IAIN Macwhirter (“Scotland risks being turned into a surveillance state”, The Herald, June 9) is right. The Named Person Scheme, while undoubtedly well-intentioned, is unlikely to make Scotland’s children safer. On the one hand, it will increase fear and anxiety on the part of many caring parents, especially those struggling to make ends meet, that their parenting skills will be called into question. On the other, it will place a huge burden on the head teachers, health visitors and other Named Persons who are likely to be targets if they fail to spot and address possible neglect and abuse (never mind lack of well-being). In the context of the tragic death of Liam Fee and all those other children in Scotland who have died at the hands of their carers, the scheme is likely to increase the kind of “risk-averse” behavior on the part of professionals that the 2006 Changing Lives Report sought to discourage.
Two measures would, however, make a difference to the protection of Scotland’s children. The first would be a return to a genuine community social work. Too much current social work practice involves workers in remote offices spending vast chunks of time on computerised assessments rather than working directly with local families and community organisations. The lack of trust between local people and social work agencies was identified by senior professionals as one contributory factor to the death of Brandon Muir in Dundee in 2009.
The second would be a refusal both by the SNP Government and also by local councils to pass on the huge cuts coming from Westminster. With one in five children in Scotland living in poverty and the EIS teachers’ union forced to issue guidelines to its members last year as to how to spot a hungry child, the massive cuts currently being implemented by councils in Glasgow and elsewhere will place even greater pressures on many families. Improved services, not more surveillance, is the best way to support families and keep children safe.
Iain Ferguson,
Honorary Professor of Social Work and Social Policy
University of the West of Scotland, Paisley.
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