised in that area.

The quote from a young person that I used earlier says all that we need to know about hearing all the voices in the decision-making process. That is theme 4 in the report. A lot of good work is going on out there and a lot of progress is being made. I am really glad that this report will play a small part in improving the lives of our looked-after children.

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