This morning, the independent care review published one of the most significant reports that we will consider in this session of Parliament. Indeed, I consider this to be one of the most important moments so far in my tenure as First Minister. I am making today’s statement to underline my political and personal commitment to turning the report’s vision of how we must care for our most vulnerable young people into reality as quickly as possible.
I do not mind saying that I felt very emotional when I read the report’s main volume, “The Promise”. There is a really powerful simplicity to what it says that we and, most important, the young people who experience it, should expect from a good care system. It should have love and nurture at its heart. Wherever possible, families must be supported to stay together. When that is not possible, the relationships that matter to young people—particularly those with brothers and sisters—must be protected. When a child needs our care, the priority must be the provision not of a series of placements or arrangements that are driven by the needs of bureaucracy but of stable, safe, secure, loving homes that allow them to experience the joys and the normal challenges of growing up and to fulfil their potential in life.
None of that should be at all controversial. However, it distresses me—as, I am sure, it distresses all of us—that that is not the experience of all young people who are in, or who have passed through, our care. To be blunt, we let too many of them down, and they pay the price of that for the rest of their lives. In too many instances, the price can be a life cut short.
The statistics have always told us that, but in the report we hear it directly from the young people for whom we have responsibility. Further, it is not just true here in Scotland; there is possibly no country in the world in which the care review’s vision of care is yet a living reality. As a result of the report’s publication there is, therefore, an opportunity for Scotland to become the first country that makes it so—and I am determined that we should do so.
I place on record my sincere thanks to Fiona Duncan and all the review group members for all the work that they put into the report. They have done a truly outstanding job. I also pay tribute to Who Cares? Scotland, which has been the driving force behind the review’s creation.
Perhaps the most important achievement of the review—and the reason for its conclusions being so powerful—is that it has the voices of people in care at its heart. People with experience of care made up half of the review’s co-chairs and working group members. The review listened to more than 5,500 people, more than half of whom were children, young people, adults and families with direct experience of care; the others were paid and unpaid carers. All their stories have shaped everything in the report. I take this opportunity to thank each and every one of those 5,500 people. I know that sharing stories about painful and traumatic personal experiences is not easy. However, by doing so, they have all helped to make things better for children and young people in the future.
I know that the care-experienced voice in the report is real. Since 2016, I have met just over 1,000 young people who have experienced care, and I will carry our conversations in my heart for the rest of my life. Indeed, some of the early ones led directly to the creation of the review. As I read the report, from every page I heard the voices and the stories of the people I have met. Let me be very clear: I have met many young people with good experience of care who are doing brilliantly, but I have also met many who are doing so even though their care experience was not good and whose achievement is entirely down to their own talents and resilience. I have also seen at first hand the dedication, commitment and passion of those who work in the care sector, and I thank them for that.
However, I have also heard far too many heartbreaking stories. Despite the best efforts and intentions of everyone involved, the actual experience of too many people in care is not what they have a right to expect. The world that is described in today’s report—of a care system that feels “fractured, bureaucratic, unfeeling”, stigmatising and mired in the use of impersonal language such as “placements”, “contact” and “respite” to describe what should be loving relationships—is one that I have had recounted to me many times. That must change.
It is also why the vision and blueprint for transformational change that are set out in “The Promise” are so vital. At their heart are five foundations of care. The first is voice: children must be heard and listened to in all decisions about their care. The second is family: whenever possible, families should be supported to stay together with their children. Our first priority should be to do all that we can to keep children out of care and with their own families. The third foundation is care: when living with their own families is not possible, children must stay with their brothers and sisters when it is safe for them to do so, and they must belong to a stable, loving home. The fourth foundation is people: those in the workforce and wider community who look after children must be well supported so that they, in turn, can provide compassionate care and decision making. The fifth is scaffolding: the system of help, decision making, support and, crucially, accountability that surrounds all of that must be more supportive and responsive.
The report also makes an important but challenging point about risk. Of course, we must always consider the immediate risk of harm to a child when decisions are made about their care. However, we must also consider the risk that is created when we remove a child from their family or overburden their childhood with bureaucracy. The risk then is that we compound their trauma and make it harder for them to enjoy stable, loving, long-term relationships. Protecting family relationships and, above all, allowing children to enjoy the kind of childhood that others take for granted is often the best way of protecting them from harm.
The report sets out very clearly the direct costs of supporting children in care and also the hidden costs of the failures of care—the long-term human and financial costs that are borne not just by society but, more important, by the individuals whose experience of being let down by care impacts negatively on their life chances.
I hope that all members will take the time to read the report in full. I have tried to summarise its principles and key conclusions as best I can, but, in the short time that I have available, I cannot possibly do justice to the detail of the 80 specific changes that it recommends. What I can and will say unequivocally is that I am determined to get on with implementing it at pace. That will involve practical change at every level but, more fundamentally, it will require a transformation in the culture of care.
The Scottish Government has already made some changes while the review has been doing its work—for example, by introducing the care-experienced bursary—but today’s report leaves no room for doubt that we must do more, and we must do it more fundamentally, more systematically and more quickly. A radical overhaul is what the review demands, and that is what we have a duty to deliver.
I want to be clear, though, that we will continue to listen to care-experienced voices who have additional ideas and suggestions to make. There is not and never will, or should, be a closed door.
We will act straight away to implement the plan section of the report. There are two key immediate elements to that. The first is the establishment of a team to quickly turn the report into a detailed delivery plan. Although the report recognises that full implementation of its vision will take time, the process of change must and will start immediately.
The second is the creation of an independent oversight body. I confirm that both groups will include people with experience of care. In fact, half the members of the oversight body—including the chair, who will be from outside the Scottish Government—will have experience of care.
Those groups will ensure that we keep up the momentum that has been established by the review. The Government aims to make progress in a matter of weeks and will update Parliament regularly thereafter.
Throughout the care review process—as I have been speaking to 1,000 voices—I have been struck by the fact that for ministers, in particular, but actually for all parliamentarians, the responsibility that we owe to young people in care is a very special one. In fact, ensuring that they have an equal chance to succeed and that they benefit from the stable, loving relationships that so many of us took for granted when we were growing up is one of the most important duties that any of us has in public life. It is a duty that I take very seriously and very personally.
Today’s report makes the need for action overwhelmingly clear. It sets out the extent of our obligations. However, it also gives us an opportunity: the opportunity to change thousands of young people’s futures for the better. The Scottish Government is determined to take that opportunity. We will work with local authorities, care providers and all other relevant partners to make the necessary changes to care. We will deliver that change as quickly and as safely as possible—starting now—and we will ensure that people with care experience remain at the heart of the process.
That is the promise that I make today to all those—past, present and future—who need our care. In keeping that promise, as I am determined to do, I look forward to robust challenge but also, I hope, to the cross-party support, interest and engagement of the Parliament.
I commend this statement to the Parliament.