TRIALS of the controversial named person service should be immediately suspended after legislation the scheme is based on was found to be unlawful, campaigners have said.
The No to Named Persons (NO2NP) group, which this week won a Supreme Court victory when it was ruled that Scottish Government plans for data sharing breached human rights laws, has warned that councils that have operated the scheme for years with Holyrood approval could now face having to pay out millions as a result of legal action.
Read more: Kevin McKenna: Named Person scheme has seen SNP at its worst
The possibility was backed up by Jane Mair, a professor of law at Glasgow University. Asked whether councils running the scheme were in breach of the law and face court cases, she replied: "I think that is a possibility... because this legislation has followed on from practice that is already in place."
Simon Calvert, NO2NP spokesman, said: "Many Scottish families whose lives have been already been impacted by illegal intrusions in recent years have approached us and are seeking legal advice."
Calling for existing schemes to cease, he added: "They have no legal jurisdiction and in fact are in breach of the law. All the information which has been gathered in recent years should be handed over to families and any data which is held by public bodies should be removed and destroyed."
Councils operating the service, such as those Edinburgh, Highland and Lanarkshire, are believed to have reviewed their practices and taken legal advice.
The Scottish Government has insisted it will make appropriate changes to the legislation before rolling out the named person service, which sees a state-appointed figure assigned to look out for the welfare of every child in Scotland, "as soon as possible".
Read more: Readers' Opinion: Named Person scheme should not be used as a stick with which to beat the SNP
However, the Scottish Tories yesterday said Nicola Sturgeon should now admit her law is not "proportionate and appropriate", as former children's minister Aileen Campbell claimed in March.
The party's education spokeswoman, Liz Smith, said: "The SNP was told consistently that plans to share children’s confidential details were wrong. But critics were just brushed aside and told they were scaremongering. We now need to know how it was ever allowed to get to this stage.
"Either the Scottish Government knew it risked breaking human rights laws and went ahead anyway, or didn’t realise – in which case it has been utterly negligent. The SNP needs to stop the arrogance and accept these plans were wrong."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel