Kathleen Nutt

Political Correspondent

THE alarm has been raised over proposals to remove child protection services from councils with social workers warning the move may put vulnerable youngsters at increased risk of harm.

Under plans announced last week ministers are to set up a National Care Service for adults and consult on whether children's services should be moved into the new body.

Little detail has yet to be provided on how the Scottish Government would envisage the new service for children operating though the aim of the wider reform is to improve social care delivery.

However, social workers and members of the country's largest trade union Unison, which represents thousands of social work staff, fear the changes to could to lead to less support for many of Scotland's most vulnerable children.

Tracey Dalling, Scottish Secretary of Unison, said social workers currently responsibility for vulnerable children work alongside other local authority departments - in particular education - to monitor family members' welfare.

She warned moving children's services out of council control could weaken collaboration and remove the ability of people to raise concerns with councillors directly over a child's welfare.

“There are robust links in councils particularly in relation to children’s services. The biggest link on a local authority basis is a child’s link with their teacher and within education," Ms Dalling, whose trade union is opposed to the setting up of the National Care Service for adults, told The Herald on Sunday.

"But there are other services too, leisure, housing, libraries, that are already joined up. Often too in councils at a very senior managerial level these services are linked up. There is a single point of contact and that would be eroded, we think, under the transfer of social workers into a National Care Service."

She added: "These a very vulnerable children. We need to do our very best for them and I am not the slightest bit convinced it is through some new care board."

Ms Dalling said that uncertainty over pay and conditions for social work staff working in children's services could lead to an exodus of employees at a time when the service was already struggling to recruit and retain employees and this in turn could have a detrimental impact on the quality of services delivered to vulnerable youngsters. She was concerned too that the level of funding for children's services may be reduced under the new model.

Claire Strain-McCafferty, a social worker working with children and families, said staff in child protection should be locally based and close to the people they worked with in order to be able to response swiftly in critical circumstances.

"In my experience working within child protection, I would say it is absolutely essential that there is a local response to child protection. The response by staff needs to be immediate," she said.

Another senior social worker, working in child protection, who did not want to be named, said: "I think it would be more unsafe if we were to move to a national service. Social workers would be away from the communities they know and we won't be able to respond as quickly."

She said social workers often needed to call on a family several times a day before gaining entry to a home to check on a child's safety. She feared should a more centralised service be introduced with fewer social work offices in the communities they served, such vital checks may not be carried out so frequently.

The senior social worker also feared that reforms to the service could lead to more experienced staff leaving with the service dependent on more newly qualified professionals.

The latest Children's Social Work Statistics for Scotland, published in March, revealed that as at 31 July last yer a total of 13 255 children and young people in Scotland were formally ‘looked after’, while 2,104 children were on the child protection register, a 20 per cent decrease since 2019-20 and the lowest number of children on the register since 2002.

In 2016 a leading expert warned that child protection risks were being undermined in many parts of Scotland as care for the elderly is prioritised.

Children in Scotland chief executive Jackie Brock said the push to create integrated joint boards to oversee the integration of health and social services for the elderly could lead to the neglect and abuse of children being given less resources.

She spoke out following the murder of Liam Fee, two, at his home near Glenrothes, Fife in 2014 by his mother Rachel Trefla and her partner Nyomi Fee after a catalogue of abuse.

A Significant Case Review following their conviction found child protection officials "missed opportunities" to intervene in his case.

The report said his carers were "manipulative, devious and hindered services" and used "disguised compliance" to play one professional against another.

Scottish Conservative Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government Miles Briggs said: “Children’s services are just one example of crucial services that will be badly impacted by the SNP’s plans for a centralised and costly National Care Service.

“Our local councils are best placed to meet the needs of our children, but the SNP are now putting that in jeopardy.

“There must be a guarantee that children will always receive the highest standards of care, but they are set to suffer if the SNP don’t listen to the serious concerns being raised about their National Care Service.”

Scottish Labour health and social care spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: “Children’s services should not be dragged into the SNP’s plan to centralise social care which is nothing more than a power grab.

“Children’s services are best provided locally, by people with strong links to schools and an extensive knowledge of each child accessing the service.

“It is completely wrong for this crucial service to be pulled into a complicated new system without proper consultation with staff and parents.”

A spokesman for councils' umbrella body Cosla said: “We are taking the time to consider this wide ranging legislation. We have always been clear that local government should be central to the delivery of social care including the delivery of children and justice services.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: "The National Care Service Bill does not propose moving responsibility for children’s services at this time. In considering whether to include children’s services in the future, outcomes for those supported by services will be the critical consideration.

"Independent research will be taken forward to consider current approaches to the integration of services to make sure the NCS takes into account what works best for children across Scotland.

“The NCS Bill allows for children’s services to be incorporated in the future, but any decision would be subject to further public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny and approval.”