Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 (Rules of Procedure in Children’s Hearings) Amendment Rules 2015 [Draft]
Secure Accommodation (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2015 [Draft]
Our next item is to take evidence on two affirmative instruments, as listed in our agenda. I welcome to the committee for the first time Fiona McLeod, who is the acting Minister for Children and Young People, and her supporting officials.
After we have taken evidence on the instruments, we will debate the motions in the name of the minister. Officials are not permitted to contribute to that formal debate. I invite the minister to make some general opening remarks.
Thank you for welcoming me to the committee. I look forward to working with you over the next six months while I am the acting minister.
I will make a few comments on the two instruments. They give effect in secondary legislation to procedural refinements to the children’s hearings system that were introduced by the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. The primary legislative changes were proposed following implementation of the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 back in June 2013. As you would expect, we monitor acts once they are in operation so that we can make any refinements that are necessary.
The committee considered the children’s hearings provisions in the 2014 act on 21 January last year, while the bill was at stage 2 of its parliamentary passage. In the main, those provisions amend the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 and they are to be commenced on 25 January.
The detail for operating children’s hearings and related proceedings under the 2011 act is contained in the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 (Rules of Procedure in Children’s Hearings) Rules 2013—in shorthand, the 2013 rules. The instruments that are before you today mainly give effect to consequential changes to the 2013 rules and related secondary legislation. However, we are also taking the opportunity, in rule 7, to address an issue concerning the non-disclosure of information contained in reports prepared by a children’s hearing for a court under section 95(2) of the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007.
I am happy to take any questions on the draft instruments.
11:15
When I read the policy notes on the instruments, I saw that the note on the children’s hearings instrument refers to the consultation that has been undertaken but that the note on the secure accommodation instrument says:
“No formal consultation has been undertaken”.
Were any issues raised during the consultation on the children’s hearings instrument and, if so, what were they? Why was no consultation undertaken on the secure accommodation instrument?
I am not yet completely up to date with those issues, so I ask my officials to answer.
On the secure accommodation instrument, we felt that the change was so minor and technical that consultation was not really required. The change implements a provision that is contained in the 2014 act.
How normal is it not to undertake consultations on such changes?
My experience is that, if the change is of a technical nature, we do not undertake a consultation at all.
Just so that we are clear about how technical the change is, what exactly does the secure accommodation instrument do?
The amendment addresses the issue of interim compulsory supervision orders, which are made under section 95 of the 2011 act in situations in which there is an urgent necessity. The amendment to the regulations is needed to reflect a change in the Secure Accommodation (Scotland) Regulations 2013, which had already been consulted on.
So the original regulations were consulted on.
Yes.
What issues were raised during the consultation on the children’s hearings instrument?
No major issues were raised. The proposals in the 2014 act were the subject of consultation with relevant stakeholders such as the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration and Children’s Hearings Scotland. We also consulted those two bodies in relation to the provisions in the amendment rules. We took on board the comments that those organisations made, and those views are reflected in the amendment regulations.
This is just a suggestion, but if, in future, no major issues have arisen during a consultation but you have taken on board the issues that were raised, it might be helpful—to committee members, if not to others—if you were to say that in the papers. The note says only that a consultation was undertaken, and then it is silent.
We will take that on board.
I would also find it helpful if there was a little less gobbledygook. I was not on the committee when it dealt with the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill, so I do not have that frame of reference, but I read the papers two or three times last night and I have not found this morning’s discussion to be totally helpful. I understand in my own mind what is happening in relation to children being placed in secure accommodation. However, for the sake of those of us who were not on the committee when the bill was being considered, can the minister tell us in her own words what the proposal means?
Are you asking specifically about the children’s hearings instrument?
Yes.
You want to know about the children’s hearings instrument, not the secure accommodation one.
It is the secure accommodation one—sorry.
Which one are you asking about, Mary?
I am looking at the explanatory note on page 13 of our papers. It says:
“the children’s hearing which the grounds hearing has required the Principal Reporter to arrange in accordance with section 95(2) of the 2011 Act must take place within 72 hours of the child being placed in secure accommodation.”
So it is the secure accommodation instrument.
It relates to children’s hearings, but it is the one about secure accommodation.
So Mary Scanlon is asking about the secure accommodation instrument, minister.
That demonstrates what I was saying about gobbledygook. Plain English would be helpful.
The regulation to amend regulation 8 of the Secure Accommodation (Scotland) Regulations 2013 is a consequence of section 86 of the 2014 act, which concerns the ability to make interim compulsory supervision orders when a child is unable to attend a hearing but is not excused from attending it. The issue is about when it is necessary to make a compulsory order in an urgent situation. Perhaps Liz Blair can say more.
Telling me that it is the consequence of an act is not very helpful when I was not here and I do not know about the act. I just want it in plain English so that I know what I am agreeing to.
I will help if I can. Section 86 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 introduced amendments to deal with the situation in which a child cannot attend a grounds hearing but the children’s hearing considers that, because the nature of the child’s circumstances on that day make it a matter of urgency, the hearing requires to make an interim compulsory supervision order. Before that change was made, there was no power for a children’s hearing to make an interim compulsory supervision order to deal with urgent circumstances when a child was not able to attend the hearing.
The change that the Secure Accommodation (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2015 make is purely in consequence of children’s hearings being given that new power to make an interim compulsory supervision order. When a children’s hearing makes an interim compulsory supervision order under that new power in those urgent circumstances, a children’s hearing is required to take place following that. The amendment regulations state that that hearing must take place within 72 hours of the interim order being made. The amendment that you are considering today is purely to put a 72-hour timescale on the children’s hearing following the making of the interim order.
I think that that was very helpful in clarifying the issue.
It was more helpful than what we had before, certainly. A little less gobbledygook in future would be even more helpful.
I am sure that the Plain English Society is right behind you, Mary.
I hope so.
I will try as hard as possible to put it in plain English. These are regulations consequential to an act; therefore, there are technicalities that we have to ensure are there.
There are explanatory notes, but it would help if they were in plain English. However, I understand that there are technicalities.
That was very helpful. I thank the minister and her officials for those explanations and answers.
As there are no further questions, we move on to item 5, which is the formal debate on the instruments. I invite the minister to speak to and move motions S4M-12017 and S4M-12018.
Thank you, convener. I think all the explanations have been given.
Motions moved,
That the Education and Culture Committee recommends that the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 (Rules of Procedure in Children’s Hearings) Amendment Rules 2015 [draft] be approved.
That the Education and Culture Committee recommends that the Secure Accommodation (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2015 [draft] be approved.—[Fiona McLeod.]
Motions agreed to.
I thank the minister and her officials.
Our next committee meeting will be on 27 January. Next week we will have an informal visit to meet British Sign Language users in connection with our scrutiny of the British Sign Language (Scotland) Bill.
Meeting closed at 11:24.Previous
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