Gweithio bawb. Felly, dw i ddim ddim nhw i��w peiriau yng Nghymru i ddim yn 2017. Felly, bwyf yn ddewch am ddechrau'r iawn i ddim ziw feesfa ac oedda ni oedd eu cyfnod o'r wneud beth oedd yn chi. Felly, ddim fod i gweithio ar Yabis Scot Scydd i ddim yn fanolod, a'r Ffulton Maigrega wedi'i gyda'r dyfodol o bwyr mewn ffordd. Fy ffnod i chi'r ei ddweud i gweithio yr yrwnt iawn yn cael eu byw o gונים private items. Item 3 of this meeting is consideration evidence which will here in the children' hearing system are members' content that we take item 3 in private etc. ridiculous. The committee plans to consider its work programme on 22 March are members content that we consider our work programme in private on that date. We are planning to hear from the ministers for childcare in early years on 29 March. Are members content that we consider an item reviewing the evidence that we hear from the minister in private. We move on to agenda item two, which is a round table discussion on the children's hearing system. Before we start, I want to put on record my thanks to everyone who has contributed already to the committee's work on the children's hearing system. We have had a number of round tables recently and they are intended to promote more of a conversational style of evidence gathering. That said I remind everyone to indicate to me or to the clerks if they would like to speak and I will then call you. I suggest to start that we go round the table and briefly introduce ourselves. I'm James Dornan, MSP, and I'm the convener of the committee. I'm John Lamont, MSP deputy convener of the committee. I'm Jennifer Phillips, I'm a panel member in Glasgow, and I'm also a member of the AST, the area support team. I'm the lead panel representative. I'm Julia Donnelly, I'm the head of representation at Clang child law. I'm Ross Greer, MSP for the West of Scotland. I'm Richard Lochhead, MSP for Murray. I'm Daljeet Dagan, I'm a child and service manager with Barnardale Scotland. I'm Daniel Dunstan, MSP for Edinburgh Southern. I'm Colin Beattie, MSP for Midlothian North and Musselburgh. I'm the chair of the Children's and Family Standing Committee for Social Work Scotland. I'm also a chief social work officer in the Strangfordshire. I'm Boyd McAdam, the national convener and chief executive officer of Children's Hearing Scotland. I'm Gillian Martin, MSP for Aberdeenshire East. I'm Ross Thompson, MSP for North East Scotland. I'm Malcolm Shaffer, head of practice and policy at the Scottish Children's Reporters Administration. I'm Jennifer Davidson, I'm the executive director of a new institute called Inspiring Children's Futures, which is a joint venture of CELSIS, the Centre for Excellence for Look after Children and the Centre for Youth and Criminal Justice and the University of Strathclyde. Liz Smith, I'm a Conservative member for Mid Scotland and Fife. Fylton McGregor, MSP for Co-Bridge and Creson. Thank you very much. I intend to cover three specific areas of interest today within our overall theme, which is to look at how well or otherwise the reforms from the 2011 act are bedding in. The three specific areas of interest are the feedback loop, advocacy and provision of legal aid. Having said that, we won't be too rigid and I'll start with a general question for the table. So in terms of the reforms of the 2011 act, what has worked well and what has not worked so well from the point of view of the child? Is a child today better or worse off following the 2011 act? So I've started with an easy one. Is there anyone that would like to take that on? As I say, I've started with an easy one. Mr McAdam, you... I will start, if I may. I think in terms of the child, they should be getting a better experience of standard approach and quality. What we've done through the act, we've created a system of guaranteeing better quality assurance around the panel members, the training that they go through. They now achieve a professional development award that demonstrates that they've got competencies. We've introduced core training that we require all panel members to undergo to refresh their skills. So the experience of young people should be better. There are lots of areas as the evidence has shown where we can improve and we are collectively working through the children's hearings improvement partnership to address them. I think there's one point that I would say from the point of volunteers is that we have a system that works. There are 35,000 hearings going on across Scotland. A lot of the focus in the discussion is around the role of solicitors, legal representatives within the system. That represents about... I think about 10 per cent of all hearings have legal representatives in them. Appeals are about 3 per cent of hearings decisions of which just about 40 per cent are successful. So I think it's right that we look at advocacy and how we enhance the experience of young people, but we have to recognise too that there's a system that's going on daily supported by volunteers. Is there any way that it can be gauged if the children are feeling that they're getting a better deal now than they were prior to the 2011 act? We do children and families surveys every two to three years, so for a period of time we should be able to gauge what the results are. We did one last year that showed some improvement in terms of children's perception of how they were treated at hearings, but it still indicated that there was a way to go. That is one method by which we can look at measurement. I may add that as an outside agency I would support that one of the improvements made by the act has been the national management of children's panel and safeguarders, which was another reform, both of which have introduced an element of consistency, of practice and support that has been sorely needed. I would also say that the act has contributed to a greater thinking in terms of encouraging the participation of children at hearings, and that is still work that is on-going. We have various pieces of work that we are producing through the Children's Healing Improvement Partnership to support that. Other elements that have helped have been more technical. The modernisation of grounds of referral gives children and families better reasons why they are being referred to the hearing. The use of interim orders has introduced greater flexibility within the system, and in particular allows children still to be placed at home under an interim order that could not be done before. I think that if you were asking areas of improvement, then there is one significant area that has not been fully implemented, and that is around the rehabilitation of offenders act reforms, and in particular the rules relating to disclosure of previous records of children attending at hearings. There has been a recent court of session judgment on that, which has indicated that some fairly substantial improvements are needed there to ensure that wherever possible children do not carry the record of their attendance at hearings into future employment, and there is an attempt at rehabilitation. The other area that is perhaps still subject to some debate is around the definition of relevant persons, and whether that has solved all the issues, or whether that has created more difficulties in terms of the sheer number of people who sometimes have rights of attendance at hearings, and whether that creates a problem. That being said, I do not have a more succinct definition at hand for that. That would have been nice if you had. Before I bring in my colleagues. I would like to reflect on that question as well, if any. I suppose the question itself about children's experiences of the hearing system, may I suggest respectfully that we think about the children's experience more widely than that, because I think that if we understand the hearing system itself, and that if the experience in the hearing is a positive one, that does not necessarily mean that children and young people's views have been well taken on board in advance of the hearing, or that their pre-hearing or post-hearing experience has been positive. I think that what I would like to propose is that we think about this in the context of the UN guidelines of alternative care for children that gives us a much broader picture of the necessity principle and the suitability principle. The challenges in the hearing system exist because they function as the gatekeeping mechanism between is it absolutely necessary for this child for compulsory orders, and what is the most suitable placement for that child? In that wider context, I think that we recognise that there are a whole range of tensions that exist, tensions that play out in terms of the hearing system in relation to things like the compulsory only when needed, but the urgency of children's developmental timescales, we've got the question of compulsion being placed on the young person, and yet it's the family themselves who will be so key to being able to ensure that things turn around and the families can continue to care for that child. It's also tensions around understanding what is in the best interest of the child, and sometimes that can be at odds from what young people's views are saying, and the judgments that are required in those decisions are very significant. You've asked the question, I think, about 2011 act and whether there's been some progress in relation to that. I think that we're definitely on the right track. My experience and our experience at Celsus would say that the principles are the right principles still in terms of the hearing system based on the Cabarendan principles that the hearing was established to deliver. I think that the three biggest concerns that remain for us relate to, first of all, with the changes that the 2011 act brought in, it has increased the power disaggregation across the panel. If we have additional solicitors coming in, which are essential to respect the rights of parents, of course, if we have a changed role for the reporter, both of which have happened from the 2011 act, I think that it raises questions about the way in which power is dispersed in the hearing and whether or not we have sufficient leadership to be able to take things forward in the way that's needed in the hearing itself. In the research that we've undertaken with safeguarders and indeed with solicitors, where we've interviewed safeguarders, social workers and panel members as well as solicitors, we've understood that there continues to be a misunderstanding of each other's roles and interestingly that those professionals each feel misunderstood by others. So it's not so much that people are feeling that they're misunderstanding others' roles, but they feel misunderstood. So in the context of people around the table feeling misunderstood, I think that there's a concern then about, this is my second point after we talk about the roles being misunderstood. My second point then is it creates a bigger challenge for us in the hearings to be able to ensure that children's views are really paramount, that their welfare is paramount in this situation. Who is then understanding what's happening for the child if there's a risk of the power being dispersed? And in the context then of not necessarily being confident then about the child being the focus of the decisions, then I think we need to be looking at how can we improve that further. So as I said I think we are moving in the right direction, there's been huge amounts of achievements. My suggestion would be that the next stage we look at is how is it, and indeed the chip is already looking at this, how is the quality of the evidence that's coming to the panel. Absolutely the type of quality that allows panel members to make really good decisions and that comes from social work and a whole range of professionals, this doesn't just sit with social work. But it also relies on skills of panel members so it's great to see that the education of panel members are increasing and there's more consistency there. I would suggest that the next stage would be to look at how it is that panel members can be even more supported in relation to their confidence to be able to take really difficult decisions in what is a much more complex arena than it was when Kilbrand was first established. Okay, thank you very much. Again before I bring in my colleague, is there any of the guests I would like to... I concur with what Jennifer said but we have significant experience of attending children's hearings across the west of Scotland in particular. I don't think that any of our staff have been to a hearing where there hasn't been legal representation present and it's become part and parcel of everyday life in terms of children's hearings. It's not an environment that's conducive for children. It's hostile, it's adversarial and it's also not in the best interests of the child. Whilst I understand that it's important that parents' rights are respected and supported, what we're often missing is what's in the best interests of the child in particular. I think that, certainly from my perspective, what's happening is that we often have 10 or 12 people regularly present in a children's hearing and that's because the agency representatives feel so passionate about what the issues are and what the concerns are that they feel that they have to physically be present because the multi-agency assessment hasn't been respected and often the social worker who's present is often scapegoated. We've had experience of requesting police escorts during the hearings because the leadership isn't present and whilst I understand and respect that the panel members are all volunteers, they are not supported by the reporter in any shape or form in terms of the hostility that's present in the hearings. I do think that we have to be clear about behaviours in the hearing particularly where children are present because those behaviours are probably behaviours that are prevalent in our share of courts where if children were present there'd be special measures put in place to exempt their presence whereas we're actually expecting children to be present so I think that's something that we really need to consider. When you say the behaviours, are you talking about from the legal representatives? In particular, yes. So they're behaving as if this is a court trial. And I think what that often masks is their lack of understanding of child development, attachment, family functioning and trauma in particular. So I think what happens instead is that we have actually had solicitors who've actively encouraged parents not to work with our service and our service is about supporting parents to be in a better position to support their children and keep children at home so often when solicitors are instructing and that's the information that we've been given by parents that they've been instructed by their solicitor not to work with our service which is a commissioned service but it's also a voluntary service and it's about keeping families together. I find that really quite concerning in particular. I think my starting point is that Social Work Scotland supports the children's hearing system. Fundamentally we think it's the right way to kind of deal and ensure that children are safeguarded through their welfare because that is the point of it, it's welfare. I suppose in picking up the issues it has become adversarial and actually if we reflect and understand the journey into that new system under the 2011 act, none of us were prepared to have other people within that hearing room and actually fundamentally we agree that it's right and proper that solicitors should be in the children's hearing system but also the fact is that the necessary conditions weren't around to ensure that that was a seamless position. So for example solicitors who were used to working in Sheriff Court who were used to working in criminal law were all of a sudden expected to come in and manage things differently. I think that what is curious for me is that the act allowed for children to get legal representation but actually very few children get legal representation and I would suggest that's because the vast majority of children that are now in the hearing system aren't your 12 to 16 year olds. They're your very young children that actually cannot instruct a solicitor so in some respects my members are social workers across Scotland are now struggling with the concept of whether it's a child-centred system or is it a parent-centred system and I think there's a fundamental discussion need to be held about where are the rights of the child within that and I think the point that Dalgi made is a right point that you've got children that are sitting through hearings for hours and ends actually with behaviours that actually if they were at home we would have probably went in and removed them at that point from their home but yet that's allowed to be played out within a hearing system we have reports from social workers who are threatened at hearing systems by parents but actually that's not an unusual situation but the conditions of the hearing system are pretty fraught so everyone is in a situation that they're quite stressful and they're making decisions around that and saying that the actual act in itself and the flexibility in terms of the orders particularly the interim orders to pick up Malcolm's point has been really really helpful it removes the issue of warrants and actually gives much more flexible options that we can actually place a child at home with some measures that will be a necessary a requirement for the child to engage which at times is a bit of an oxymoron considering we require the parent to engage with it but there has been positive elements of it in terms of the work of the chip we are working through I'm a member of the children's hearing improvement partner and we're trying to work through that but I think that there is an opportunity to look at some of the legislation and what it has brought and there's issues about relevant persons and we've seen it in our submission about the role of foster carers when there has been issues about their care but actually the experience there now is not a positive experience for social workers and when we bring in the whole issue of permanency and particularly when it is the Scottish Government's desire to get positive destinations and permanent destinations for children that creates an added dimension but I suspect that the committee will come and want to ask questions about that later so I would just want to pick up the points from the social work profession That's a Boyd McAddle on a question here I mean we've had two answers there that say that the advocacy aspect of it has been quite challenging and seems to be all-encompassing it seems to be there all the time and yet correct me if I'm wrong but did you not say 10 per cent of cases that? 10 per cent of hearings have legal representation as we understand from the legal aid board decisions to support legal aid but we also know from the search done that there are many examples of lawyers being supportive and working with the grain of the hearing and I'm sure Jennifer can provide she will have had experience of difficult hearings I think last Friday was one there are other many examples for parents' work and that help there are lawyers help parents understand what their rights are and help the environment of the discussion I don't think that the 2011 act it did bring in changes but even prior to the 2011 act there was always a challenge for panel members to create the environment to allow the child to express their view and I think having more people around the table has complicated that task so one of the challenges for us is to inspire the confidence in the panel members and particularly the chair to manage that environment where tensions are often very high and taught sorry Jennifer I can recognise experiences and hearings from a lot of what has been said but I have to echo what Boit has said things have moved on from the point where we were hit with solicitors coming in in greater numbers than they were before and there were some real difficulties in the beginning but now it is fair to say that in many cases solicitors being there is a bonus and a benefit because they are quite good at calming things down and asking their clients not to shout and you know put their points across in a reasonable way so they can be very very helpful there are occasions when they are not and I think what I have seen recently is something that is in a small scale but it worries me a bit and that is that the effect of that has been that children are being excused from attending hearings because the stress that it would cause them to be there is too much, it's too great and even recently you know talking to a social worker about some children the fact that they knew that there was a hearing coming along was stressful in itself even if they didn't attend because they had concerns about what was going to be decided and where they were going to be put back into a situation that they didn't want to be in in the first place Thank you, Julia Well speaking as a solicitor who attends hearings we should say we largely represent children in hearings and in our view it's one of the big improvements from 2011 has been the availability of legal aid so that children can have legal representation we think it's got a lot of benefits for the children as far as getting their views across making sure that rights are protected sometimes making sure that their views are heard equally with other people who are represented in the hearing it's inequality of arms things sometimes and we would actually on the rehabilitation of offenders situation one of the points we wanted to raise today was that because the situation is complicated we don't have time to kind of get into the law around it but we actually think it would be helpful if there was more representation for children around that area if children are looking at offending grounds or statements of facts that could be construed as offending because there are these very serious consequences potentially in later life where they can carry a conviction and that can end up being disclosed and impacting on their employment prospects so we think that's an area where legal representation for children could be extended so that children basically who are looking at offending get at least a benefit of advice before they get into grounds and more generally around the issue of the number of children who are represented something that we find is children are very rarely aware that they can have legal representation so we think it might assist if at an early stage they're given they're not just told they can get a lawyer but they're given information that helps them to find a lawyer it has to be independent obviously so it can't be too directive but often if you say to a child you can get your own lawyer they don't know how to go about that so that might see an increase in the number of children and young people who are represented I can't really speak for solicitors who are representing parents but what I would say is that I think I agree with what Jennifer is saying in that there are a lot of instances where when you're representing parents or when parents are represented it can be helpful in managing behaviour I don't doubt that there are instances of unacceptable behaviour and I would also come in with what others are saying which is that I think if the roles were understood and particularly if it was understood there is a duty on solicitors to ensure that the hearing is focused on the best interest of the child and the best interest of the child or paramount and that doesn't have to conflict with your need to enable your client to effectively participate but possibly there needs to be training around that and there needs to be greater understanding of all the professionals because it feels a bit as though the kind of adversarial everybody on different sides thing is becoming a bit entrenched and I think multi agency training we think would be helpful with that and specifically around everybody's roles so maybe if solicitors understand other professionals roles other professionals understand how the solicitors are working and why they are doing what they are doing that might go a long way to smoothing things out OK, thank you for that Dalgi, you wanted to come back in I suppose the only point I wanted to make was obviously that the 2011 act was about enabling much more effective participation by children in particular which would do a welcome but I suppose what my concern is I want to see the panel members on their own and what we've got experienced of is solicitors who represent the parents insisting on being present during that period of time which isn't in the best interest of the chair, I'm just going back to Jennifer's point about how anxiety provoking the whole hearing process is for children prior to attending the hearing during and after because they have been told all kinds of possibilities and consequences that might take place and have a relationship with a young person who's never met them until that hearing insisting upon sitting whilst that young person is boken to by the panel I don't think that's acceptable and it has to change and it goes back to how we support our panel members much better so that they feel much stronger and much more confident in managing that hearing in terms of what that hearing is about and why we're all there in the first place OK, thank you for that but I need to bring in one or two of my colleagues, Liz and then Colin Thank you, can I just read something from the committee perspective I think it's four times during the last ten years that successive education committees have looked at this issue and whilst I think it's been corroborated this morning that there has been some progress it's not nearly enough progress to satisfy everybody clearly from the evidence that we've taken could I ask whether you think that the 2011 act five years on needs to be amended in any way or whether you think we can make greater progress simply by amending the guidance it's my view that I think we're going slightly round in circles over the 10-year period and the issues that you raised this morning already which coincided a lot of the evidence says suggests that we're not doing our best to try to improve either the legislation or the guidance or perhaps both I'd just be interested in your views on that because that's obviously our role as the committee is to try to make these improvements Colin, do you want to come in at this point then? Just briefly, Malcolm Shaffer mentioned in the passing about safeguarders and I've had some experience dealing with safeguarders questions coming out of that firstly, how are safeguarders chosen secondly, do they receive any training and thirdly does the system work? Can we come back to those questions because that's quite a chunky session on its own. Kate, you wanted to command on I just wanted to pick up the point that Daljeet said that actually if you look at the statistics 60% of children that are in the hearing system are between 0 and 11 actually the bit about instructing solicitors is a huge issue for us and fundamentally with 20% being 0 to 3 so the ability of the child's views to be heard from a legal perspective is much reduced Joanne, do you want to come in? I'm interested in it just feels to me that the whole balance of the panel is now doesn't feel right to me for 20 years ago where the idea was the panel members spoke for the interest of the child and that was utterly their focus and that safeguarders provided a role to protect as well and I'm very concerned and first of all I wonder in terms of social work is that I'm picking a panic totally the pressure on social work is such that the actual quality of the reports that social work would provide in the past which gave a very good steer to the panel members what the key issues were the conversation with a young person a separate conversation with the parents so it allowed them to have a focus is that being lost and you have solicitors who can prove was a given an anecdotal example school provides an attendance print out and a child has been at school 20% of the time but they're able to identify one time when they were in school where the sheet says that they weren't in school but the pattern of behaviour would suggest our child has not been sent to school is the role of a solicitor then really to demolish what is a picture emerging through the panel of what's happening to a child I think that what I hear and certainly speaking to my fellow chief social work officers across Scotland and actually my own staff in East Renfrewshire and panel members to go back to my original point nannies were prepared for solicitors coming in to the children's hearing system and fundamentally agree that it's right in many respects but it's changed the dynamic of it, there is no getting away from that social workers will tell you that it's less focused on the reports and more focused on what's happening in that hearing at that given point of time hearings in the past when I first qualified you would have maybe three or four people at it at the very maximum you can have anything up to 18, 19 people I had a recent experience where my social workers told me that there was a hearing for three and a half hours and with behaviours that were not in keeping to manage that hearing and this is not a reflection on the children's hearing system it's just a different dynamic the issue about reports is an important one because actually the best reports it's about the preparation and the engagement of the child and the family before we get to hearing and that is fundamentally the thing that has been lost because it's all about the decision making at the hearing and the journey is that engagement with that child and their family and that multi agency element of it and I think that sometimes the Scottish Government are reviewing the blueprint and I think that we need to consider that is what is the most important bit of the journey and it's about that child being felt that they're being listened to and that they're they're being heard and the report is fundamental to that I observed a hearing system not that, a panel session not that long ago and my observation was that the existence of the attendance of the solicitors made the parents more passive so they weren't being engaged with they weren't, we have seen somehow this can really work we encourage somebody really to say what their concerns are is there a danger for example that a parent would be reluctant to be absolutely honest about some of the challenges they're facing with the young person because that then becomes evidence and with the pacivity of the parent in the panel you're not really maybe dealing with the core issues now I can remember I don't know if this happens now looked at the figures for who refers I can remember in the past advising a parent that they might want to think about referring the young person themselves it's the opportunity to look at resources it's the opportunity to with people who are really expert to think through what are the problems this young person and can we work with him it would look at this that would never be a suggestion now and is that not something then that's really been lost to the hearing system it feels to me like a mini court now rather than what it was supposed to be to take the legal bit out and allow people the space to be honest about the good stuff, the bad stuff, the difficult stuff and then put a support round that young person I think we've lost a good conversations that we had with parents and actually the ability to ensure that collectively we were making the right decisions for the child I think that the 2011 act gives us loads of opportunities in terms of doing that and I think we've got a long way to go and I think that part of it the relationships that are with