Named Person Scheme finally being thrown in the bin.

[ClassicQuine]

www.scotsman.com/education/panel-gives-up-on-named-person-scheme-code-of-practice-1-4986164

About time!

Hopefully. What a spectacular waste of money.

John Swinney should have the balls to stand up in Parliament and apologise for wasting all our money.
Sadly I suspect he's a man who would find it impossible to admit they got it wrong.
Shambles!

What a spectacular waste of money.

Except it's not being thrown in the bin. I'm sure the successful elements of the model will continue to be used across Scotland as they have been for some years - it's just that there won't be legislation in place around information sharing. Agencies will continue to do this following best practice models or their own protocols.

That's pretty much what ds' old school said. That it was simply "best practice" that they already followed, so they had said that it wouldn't really change the way that they worked.

While its final report has not been published, minutes from its last meeting state that members of the panel “welcomed the recognition that a statutory Code of Practice that must be applied in all situations is not the right thing to do at this time, which is brave, but noted that there will be disappointment from a number of agencies…”

Such a frightening statement, I wish "at this time" was not there but I guess something must be needed to keep the peace. How it ever got this far is beyond me.

Really? You know it was only to prevent child cruelty cases being missed and children dying in horrific conditions due to agencies not passing on information between themselves. It might not have worked all the time but even if it'd save one poor soul surely that's good?!

Mum, it didn't work though, areas that were trialing the scheme had two of the worst cases ever that were not picked up. It was not fit for purpose and was yet another case of trying to crack a nut with a sledgehammer. Spend the money on providing support for the children who need it rather than putting in a scheme that is useless and unnecessary for the other 90 something %. Overburdening people who already have enough responsibility. Also then making the named person someone in school for school age DC who aren't in school for a quarter of the year.

It's the nanny state gone too far, i'm sure that maybe there were the best of intentions behind it, but it was far too much intrusion and control over ordinary peoples lives who have the right to raise their families without that level of scrutiny.

It's been a while since I looked at all this to be fair and DC are now adult but i'm glad it looks like its gone.

If you want to help children not fall through the net you need to properly equip social services with the staff and resources they need. The service is completely slashed to the bone and all of the money wasted on this madness could have gone there instead.

More wasted money from the SNP’s list of failures. They’re running a 7% deficit, many times higher than the rest of the U.K., despite a whacking £1660 subsidy from Westminster for every man, woman and child in Scotland. They wasted millions of taxpayers’ money on a failed airport (Prestwick), and have just taken over a failed shipbuilder. Their toy parliament building ran many times over budget.
Education in Scotland has fallen so far down the international league tables, the SNP has removed us from the comparison to save embarrassment. Their much trumpeted free uni places are so limited and unaffordable that universities offer places to English and foreign students in preference to Scots kids, as they need the income from fees. Far from being able to run an independent country, the SNP have had to delay taking over full control of benefit payments as they couldn’t get the infrastructure set up in three years.
Named person was all about control of young people, along with their propaganda in schools. If they really cared about kids, they wouldn’t have introduced their dire “curriculum for excellence”.
I wish people would wake up to how poisonous, divisive and useless the SNP really are, and take off the tartan tinted specs, before we end up being torn out of the U.K. and left as a bankrupt banana republic run by numpties.

Babdoc do you even live in Scotland?! If you did you'd realise that of you have the correct grades, you can attend uni in Scotland for free. I have two degrees for FREE. In England I'd be in, what, 40k debt. I'll be forever grateful of this and really hope my son has this opportunity also.
I'm regards to education, I'm a teacher and inclusion for all is not working. However you're referring to Pisa results from one year and did you realise that in England, ANYONE can be employed as a teacher. Aka a head can employ their daughter as a teacher despite no degree or qualifications. Surely that's madness?
If much rather the sort of responses above yours which are much more balanced.

Mum, you don't get to choose which responses people give and I agree with Babdoc. I'm scottish and live in scotland.

Are you really a teacher? Do you understand how the free uni places work?

MumofHunter, you yourself are a teacher but you support the named person scheme?! You support your colleagues being forced into a social work role for no extra hours or pay?! You support that same role being transferred to some random folk in a council office over the summer holidays so that the SNP can ensure every child in Scotland has ONE person who is the SINGLE point of contact (despite this clearly not being the case)? You support your colleagues in having to make notes based on SHANARRI indicators that a child is not respected at home because their bedroom isn't decorated the way they want it? (That's a genuine example from GIRFEC if I recall correctly) You support the idea of children leaving school at 16 having their employer become their Named Person and therefore access to details of their medical records, for example the employer of a 16 year old girl could be told if she was accessing contraception, but the girl's PARENTS have no right to that information?!

The whole thing has been complete and utter madness and I actually don't think it will die until the SNP are out. This code of practice was deemed necessary to make the information sharing legal, but the panels were very frank about the fact that if lawyers were finding it difficult to wade through the requirements, how could we reasonably expect teachers, health visitors, random employers etc. to understand it in such a way that nobody would be at risk of accidentally breaching GDPR and landing a council in a world of legal problems?!

