The next continued petition is PE1785, which was lodged by Shane Hepburn, calling on the Scottish Government to review and reduce the powers of social work departments. The petition was last considered in March 2020, when the committee agreed to write to the Scottish Government and to key stakeholders, including Social Work Scotland.
Our papers explain that actions that are called for by the petitioner are already in place, including that
“apart from some exceptional circumstances … no child in Scotland can be removed from their home without a legal order issued by a Hearing or a Sheriff”
and that
“local authority social work should properly consider placements with family members (known as ‘kinship care’) first when any placement apart from parents is necessary.”
There has been interesting and useful commentary on the petition, and I was reassured by the responses that we received.
Given that everything that has been called for in the petition is already in place, I think that we have no option but to close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders.
I agree with David Torrance that we should close the petition under rule 15.7, on the basis that the measures that are called for in the petition are already in place. It is interesting to note that, in its submission, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities explains that local authorities have a duty to promote upbringing of children within their families and says how important that is.
We are considering the judgments of social workers and decisions that are made in sometimes very difficult circumstances. We wish and hope that every decision that is taken is the right decision for a child and their family. We hear stories about when things have gone wrong in removal of children from families without legal process. That is very poor and I hope that we can make sure that it does not happen.
I am quite satisfied that the measures that are called for in the petition are already in place. We should close the petition under rule 15.7.
Given that the safety and wellbeing of children is in the remit of social work departments, it is probably one of the most heavily regulated sectors, and rightly so. I agree with my colleagues that we should close the petition, because it appears from our notes that the measures that are called for are already in place.
I am sorry about earlier—I was having problems with the computer.
This is a difficult area and there is a lot of responsibility on social work departments and on the system generally. I think that we have enough information to be sure that the right mechanisms are now in place, so we can afford to close the petition, under standing orders.
Thank you very much, Tom. I appreciate that we all—I, more than most—suffer difficulties with our computers from time to time.
I think that there is a consensus that the petition covers an important issue in a very difficult area in which one almost needs to make the judgment of Solomon in engaging with families and determining the risk that a child might be at, and balancing that against the rights of families and so on. However, like other members, I am reassured by the responses that we got and by the significant recognition that that tension exists and of how important it is that that balance be struck.
We are agreeing to close the petition on the basis that we accept that the measures that are called for in the petition are already in place.
I thank the petitioner for drawing the issues to our attention; I recognise that they are important. The petitioner may wish to take up the opportunity to lodge another petition in a year’s time if they feel that they do not have confidence in the measures, despite the reassurance around them. Again, we thank the petitioner for engaging with the committee.
The type of each item (debate, statement, questions, members’ business and so on) and the times shown are worked out by this site from headings, the chair’s opening words and the Official Report’s running timestamps. They are not the Parliament’s own classification. Text: the Scottish Parliament Official Report.
