Commencement of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024.
Development of a Children’s Rights Scheme along with a new Children’s Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment.
A Scottish Government consultation on the definition of care experience is anticipated.
Consideration of Hearings for Children recommendations including Recommendation 2.5: 'there must be a clear understanding at all levels of a redesigned Children’s Hearings System about what children and families’ rights are and how they should be accessed and upheld.'
The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) will publish the next Care Experience and Children’s Rights reports. These reports set out further information on recent progress and our planned activities over the next three years.
The Scottish Government will publish a ‘pathways to remedy’ resource to support children and young people to understand their options when they feel their rights are not being respected and signpost to the organisations who can support them.
A Scottish Mainstreaming Strategy, together with a supporting action plan and toolkit to support achievement of mainstreaming equality, inclusion and human rights operationally across Scottish Government and the wider public sector, will be published following extensive consultation.
Hearings for Children includes recommendation (13.4) - a single point of access for children and families and others who wish to make a complaint about an aspect of the Children’s Hearings System. This recommendation will be considered by the Redesign Board which the Scottish Government has stated will be pursued with the objective of streamlining, simplifying and consolidating the varying current approaches to inviting and responding to complaints and other feedback.
The Scottish Government is currently considering the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s Concluding Observations and Recommendations with respect to restraint and seclusion. These will be discussed with the established Government groups set up to work on restraint, including SAGRIBIS, Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group (SPRAG) and the Physical Intervention Working Group.
Activities and progress relating to meeting the conclusions of the Independent Care Review around restraint must not operate in isolation and close connections should be made to the development of legislation, guidance and practice in other settings. This should include the work on the Learning Disability, Autism and Neurodivergence Bill.
Work is ongoing across Scottish Government and partners to reduce, and where possible eliminate, the use of restraint in respect of children in care. This includes working with the Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group (SPRAG) to explore definitions of restraint, along with the availability of data, training and support. In addition, a working group has been established to undertake a mapping exercise of what work is underway to reduce restraint and identify any gaps.
The Physical Intervention Working Group should continue to meet regularly and keep the Cabinet Secretary for Education regularly up to date with progress. Progress must not stagnate. The focus should be establishing restraint as a child protection and safeguarding response and working to ensure that there is cohesion and joint working across all Scottish Government departments working on restraint in various settings (including education, mental health, prisons, secure care and residential care). This includes the work outlined above that the Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group is leading and should also reflect what additional supports the workforce may require to implement the Holding Safely guidance and other shared best practice.
The draft ‘Physical Intervention in Schools Guidance’ will be published. Scottish Government is considering whether and to what extent legislative provision required in this area. This will include consideration of whether the Scottish Government will take on the key proposals identified within Daniel Johnson MSP’s Members Bill with respect to restraint, seclusion and physical interventions in education settings. Any Physical Intervention in Schools Guidance (contained within a new, ‘Included, Engaged and Involved 3’) should be placed on a statutory footing through appropriate legislative provision.
The consultations to help inform the Promise Bill should include consideration of a legal and human rights framework for the use of restraint and other restrictive practices, in residential and secure care settings. This should robustly align with possible changes to the legal framework in education settings described above.
There must be continued implementation of the existing Secure Care Pathway and Standards and a detailed analysis of the Care Inspectorate’s review of the implementation of the standards in September 2023. This must consider whether more could be done to emphasise and embed the human rights requirements/duties, that the use of restraint must only ever be, as a measure of last resort, necessary and proportionate, to protect children or adults from harm.
The Scottish Government should review the responses to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) investigation in England and Wales. The Department for Education for England and Wales will include mandatory recording and informing parents of any physical restraint alongside new guidance on the use of force in schools and Welsh Government has published a cross sectoral Reducing Restrictive Practices Framework. Northern Ireland has succeeded in developing draft statutory guidance following on from an investigation by the Northern Irish Commissioner for Children and Young People. Scotland must learn from these approaches.
In order to ensure restraint and seclusion is happening in a rights-compliant way, Scotland must know when it happens. Consistently recording when restraint and seclusion take place is a vital way to monitor and scrutinise practice. Scotland will not be able to meet the conclusions of the promise in relation to restraint without a centralised national collection and monitoring of data on restraint and seclusion across all settings.
Children and young people should expect the same rights-respecting approach regardless of whether they are in school, in the place they live, or accessing medical care - across Scotland. In order to progress this, two actions must be prioritised:
- Anticipated publication of the initial delivery plan of the Scottish Mental Health Law Review recommendations, relating to the scope and purpose of the law. This will include information about the activities taken forward up until April 2025. The Mental Health Law Review stated that the Scottish Government should “propose legislation for a national register of restraint to be set up and maintained by a central public authority which is capable of hosting the exchange of data between multiple public authorities, and which is capable of reporting publicly on trends in data from all of those authorities".
- A consistent and clear definition of restraint and sub categories including seclusion must be developed that applies across all care settings. Clear definitions of restraint, restrictive practice and deprivation of liberty are required. Similar to the recognised nuance and overlap between restraint and restrictive practice, there is similar nuance and overlap between restriction of liberty and deprivation of liberty. Clarity must be reached in defining the terms used and referenced, and these terms need to be shared by all and used as widely as possible within and across sectors. While definitions will not curtail varying applications of meaning to restraint and related practices, clear definitions and a robust process of implementation would reduce their range.