Also, here's an excellent review of Curriculum for Excellence that I missed 18 months ago... The reason it's "only one PISA study" is because the SNP are getting rid of all the other comparative studies to cover their own arses at the decline in Scottish Education. blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/curriculum-for-excellence/

last year in clearing there were passes in clearing at Aberdeen Glasgow Edinburgh and St Andrews that were not available for Scottish students only English or Foreign students as they have a limited number of places for Scottish students as there are no fees for the universities to make ends meet they need paying students

I live in Scotland my DD is in state primary here, the curricular for excellence is neither a curriculum nor excellent

The named person scheme was basically usurping parents for all kids that basically someone who perhaps barely knew the kid could make decisions without involving parents
it was always the case even before the scheme was moted that information could be shared without consent if the child was at risk
what the named person scheme was doing was sharing info without consent to save the bother of getting consent when involving parents could have placed child at no additional risk whatsoever
as a dentist I could ring a headteacher or social worker if I had concerns so serious that telling parent would place child at risk maybe I thought the tooth damage was a result of an non accidental injury
however if I wanted nervous Johnny to have 9am appointments so he would come better than a tired 5-6 year old after school then there is no reason for me not to tell Johnny's parents to use cloak of named persons to ring teacher without telling parent sis unnecessary
last year when BA was hacked you knew if your info was at risk as you could check did I book a flight between X and Y dates
however with NP no-one knows who has what dayta about your child so if a file gets hacked in Fife you think oh that's not my child as we are in Inverness but you are unaware your childs info is not safe as no one told you the info was sent to Fife and now they are covering it up
" I don't really buy the if you are doing everything right you have nothing to hide " well maybe but that doesn't mean I want anyone to access private info on either me or DD especially if we don't know who actually has the info or what they are sharing
for head teachers it is too heavy a responsibility to be the named person for 2-300 different children especially in a large school where you might only really know their name if that
also with being named person for a large number of kids what is in the best interests of kid A maybe in conflict with what is right for kid B you really can't in school get it right for every child all the time. Kid A best interests maybe having kid B the bully being removed from school but it might not ultimately be in Kids B interest it is best that Parent A and B advocate for their child rather than a named person thinking they can do justice to both in the wider world obviously at school they have to balance A against B but the named person scheme was going far beyond this
That is why it was found lacking in court because it fell so drastically sort of the rights to a private life and to know what info was being held where you can access your own and your child's medical records in full except in very very limited circumstances there appeared to be no rights to know under NP what info and records were being held where and what they said. It was already the case in limited difficult circumstances info can be withheld but it should not be blanket for convenience

There are many good things in Scottish schools like no sending kids home for wrong colour socks or hemline and results in Scotland were good in fact until recently Scottish education was generally deemed a bit ahead of English but this has now reversed it is not due to lack of uniform enforcement as uniform enforcement has never been legal in Scotland

sorry too many typos !!

@MumofHunter

You don't automatically get a uni place if you have the correct grades. You need to apply and get accepted. Universities have limited spaces for Scottish students. Once they are full, it doesn't matter if you have the grades. You won't be accepted.

As someone who is English - the NP scheme was frightening, especially as I have a child with SN, and I know her Primary school made all kinds of reports about us which other agencies found horrendous (SS and CAHMS have both made comments about reports).

And my older DD when she visited Scottish Universities at University fairs - found that they were very keen to recruit her as an English students, and in most cases offered some kind of Bursary. It seemed obvious that the fees they could charge were very attractive to them.

MumofHunter, yes I DO live in Scotland! I’m English but have lived here for over 40 years. I put both my DC through uni, one in Scotland, one in England, so I feel perfectly qualified to comment. I also worked as a hospital doctor in the Scottish NHS for 36 years.
All the replies I would have made to you have been well covered by PPs, so I don’t need to repeat them.
But you really don’t seem to grasp the fact that places at Scots uni’s for Scots students are limited by the SNP administration to the number they’re willing to fund - in the absence of fees. The uni’s have to offer all their remaining places to English or overseas (non eU) students who DO pay fees.

Um... the curriculum for excellence isn’t the SNP’s they inherited it...

All unis have always had extra spaces for overseas students who pay £20k fees. It’s not unique to Scotland or since home fees were abolished.

All unis have always had extra spaces for overseas students who pay £20k fees. It’s not unique to Scotland or since home fees were abolished.
The difference with Scotland is its Unis are positively recruiting English and EU students who don't have to pay £20K+ a year fess but just £9000. This is not something that other parts of the UK do - there is no special recruitment from Welsh Unis for my English DD for example, or NI ones.

I have never heard any of my friends and colleagues complaining that their kids didn't get into the university they wanted because of lack of spaces allocated. And I know lots of them have gone to Scottish universities (all who are going to university are going to Scottish ones.) Our own niece and nephew went to Glasgow and Strathclyde respectively.

I think I'd prefer to look at the actual statistics rather than anecdotal "evidence" .

www.ed.ac.uk/student-recruitment/admissions-advice/admissions-statistics

The University website also specifically states that places are limited by the Scottish government.

Going back to the NP scheme, MollyButton I just want to say that I'm sorry that you had such a terrible experience.

Superjaggy - it was okay, I was in England. Social services and CAMHS both believed me, especially after meeting my DD - what had been said about her obviously didn't match the child they saw, and in at least one case what the school reported was pretty obviously a failure of their safeguarding rather than my parenting (not informing me of a cancelled club and my DD walking herself home, because I wasn't there to meet her, because I didn't know she would get out earlier).

But I have heard similar stories in Scotland and it scared me. Even Social workers work in a team and have accountability, and powers of appeal.