Chamber and committees

Petitioner submission of 8 November 2021

PE1838/O - Regulation of non-statutory child advocacy services

We have read the Minister's response to the committee.

Overall, we are dismayed at the apparent lack of urgency on the matter as set out in her letter.

Our petition has been discussed by the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee on several occasions in the light not only of the serious issue we brought to its attention but also following its evaluation of the evidence before it from a range of individuals and organisations.

Given the Scottish Government's commitment to the rights of children and its incorporation into Scots Law, we find it disappointing that the Minister is proposing a consultation to begin only in 2023. We acknowledge that the Minister has moved somewhat from her initial negative approach to the issue raised by our petition. We are grateful for that.

What we are highlighting is the dangers to the interests of children where children's advocacy workers are intervening in a child's life and influencing his/her view of its own family life without transparency or accountability. The Minister is quite right that "many of the services provided by child advocates may not actually be seen by the courts". That is precisely the point of the petition.

At the risk of repeating some of the points we have already made to the Committee, it is a reality that some organisations that employ children's advocacy workers' put themselves, and therefore their workers, beyond accountability and scrutiny. This is done by asserting that they alone should determine a child's best interests, even when that includes starting their intervention on the basis of what is at best an incomplete and partisan narrative of the relevant facts.

This does not seem to be compatible with the duties embedded in the UNCRC and the UNCRC Incorporation (Scotland) Bill which sets out a child's right to maintain a relationship with both parents (Article 9) the right to form his/her own views (Article12) and development of respect for both parents (Article 19). It is not for an unaccountable child advocacy worker to impose his/her own view based on incomplete information on when these rights should be limited.

We know that the Bill is in limbo at the moment but we feel this regulation should be in place and ready to go when the Act takes effect. We also feel that any organisation that employs unregulated child advocacy workers should be excluded from the anticipated public information campaign directed at children when the Act is given Royal Assent.

We realise that contact and residence cases are often troublesome for courts but keeping the activities of child advocacy workers in unregulated shadows is not an answer in a modern jurisdiction.

We urge the Committee to press the Minister to move with far greater urgency on this matter.