in that hearing room and continuing to have open relationships one of an unintended consequence of Boyd's role and we welcome Boyd's role is that that ability to engage locally with your lead children's hearing person has gone it's become a bit more fragmented there maybe haven't been as involved in the local planning for children and that's something that Boyd's tried to address around that but I think that we're trying to revisit that through the CHIP and we've got in Glasgow there was an engagement event trying to bring all the partners together to have that level of discussion and it is about relationships fundamentally the difference between our system and the English system is a relationship based system and it's not a legal based system and there's a danger that we we blard the boundaries around that just very billfy can I just clarify here from somebody else it does sound like every child's hearing here is a court case is that the case that if I could come back on a couple of points I guess I'd come back to something Boyd said earlier it's only a minority of cases where there's legal representation in hearings wrong question about the child's hearing system and I absolutely agree than some of the more critical cases you do get lawyers descending you get acrimony particularly where there's moves towards permanence and you know if you were a parent wouldn't you want a lawyer with you you do see I draw the committee's attention to a work that was done from the Scottish legal aid board with support from Celsys a research report into the findings of legal representation that's worth a read because it presents a balanced report a more balanced report than I think is coming across this morning to be honest in particular it may be squinted by the fact that of about the 4,400 appointments in hearings last year about half of them were in the west in particular in Glasgow so there's a particular focus there that you see in hearings in that part of the country for whatever reason but I don't want to get away from all the positives of legal representation and I don't want to get away from the fact that the majority of hearings proceed without legal representation I think it's really important that we get across the difficulties that's part of what we want to look at I was a bit concerned that all were hearings to ask what are the positives of legal representation because I'm not clear about that if it's to get people to behave empowered panel members can I just say in the ones I've observed I was hugely impressed by the panel members that if they have an authority and it's perceived as an authority why would you need a lawyer to come in presumably over time there has been poor behaviour in hearings I haven't required legal profession to come in police hearings a lawyer is appointed where parents cannot effectively participate in the hearing it's to help bring out the parents' views as part of that they can help and support the parents where they get emotional and upset within the hearing but they a good lawyer quite often a good lawyer will not say hardly anything in the hearing they will be there in the background Jennifer, you have wanted to come in I think perspective on this because Glasgow where I'm a panel member is probably one of the places where there are most lawyers in the hearing room I can only talk about personal experience in what I hear panel members in Glasgow saying and although there are difficulties in some cases many hearings do proceed without any legal representation and are not a lot different to the way they've proceeded in the past I think there are a number of things that fall out of it number of people in the room which we've touched on can be a real problem and I think lengthy hearings was spoken about a minute or two ago and I think there's a correlation between the number of people that you have present and how long the hearing takes and how contentious it is if you have solicitors there and there's no doubt about it it's huge I would go back though to what I said before there's good and there's bad and I don't think that the only thing that lawyers can do is can behaviour they are there genuinely to see that parents rights are being respected and often they do that as Malcolm said without making a lot of noise about it so I think you have to have a sense of balance in it one other thing that I would like to say I know there are different ways of having children's participation improved being looked at and that for me as a panel member is an important thing as I said earlier an increase in my view in children being excused from attending and you're getting their views by other means and solicitors are challenging those views because those views are not coming directly from children so I think we do have to look seriously about how we do that and threatening for children I'm going to bring in my colleague Richard can I ask solicitors who their norm is a courtroom and they're in the children's panel system do they have any training about the different way that they should be dealing with cases in this? Solicitors who are doing legal aid work in children's hearings which will be most of them have to be entered on a register and that's maintained by the Scottish Glade Board so that means that they have to conform to a code of practice which sets out standards of professional conduct that are defined in the code big part of that the code specifies that when conducting proceedings before a children's hearing the solicitor has to fulfil their professional duties to their client but they have to respect the ethos of the children's hearing system and they have to give the best interests of the child or paramount as well as promoting the effective participation of all parties so about what that would mean they have to get on the register they have to demonstrate competence in relation to I mean it's a variety of things but ethos of the children's hearing system is the first one I think and there's also and I've just got a list here ethos of the children's hearing system and they demonstrate that by things like attending relevant courses and experience so there is an element of it whether it's sufficient whether again multi agency training might assist with increasing the awareness of ethos of the children's hearing system and also I mean there's an argument for at the moment you have to demonstrate the competence to get on the register and you can be deregistered if you don't continue to demonstrate that competence one of the things in the Celsus report on the role of the solicitor and children's hearing system was talking about maybe more compulsory training CPD around and maybe not just for solicitors again but around how if legal representation is there to stay how you make it work within the ethos and make it work differently to how it works in a court so there is an acknowledgement in the court in the code of practice that you should be working in a different way to the way you're working in a court so that's known whether or not it's happening and what more can be done to make it happen more Jennifer you wanted to come on Thank you we've talked about the research a couple of times so just to clarify the research that was done on solicitors indicated that this was done in 2016 that the majority of solicitors who were working in the hearing system were valued and valuable and offering valuable input and where there was a minority where they were not following that ethos and the recommendations as Julia was saying are really important recommendations about compulsory training for these solicitors my suggestion would be actually one other thought just for you to hold is that there is a children's hearings improvement partnership post that is now been established that is a training and development post that needs in terms of training and as well we're hoping that there'll be some training that's clear for these solicitors in particular I'd like to go back to something that Jennifer said earlier about the tensions in the hearing being really rooted in the numbers of people rather than necessarily badly behaving solicitors if I may and this comes back to something that we've heard from you Ms Smith as well a question about whether is this about legislation is this about guidance or is this about ultimately implementation and I would suggest that there's been a great deal of implementation that's been going on at efforts being made to implement 2011 act and to ensure that children are held at the centre my first remark earlier on about the concerns about the numbers of people and then the disaggregation of the power around that room and how do we ensure that the chairs of the panel are really well equipped as well so we've got a fantastic one here around our table in Jennifer I know and when chairs are really effective and strong and skilled and have the confidence to be able to manage that room it is an effective process for children to ensure that the panel is making a good decision for those children where there's perhaps lacking confidence that becomes a much more risky situation and so that isn't so much a legislational guidance perhaps it's guidance but it's really about supporting chairs to be the best they possibly can be there is evidence in other problem solving justice arenas where having a consistent chair with a particular family delivers better outcomes we've never tested that in the children's hearing system and perhaps there's a time coming that we can do that in small areas to see if that is helpful and that comes back to attention for us about the fantastic value of committed volunteers who are the workforce for the panel and the tensions between that and the realities of scheduling and managing the logistics of being able to get for example someone who would be a consistent chair so I recognise what I'm suggesting is not something that would be simple and straightforward but maybe the next phase for us in the future which is about implementing the ethos of what we're trying to achieve Thank you, A. I really wanted to come in earlier on in terms of the debate over the legalisation of the process and I do find it startling that an eight or nine year old could be in a hearing with 18 or 19 people there including solicitors so I'm just going to ask firstly what's the impact on the children of that environment I know the word anxiety was mentioned is there any other comments or evidence about the impact on the children and secondly what are the solutions to that and what have you talked about the perceived problem what's the solution to it That's really my two questions Feel free I'm happy to come in here I mean I certainly