What is helping?
The Hearings System Working Group (HSWG) published its final report Hearings for Children, on 25th May 2023. The report is a direct response to the conclusion of the promise, that the underlying structures of the Children’s Hearings System must be more actively considered so that it is “best placed to truly listen and uphold the legal rights of children and their families.” Implemented and resourced in full, the recommendations will herald a step change not only for the Children’s Hearings System but for how Scotland works alongside children and families. The transformation will be in how children and families experience the Children’s Hearings System and in the way that more robust, timely and consistent decision-making and more bespoke, high quality support will help to keep the promise and improve outcomes for children and their families.
The Scottish Government published its response to the Hearings System Working Group’s report on 21st December 2023. This response accepts, or agrees to consider further, the majority of recommendations made in the report.
A Children’s Hearings Redesign Board has now been established, co-chaired by COSLA and the Scottish Government and consists of senior leadership from key statutory organisations responsible for the delivery of the Children’s Hearings System. This group will be responsible for the governance and oversight of all non-legislative aspects of the redesign of the children’s hearings system.
The group met for the first time in January 2024 and is progressing work to develop plans and priorities across 2024 and 2025. A planning sub-group has also been established to take forward actions emanating from the Children’s Hearings Redesign Board.
COSLA and Social Work Scotland have undertaken engagement work alongside social workers to consider the implications of the recommendations within Hearings for Children. Outcomes from this work are published on Social Work Scotland’s website and were presented to the Redesign Board.
The Redesign Board has overseen an analysis of current improvement activity, with a view of understanding what is happening and where in conjunction with the recommendations. SCRA and CHS are currently testing a few different improvement approaches. These vary from being small scale (e.g. piloting a 'Journey Scrapbook') to larger reform (e.g. piloting FGDM prior to a Hearing taking place, Child Friendly Scheduling and changes to Hearing Room infrastructure.
CHS and SCRA already work closely to ensure the smooth operation of the Children’s Hearings System, including as part of the Hearings System Working Group. Recommendation 2.7 of Hearings for Children contains a specific action to review CHS and SCRA functions and ways of working together to better uphold children’s rights and implement the redesign.
The HSWG concluded that a salaried, consistent and highly qualified professional Chair accompanied by two Panel Members, remunerated at a daily rate, was the model that would best achieve consistency and improve decision-making in the Hearings (Recommendation 6.1.2). The Scottish Government has not accepted this recommendation, however discussions about alternative options of remuneration and ways of achieving consistency amongst Panel Members are ongoing.
Hearings for Children included a recommendation (8.10) that the rights of brothers and sisters to participate and be part of their siblings’ Hearing must be upheld. In response, the Scottish Government was clear that, where appropriate, all siblings should get a proper opportunity to participate in and be part of their sibling’s Hearing. The Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 (Rules of Procedure in Children’s Hearings) Amendment Rules 2021 came into force in July 2021 affording siblings this opportunity in the appropriate circumstances. Work is already underway to support full implementation of The Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009, as amended by the Looked After Children (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2021 and Staying Together and Connected National Practice Guidance that will further support the recommendation to uphold the rights of brothers and sisters to participate and be part of their siblings’ Hearings.
There have been numerous attempts over the years to address and improve the reports available to Panel Members at Children’s Hearings and to ensure reports are streamlined and truly representative of the reality of children and families’ lives. Various projects have aimed to improve report quality, to improve the way reports have been written and the language used. The recommendations in Hearings for Children aims to build on this existing work and ensure significant and sustainable, long-term progress is made in this area.
In 2022, the Scottish Government published refreshed GIRFEC guidance.
In 2023, the Child Protection Guidance was updated by the Scottish Government, which sets out the responsibilities and expectations of those working with children.
Robert Gordon University carried out an evaluation of Children 1st’s Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) pilot in the Scottish Borders, which was published in February 2024. The aim was to enhance understanding of what FGDM looks like in practice and assess the impacts currently being observed, as well as to find out where FGDM is implemented and where the gaps are. It also explores the legal context of FGDM and considers whether it can be strengthened. Furthermore, the research looks at options to enhance the practice, legislative and policy framework and evaluate international insights that could support these decisions.
The National Family Group Decision Making Standards were launched in May 2024 by the National FGDM Steering Group, which set out a model for FGDM to operate in Scotland. They are intended to be implemented in practice to support consistency and quality and to incorporate into other existing relevant guidance for examples, Child Protection Guidance, SCRA Practice Directions and Children’s Hearing Panel Member National Guidance. Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) is currently available to some children, young people, and families in 23 local authorities across Scotland, however, most of this provision is of a small scale or is a test of change.
The Information Commissioners Office is currently undertaking work to ensure organisations are upholding care experienced people’s information rights. Once published, this should provide those working in the UK with clarity on how they can improve their processes when handling requests for care records.
Across information sharing and ownership, there are many recent and current projects working at local scale to improve the creation, control and sharing, and access to data and information. Organisations such as the Improvement Service and the Information Commissioner’s Office have been developing toolkits to support the workforce, as well as heading up initiatives focused on improving the systems and structures that govern information in Scotland.
Within the field of information ownership, there is significant and ongoing work to improve creation and control of information and to improve personal story recording—shifting the focus and power to care experienced individuals’ ownership of their own life stories.
Progress with information sharing is diverse and includes the advancement of best practice in case recording and social work writing practices, particularly at local level; the development of national informative and accessible toolkits; and improvements to software used to create, store and share information between organisations.
Digital identity work is also experiencing significant developments at national level. As both information ownership and information sharing rely on having a digital identity verification system in place, this work underpins improvements to both.
The Improvement Service’s MyAccount is a sign-in service used by schools and local authorities and simplifies information sharing across these organisations. Additionally, the new ScotAccount is aligned with the Digital Strategy for Scotland and is currently in a beta test phase in collaboration with Disclosure Scotland. These systems will allow for care experienced users to have more control and ownership over their information, as well as streamlining the necessary sharing of information between the involved organisations.
Organisations such as the Improvement Service and the Information Commissioner’s Office have developed toolkits and other awareness-raising programmes to enhance information systems and structures in Scotland. At local level data sharing and information access is progressing.
There is evidence of information-sharing improvements including case recording, the development of accessible toolkits and enhanced software for information exchange.
Significant progress in digital identity work underpins these advancements. For example, the Improvement Service’s MyAccount and the new ScotAccount, aligned with Scotland's Digital Strategy, facilitate better information control and sharing.
