Education, Children and Young People Committee 10 September 2025
We have a considerable concern about the aftercare provisions as drafted, although we appreciate and are supportive of the attempt to extend aftercare to a broader group of children. Primarily, if any 16 or 17-year-old child is without a home or cannot live in a family environment for whatever reason, they should be in a care placement and should be fully supported on a relational basis in that setting. I appreciate that there are some situations in which that is not appropriate for or desired by the child. We should also remember at the outset that aftercare is a safety net, and, particularly for 16 and 17-year-olds, that should not be the primary focus.
The bill seeks to extend the reach of aftercare beyond those looked-after children who left care before their 16th birthday, which is the current limit. The access that is being mooted in the bill is to discretionary aftercare, which is quite significant.
I appreciate that we are short on time, but I will take you through a case example of how that might work and what the effect of those changes would be, as opposed to extending the mandatory cover. Let us say that there is a 15 or 15-and-a-half-year-old who has been taken off their CSO. They attempt to reconcile with their family and live at home, but that does not work and, at the age of 16 or 17, they are not able to live in the family home. What happens then? Presently, they would have no right to aftercare at all. That child, if they did not want to be in the care system, would simply go into the adult homelessness system and be placed in adult temporary accommodation. The needs assessment for the suitability of that accommodation is very different from that of a placement under aftercare or from support that is provided through aftercare.
However, if the child was on a CSO when they were 16, and then reconciled with their family but it did not work out, they would be entitled to aftercare. The aftercare is mandatory at that point, and means that the local authority must carry out a pathways assessment. In doing so, it must consider all the needs of that child—that is, not just their accommodation needs but their health, mental health, educational and employment needs. After the assessment is carried out, an aftercare worker should be supporting them to make that transition and ensuring that they are in accommodation that is suitable for those needs. They are then supported through that process. They are also entitled to financial help through the children and families social work provision. That assistance is covered in section 30 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, and changes to that section are proposed through the bill.
What is being proposed now is that someone who is 15 and a half and is not on a CSO any more who goes home but that reconciliation does not work is then out. It is not mandatory for the local authority to conduct a pathways assessment. The young person can request that that assessment is carried out, but, for a start, they would need to know that that is something that they can do and that that support is available to them. I would query how, given the very inconsistent implementation of the current aftercare system, that would come about. That needs to be given a lot of thought.
A needs assessment will take place if one is requested, but the needs that are being assessed in that situation are eligible needs, which, according to, section 29(2) of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 are needs that cannot be met through other means, effectively. Irrespective of how it is supposed to work, what we see in practice is that we request the pathways assessment for a child, that assessment happens and they are allocated a pathways worker. That is all positive and better than what is currently supposed to happen. However, in general, the needs in relation to accommodation, for instance, can be met through the homelessness system. That means that the aftercare worker will support the child to make an application to the homelessness system and they are then in the adult homelessness system. They are in adult homelessness temporary accommodation and the needs that are being considered there are not the broad range of needs that would be considered under the aftercare system.
We support the extension of aftercare, but, for the changes to be effective, all 16 and 17-year-olds need access to the mandatory aftercare regime. That is where we have difficulty with the bill.