I think there's a danger here today that we all bring our own perspectives about what the hearing systems and the experiences of children within the hearing system but you're absolutely right would we ask an eight year old to go into a room with people that they don't know and actually tell him the story about their life and decision making to be made and actually it would be anxiety provoked for any child to be in that situation and the difficulty that we have is that our children that are in that situation have experienced a high level of conflict and trauma in their life and might present that they look more able to manage it because of what they actually had to experience through all their life and we know that that is sometimes the case for these children I suppose I'm conscious that the evidence and procedure reviews on going about the role of evidence of children in court and I understand Lady Dorian's looking at that and I think there's parallels about whatever we come out in the court processes about how we participate and engage and allow that child's views to be in the hearing system and traditionally we have to dispense with the children and I hate that word with a passion within the hearing system and that's part of the business that goes on before we get there and actually I think that the 2011 act has been much more helpful in allowing that discussion and that debate to happen and prior to that children were almost failing that they were compelled to turn up but fundamentally there's a different way of getting children's views and I think that's what we need to be looking at and actually if adults are going to behave irrespective of whether it's solicitors or parents why does it need to be done in front of children so I think that is our starting point and that's what we need to look at That's a very interesting point because there's some way of pre-hearing that could take place before the child is present I don't know if that's feasible or if that's done or whatever Well this time I'll start with Jennifer then go to Malcolm We use a number of means to try and get round some of these difficulties and not always convince that what we're doing works we do try to offer to the child that they speak to the panel on their own but as you've heard already there are increasingly solicitors for the family that want to be there however a strong chair would just deny that if they could see it was going to get in the way but I think the strength of the chair and obviously the other two members of the panel can be important as well but yes this whole business of how children give us their views is absolutely vital and I'm starting to wonder whether in fact we should some cases of children separately from the hearing but I don't know if that's the answer or not One of the things we're doing is embarking on a three-year digital strategy for the hearing system and part of that should be looking at whether there's other means by which children can participate in hearings without physically being in the hearing room Are there electronic means is there video conferencing that's appropriate to look at that as a means and are there other mechanisms by which we can ensure that the child's views are properly submitted to a hearing in advance the traditional one is having your say a written form but we need to get beyond that and look at whether there's more advanced technology that can be used to help that so we need to look and think about those means we need to look at whether a child should be present throughout the hearing or whether there's not more use that should be making of ensuring that children are only there for a minimum period of time and can be excused for others and certainly I saw a hearing that you chaired in fact in Glasgow where the child was not present in the hearing but was in the hearing centre and you saw the child separately and I very much take the point that where a child should be seen separately it should be on their own and not with legal representation bearing down so I think we're looking and we're working with not least with young people themselves we have modern apprentices we're developing a young people's board we need to work with them in terms of getting their advice their views on how we can make their views most appropriately there at the hearing and ensuring that we don't lose the fact that the child has to be at the centre the worry is that you get lots of adults you get the child's attendance completely dispensed with and before you know you've forgotten that the child is at the centre of the proceedings so I think all our thinking is about making sure that the child continues to be at the centre but we try to use some imagination within how that can be done okay before sorry to say in terms of our advocacy service what we've been using as avatars is iPads with young people so that they're actually not physically present at the hearing but their voices are being heard and they're communicating directly with the panel and our staff are taking iPads and in many projectors as well so that everyone can see the young person rather than all trying to gather around the wee iPad but I think one of the challenges that we've had and it varies across the different local authorities is that because the panel papers have to be with the participants seven days in advance sometimes that the young person's views aren't heard because they're being presented on the day and it's not seen as being in cognisance of the seven day rule as well so I think there are variations but I think there's definitely ways in which we can involve young people okay before I move on to the next session can I just ask if any of my colleagues are any of the guests here I've got any other questions around solicitors and the amount of people that are Daniel Gillian so I mean there's two critical things I don't think we've quite bottomed out in this session and I think they relate to actually questions you asked James I mean first of all what is the case, is it a majority or a minority of situations where lawyers are present I'm not quite clear on that and I'd just quite like to hear particularly from Daljeet and Jennifer and is it a particular categories of cases is that the problem so you get your 10% but it's because that's at a macro level that actually if you subdivide that you see them much more present in some situations rather than others now the point is, I've still not heard a clear articulation of what the benefit of the presence of solicitors is now all I've heard is that they can provide a calming influence and support now forgive me if this sounds flippant but the last person I'd go to is my solicitor if I wanted to be calmed down so what is the benefit now I'm assuming that it's about information about the process now is is actually the concept of legal representation the best way of actually providing that legal advice and if that is a useful distinction do we actually need to look at introducing new boundaries actually so we define where solicitors can and cannot participate in this process and does that need to be hardened up can we simply leave this to the presence and kind of upskilling panel members because what I'm hearing sounds like actually we need to be a bit harder than that okay does Andy want to come out so I would clarify the research the research that we did didn't indicate the percentage of hearings where there were solicitors what we did was ask where there are solicitors in hearings what are people's experiences of that and what it found was that in the majority of cases it was seen a way of protecting parents' rights and the hearing having their views understood and where it was that majority it was perceived that those solicitors understood how to protect the best interests of the child in the context of that hearing despite their role of supporting the family the parents it was the minority that was not seen to be able to maintain that ethos so that I can speak to of those solicitors in hearings it was the minority who were seen to not be maintaining that ethos I think it was a boy that had said 10% of roughly in terms of the numbers we provide an intensive family support service where it is about trying to keep families together but inevitably it's also about preventing children from being accommodated in those situations where things might not be as they are and going back to Joanne's point is that if parents admit that they have got deficits then it's seen as evidence that other agencies can use so that's why solicitors encourage parents not to admit those deficits not to accept support so therefore in terms of our service we're often asked to assess parents capacity and their ability to look after their children and it's all their children not just an increasingly as Kate had mentioned we actually work with children between the ages of 5 and 18 but we're primarily working with children between 5 and 12 so that's who we're representing in terms of the work that we're doing in hearings and what we're finding is that nearly every single case that we go to there's solicitors present and we're not sure that that's the two local authorities so it might be that there's variations across the country but there's also one particular solicitor's agency as well do you know what I mean so it's not just and I think it's not a coincidence that the legal aid was reformed as well at the same time as the 2011 reform act as well because this is something that's not being new for us but we have been raising these issues for the last three years because for us it's just got worse and worse in terms of representation and again I would just want to echo the point that I don't think at any of our staff I've ever been at hearing where solicitors are representing the views of children it's been. Can I remind there's always been lawyers in hearings since 1971 but to begin with it was only where parents could afford for a solicitor to come to a hearing now there was a court of session judgement in 2001 something like that which indicated that we were falling short of human rights law by not allowing representation to ensure that parents would be able to effectively participate in hearings and it's those words that are the core issue it's where parents are unable to completely articulate their views or completely understand all the issues within the reports that was the purpose of and at that time an emergency legal representative scheme was introduced where there were certain lawyers on the panel appointed by the local authority who would be given to families the 2011 act changed that again concerned about human rights implications to ensure