On your first question, I hope that the view that I described is widely held, given that the Scottish Legal Aid Board registration criteria make it clear that everyone must sign up to and commit to it. Most such work is legal aided, which—without being pejorative—tells us something about the circumstances of the people who by and large require the benefit of such representation.
As I have said, I hope that everyone has signed up to the approach and, if there is a concern, it is probably more about training. However, the concern is not just about the training of solicitors; when solicitors represent parents, for example, there seems to be an assumed conflict between the child’s interests on the one hand and the parents’ interests on the other. That is fundamentally the wrong approach.
The 2011 act is a carefully constructed and comprehensive piece of legislation that sets out various legal principles, and the underlying principle is ensuring the child’s welfare. The child’s welfare is therefore not a separate concept. One arrives at a view of what is in the child’s best interests when one goes through the proper process with everyone participating effectively, applying the correct legal test and reaching the best conclusion that one can.
If we simply took a subjective view of what is in a child’s best interests, the problem is that I, Morag Driscoll and the convener might well have different views, and that is why the legislation is crafted in the way that it is. I am concerned by the suggestion that, if solicitors advocate a different position, they are inherently acting contrary to a child’s welfare. In my respectful view, that is not the case. One should determine what is in a child’s best interests at the end of the process.
That is all that I have to say on Daniel Johnson’s first question. I do not know whether Morag Driscoll wants to respond to the second.