that families had a choice of legal representation but that it should be covered by Scottish legal aid board and Julius talked about the sort of checks there and if lawyers fall short of that code of practice then there is a complaint scheme to enable issues to be looked at which I don't think is being very much used and that's possibly one of the issues that we need to take forward so at its best it's about ensuring that parents where they're struggling to communicate with panel members that there's somebody there to represent their views or to help and support them put forward their views and the concern would be I don't see there's any going back from that if we want to be human rights compliant within the system please The word that's running around in my head ever since I've come into this area is its respect there's an inherent tension within the hearing because the panel members have to take a decision as to whether compulsory measures are required with the welfare of the child as paramount but those decisions affect family life and that's where the lawyers are coming in to respect those rights and as Malcolm says we can't get away with it I think that Liz Smith was asking do we need to change it I think that there are small technical things we can do but the fundamental thing we need to do is to change that culture and understanding and there have been lots of references about the system there have been lots of references to multi-agency training and I think that the 2011 act the co-operation between myself and Neil Hunter the principal reporter and the multi-agency forum that the Children's Hearing Improvement Partnership is is looking at those issues and it's beginning to develop multi-agency training to help that understanding that's going to take time the digital agenda if we make it work promises an awful lot in terms of participation but that's in the lead up to and in the hearing and actually supporting youngsters afterwards so in the interim I think we're very dependent on the volunteers chairing and the panel members I think chairing is a critical role within the system we provide management of hearing trainings for new panel members part of the core training is managing conflict within hearings and even if a panel member is not in the chair role they are there to support the chair but that has to come with the confidence to manage the difficult behaviors that do occasionally arise in hearings and others to understand that actually the role of the panel member is to move forward and take a decision and we have to understand that appeals and challenges and making use of processes injects a huge delay into the system which is deferring the actual decision that is needed in respect of the child so there's something about the culture that we need to change and inform I have lots of notes here but talking about the role and behaviour of solicitors in the hearing room is there a case for licensing solicitors so that they have to have a licence and training to participate and take on the cases that involve children's hearings Jeah Jolion Well solicitors as I said before there's a code of practice and also solicitors have to comply with regulation by the Law Society of Scotland when you're in court you have to comply with certain behaviours to be an officer of the court so I think there are already a lot of things in place that mean that solicitors have to behave and there's also complaints and procedures I've put a specific licence and training that comes along that means that they can practice in a children's hearing situation that's what I'm really getting at So you would be increasing what's currently in place is you have to be registered so you don't have to have a licence but you have to be registered and to be registered you have to comply with these competencies and you have to continue to demonstrate that you're meeting the competencies and as Malcolm said or if people observe that you're not behaving according to or you're not demonstrating the competencies and hearings there is a mechanism where you can complain about solicitors as far as I know the effect of that would be being deregistered which would mean that you couldn't get legal aid to go to a children's hearing presumably you could still go if you were privately employed to do it so I suppose there might be scope to this is what we were talking about earlier with maybe compulsory elements of compulsory CPD where you you have to fulfil a certain amount or type of training so you could make that register more stringent and you could I guess make more people aware of it I think is valid as well I think maybe if more people understood the rules solicitors are meant to be abiding by and are compelled to abide by so I don't think you need to bring in anything separate but it might be beneficial to look at whether you could raise awareness of the current system and possibly put more in place around the current system Jennifer May I come back to a point that Mr Johnson made for a moment in relation to the children appearing at hearings I'd like to point out an interesting if not rather bitter irony that we're talking at the moment about children not being in the hearing because of the for very good reasons absolutely what's interesting is also for us we're quite concerned about 16 and 17 year olds who could be in the hearing but instead are being seen before an adult court and I call it a bitter irony because as we all know the hearing system was established predominantly for offence grounds and moved now to predominantly care proceedings and yet the very reason we had the hearing system in the first place was to see, to hear offences and yet those are now going to the court so there's an interesting element here for us to explore about the interface between the hearings and the courts I would suggest and a greater engagement with the judiciary around this would be very very welcome Okay thank you I'm just a couple of last questions before we go with the response to something I get the fact that parents should be able to be supported to participate why they need legal representation to do that there's not the same kind of advocacy role that we see for young people could equally be applied to hazards and I know in past social workers and part of the report if not to advocate is to explain and describe the family situation and the parents situation and I wonder whether in fact or two things there's a conflict between sometimes between the interest of the parent and the interest of the child and the role of the panel the hearing system is to support the child and therefore there shouldn't be an equivalence because these are big big issues that a hearing system is identifying and having to deal with and if you've got somebody whose only role is to say whatever needs to be said on behalf of the adult in a room I'm not quite sure but the hearing has also been able to do which is to challenge maybe some of the behaviours of adults and are we now ending up in a place when I accept there's only a small proportion of legal representation but presumably the hearing system the idea was to take it out of the court system and to try and describe the situation not as to describe blame but find solutions but this feels like it's really like a family court finding other parts of and should we not just be honest and say there's actually bits of the system should just go into a court system and where the people are of like mind are willing enough to come together then that's where the hearing system would apply it feels to me as if we're trying to get mixed and I suppose the final final point is I want again to know is there an issue of resources for social work is there actually an issue about the ability to do that kind of work beforehand and whether in terms of advocacy you actually can you can find a different system from the one that we have just now Boyd I get the impression you were wanting to come in now I think on the I suppose part of run is just back to this word respect would legal representatives behave in the way they do in a hearing in front of a sheriff I think there's something about the respect for the authority of the children's panel members they are taking decisions and we've got to elevate that somehow so that people understand this is a tribunal it is a legal process it impacts on rights but the behaviours in the room at times can be disruptive and adverse for the child and that's what we're trying to avoid but I think the ethos of the system is right I think the forum to have the dialogue and the challenge for these two and a half thousand volunteers that are part of the national panel is to be able to manage that and take move forward and create that environment and I think there's a lot more we could do in terms of supporting those volunteers but we already place a huge demand on them they're doing 14 three hour sessions a year on average they're preparing for the papers they're doing training let alone the volunteer management of the system which Jennifer can talk about but I think volunteer element drawn from the community is a critical part of our system and I think we tap into Scottish society through having the volunteers they're being put up against somebody whose mindset and day job is not what is right and what is wrong is what they can win and I just, you know, why should it not be an advocate and in what set of, I mean calling if they're in my recollection here in the past where you get the opportunity to test how, why did you do that, what do you think about this and your lawyer saying don't say that that actually the parent becomes very passive in those circumstances, it's not active engagement and I wonder how we stripped back to where that original idea was that people were treated with respect when they're committing in the sense that people are prepared to recognise the dilemmas and all the challenges faced, but I would have thought a lawyer putting your hand in your arm and saying I don't think that's a good idea to say that doesn't actually deal, doesn't find solutions to problems, does it kind of, they become the dangers that they actually become passive and to retreat from what might be solutions for their family. I think the legal aid, Malcolm and others are far better to comment on the criteria for legal aid to support lawyers, it's at a level where either the parent isn't considered able to participate. If the lawyers aren't there, they are part of that forum, that discussion, whether supported by social work or others within the system. Again, I come back to my statement at the start that I think we have to recognise that for 90 per cent of hearings lawyers are not there and that discussion that is integral to the system is taking place. You had a question about social work resources which I'm sure I know Kate's answer to that. Where does that start? I think that actually it's curious that you've drawn that you've asked that question because I just want to reflect about where social work is. Social Worker in Scotland is under significant amount of pressure. It is the service in many respects that works the most targeted service for children within Scotland but one that hasn't had the benefits of perhaps Macrolans and or the teaching or the nursing profession in terms of the health visitors applications and in many respects aren't protected necessarily from efficiencies within the budget rationalisation that goes on. Nevertheless the focus on looked after children and the outcomes and the best outcomes are at the heart of what social workers do best because these are our most disadvantaged children and actually having that ability to go in and make a difference is important and I'll just revisit what I said at the very beginning conditions to making a good hearing starts before getting that child in that hearing room so time is the greatest precious commodity for a social worker and at times social workers are stretched to have that time because they have to deal with a whole load of different priorities child protection through the day they could have a child protection investigation I'm eating in the afternoon and I think these are the fundamental dilemmas that social workers deal straight away I think that sometimes that actually the ability to engage because part of going out and preparing a report you have to engage the parent in that report and fundamentally of the vast majority of children that are under 12 and particularly 0 to 3 or 25 percent are in the hearing system the parent in many respects are key to that so having the time to have that engagement and to develop it the most important bit is about sharing that plan we've got the child's plan we've got the implementation of GIFEC social work weren't giving any additional resources as around the implementation of GIFEC it was focused on a much more early intervention approach service approach but nevertheless we have embraced GIFEC because we see the possibilities of GIFEC having the one child's plan but again that takes time and for having that really good robust assessment you need to be talking to your partners which in the main are education and health to develop that plan for the child which takes time the situation is variable across Scotland in terms of social work resources if I would that be because the funding for social work comes from local authorities and it depends on what priority the local authorities put on social work well not necessarily because the funding comes from different places you know historically we've had monies from Sure Start historically we've had monies from different funding streams the core funding for social work is local authorities the core funding for social work yes but there has been additional funding that has went in that has been mainstreamed over the year and just like anything it's a movable feast we can't compare one bit of Scotland from the other bit of Scotland but irrespective we only have the one budget nationally and the national priorities need to be given around that and there needs to be a broader debate where does social work sit on that but actually sometimes social work is the creativity and how they do the engagement with children but time is of the essence to make sure that we get that level of quality OK thank you very much for that I would actually like to pick up a point that John will want made and say that in general it was a social work of myself practising social work before becoming an MSP I would agree how I would like to see a situation where there's no lawyers and children's hearing because it goes against ethos however I do have to say having been in the decision process many many times sometimes we're talking about the most difficult decisions that can't ever be made for people and if we're actually saying that the parents because let's face it, I think it would acknowledge them I would like to say it's a small amount of time but we do sometimes get it wrong and the recommendations that we make in those organisations and if we're actually saying that parents aren't entitled to legal representation that is a difficult road what I would maybe say is what there needs to be a discussion about is where does that legal representation come in because I would agree with the general consensus today that it should be in the context of the hearing just as I mentioned there I'll just declare for the record that I'm interested in I'm still a member of the social services council and I actually worked in children and families for eight years so I worked between 2004 and 2012 so the new act was just getting implemented as I was leaving on to a new role which had limited contact with the hearing system and I would say that lawyers have always been present at the hearings regularly but I'm probably still about that 10% rate and the numbers in the rooms that we talked about today that's not been post 2011, I've been at hearings there's been 20 folk in the room in 06, 07 you know that type of time so there is these issues are there and I think actually if I remember right I don't know if Kate would agree when the new act was coming out there was a lot of hope that it was going to change a lot of these things and actually I suppose what I'm reflecting today has indicated that actually we're hearing the same things so I would like to kind of put that in that context that some of the things we're hearing today for me it's not because of the 2011 act it actually has the 2011 act actually done anything to change that so what I would like to do is because I do realise that given my experience I'm not actually here to give evidence and I wanted to ask you the panel members sorry I apologise but what they think about you know some of the issues I think is where hearms are held because I think we really really need to make them more child friendly and I've always thought to myself all the hearms that I went to and it might be different parts in the country but all the ones that I went to across mainly Lanarkshire but also Glasgow and elsewhere is there were in rooms tables very very kind of formal and I've always thought to myself why not have them and we need to think out the box schools, people's homes in terms of having somebody there you know a key person you know that the child trusts the most it's maybe not always social worker you know maybe a teacher or somebody else in their life that that person's here with him to sell them and I know there is some things provision for that but it's not always the case so I just want to know what the panel think about you know about that about maybe thinking out the box about where we can hold hearms and you know people say I've got my committee to play bad John today Daniel Johnson also spoke in that debate yesterday you know if a kid's four why not have loads of toys around him you know it's been serious you know but there's no need for them to have to sit there and feel that if they move the parent or one of the panel members says no you need to get back sit back down don't run about you'll get more from that panel members will get more from that than anything else so that was my question Malcolm the point we are in a programme of redesigning our hearing rooms having taken advice from young people and in particular have removed the big table and produced rather more comforting soft furnishings and colours very much following them so places like Perth in Venice, Glasgow, Irvine are examples and we hope to use that in more and more centres and if committee members want to visit any of those hearing rooms and see please feel free to do so they do, I've observed hearings in those rooms and they do make a difference they really do and yes provision of toys play areas for young people again is something we're looking at waiting room provision for different types of young people be it an oldy young person or younger person interview rooms where people can speak to children young people before and after the hearing so we're trying to put quite a lot of effort into that and we believe that the early results demonstrate exactly what you're looking at that it's a more comfortable environment for the holding of hearings and helps just reduce some element of that tension and formality Rensan, I also want to share that point again I think the importance is the preparation and the young people have a right to bring a representative along with them to hear Jennifer can comment about not disruptive but active children within hearings I just remember Colin Beattie did ask about safeguarders no around the table I think has specific responsibility for them but there is a national panel of safeguarders they undergo a programme of training and maybe Jennifer might comment on how it works we do have one of the redesigned rooms which was redesigned and put from young people who'd been in the system so their views were taken into account and what Malcolm has said is true we've seen a big difference in that we have two more coming on stream shortly Glasgow has three areas because it's so big we're divided in three to make it manageable so we will now have one of these rooms for each of the areas it does seem to remove some of the tensions in the room which is a real bonus as well the difficulty of children playing with toys in the room obviously if there's a lot of noise going on but I think that is minor compared to the noise that some parents make so I don't think it's a huge issue it certainly hasn't seemed to be for panel members operating in that room maybe we should get some toys for the parents then as well Ross it sounds like a terrible cliche to say that we've on the whole had a very child centred discussion but I think that that is important what we've found though as a committee in other areas of our work is the value of getting direct input to our committee work from children, young people or from those who've had that direct experience so the question I would like to ask is for us to take this work forward how would you expect us to engage directly with children, young people or those who have been a child or young person who's gone through this process I'm really conscious that the written branch review has been announced and Fiona Duncan is the chair and we suggest that that's maybe some of the things that may well come out Jennifer would be able to know better than me as Celsus are providing the secretary I think that it's a good point we can sit there and talk as our own agencies and actually that fundamentally the voices of the child and the young person are key to this and it's about there is various engagement strategies across the board who cares, do fantastic work with our looked after children I think that it's fantastic that SCRA and CHS have set up their own board with young people we've got champions boards that have now been developed across the board nationally but it's how we do that and how we truly bring that in that it's not fragmented it's truly a national approach and maybe the written branch review Jennifer it's probably too early to say Jennifer it's too early to say how that will be brought in but I think it's a really important question you're asking and I would suggest that bringing young people here would be quite a different experience and a different set of information you'd get than if you went to them and so my suggestion would be to engage with organisations that are working directly with young people they'll get as one of them and ask to go and meet with them in a nice friendly colourful toy sorry Rosta we've actually already had a direct request from this committee in terms of young people but they've been asked to come here and I think it's really important that you go to them because one it's a school day as well so they're missing school so in terms of travelling it's a whole day they'll miss whereas actually if you went to them the projects that they're comfortable with can I just make it clear that we do that regularly that we go out and visit regularly this was really about giving the young people a chance to speak to the committee in a kind of formal setting and be able to get their voice across but of course if it's not suitable for the young children it won't be happening if you think about the vast majority of children who are now going to hearings they need just a 5 and 12 so an environment like this can be quite intimidating we will be doing that I know you do come out because you have come out before Kate mentioned we've set up a young persons board I think we're in the process of setting up a young persons board and it may not be a board but it's some way of young people with care experiencing feeding into SCRA to the CHS and also into the hearing system more generally but we don't want to duplicate the work that's been done with the care council that healthcare supports there are other organisations that do exist but we have an engagement with who cares so they take part in the pre-service training of new panel members they are we do engage quite a bit and the work on the better hearings that was mentioned in some of the evidence is actually taking what young people said I think it will co-brand in 50th lecture a few years ago they said we've been saying these things for years but we're waiting for action to happen and the better hearings work I think is an important way in which we can move forward in responding to young people's concerns I'm going to move on now to Colin, I'm coming back to you Colin would you like to ask the questions that you asked earlier on please based on some of the personal experiences I've had with SAFEGAR as I've been interested in learning a little bit more I don't know if there's anybody specifically around the table with the answers to this how they're chosen what training specifically they receive and does the system of SAFEGAR work, is it effective? Malcolm, you wanted to come on now The 2011 act gave the management of SAFEGAR to the Scottish Government and they've tended it to children first they have standardised the selection and training of SAFEGAR where previously there was very haphazard systems in some authorities so unquestionably there's a greater standardisation a greater openness a good dialogue with agencies because it's one national representation the core issue you've asked is does it work and the Scottish Government have commissioned research from a wide university which I think is due to report fairly soon which will hopefully give us some further clues on that issue I can certainly speak to individual contributions of SAFEGAR which have been immensely important in forming the direction the future direction of a child's future by presenting a sort of independent overview so there's some good skill out there but in terms of the overall pattern I hope we'll get further clues from that research that's been done How does the system work in terms of a decision to appoint a SAFEGAR does the hearing decide that there has to be a SAFEGAR is there a sort of pool that they decide to take someone from do they determine that this person's got certain skills or whatever or is it just next person in the pool comes up as SAFEGAR a SAFEGARter can be appointed by either a pre-hearing panel a children's hearing or a court and one of the important changes that has been made by the 2011 act is that once that SAFEGARter is appointed then they sit on all the proceedings until the end whereas in the past sometimes you had different SAFEGARters appearing for the court and hearing in terms of how they are appointed then children first operate more or less on a tax rank so it's the next one in the queue rather than specifically identified individuals so I think the intention of that is to ensure that all SAFEGARters should have the same breadth of skills and knowledge and equal experience needs to be given The jury is a little bit out as to whether they actually do the job It would be interesting to see what the research says Kate, do you want to come in and Jennifer? Can I just say that 2011 act I think that from a local authority social work perspective we welcome the standardisation and the consistency that children's first had brought to the SAFEGARter they have inherited a historical position that actually that when SAFEGARter were commissioned that the level of standards were at the table they were managed corporately within local authorities and we weren't necessarily sitting outside social work services for lots of obvious reasons because they needed a level of independence they are working really hard to kind of change the culture but actually if I kind of have to reflect in our own responses from social work Scotland there is a remains a confusion about the role and I think that is something that we need to work through at time and it's interesting when you get a point of conflict within the hearing room you're more likely to get a solicitor our SAFEGARter brought in and sometimes that delays the decision making for the children and actually we know that that's become an issue around permanence planning when the point of default is to ask a SAFEGARter social workers really struggle with that because it's almost as if the report that they've presented isn't robust enough for them to make a decision and certainly in times that that has been the case I have looked at the reports personally myself and I've been surprised about why we would ask for a SAFEGARter and I think that is about confusion and I do think adversarial situations deal with that one of the issues that whilst the 2011 act has been great in terms of the role of social workers and getting access to SAFEGARter's reports we don't get access to SAFEGARter's reports sometimes first time we see it it's at the hearing and we're working in the presumption that the SAFEGARter they may well have consulted us through the report phase but they're going to let us know what the outcome and the recommendation and that's not consistent nationally so actually the start of the the trail is for the social worker to act on behalf of children's hearing system to develop a report but as soon as that report or whatever the decision is made they're not kept up to date with it yet sometimes the individuals that are having to manage some of the dynamics within the family particularly when the family or the parents will come back and say SAFEGARter says this and that might be the first time that the social worker hears so there is a need for more clarity around the role of SAFEGARter's OK thank you the concerns that I raised at the beginning as well that have been spoken around the room about the misunderstanding of roles that we undertook about SAFEGARter specifically it revealed those things Kate was saying specifically in relation to panels choosing to request a SAFEGARter when there's conflict in the hearing and panel members misunderstand the role of social workers but also social workers misunderstand the role of SAFEGARter and panel members one of the recommendations that came out was to look at ways in which panel members confidence in the decision making process itself can be strengthened which I know is part of a whole range of efforts being undertaken at the moment but panel members themselves recognise that there was some decision to request a SAFEGARter when the decision felt too difficult to make at that time not necessarily because the quality of the reports weren't sufficient OK thank you very much my final question is primarily aimed at you it's about the feedback loop how is it working in practice and how valuable is it to ensure that the compulsory supervision orders create good outcomes for our children I think I have to apologise to the committee for landing 220 pages on you two days before this round table but we were in the process of preparing this first report and we thought it was better to get it out so you can see it's been a major challenge to just identify what information is captured within local authority systems we've had support from SCRA and local authorities in pulling this together but as the report highlights I think we do not have routine oversight of how hearings decisions are being implemented we've only been able to capture from the data presented to us information around 1% of compulsory supervision orders so there's a programme of understanding better how we capture that information routinely it's not to say that social workers and line managers are not working this of children but the management information just doesn't seem to be there and there's an awful long lead in time so I think we've started we've established a baseline there are areas for improving the act gives me authority to stipulate what information should be provided but I need to understand A what is meaningful is going to be on local authority staff providing this so I don't think it's working yet but I think we've we've started a process but as we have no data ourselves we're very dependent on other organisations a stage is kind of pointless then if you're only at 1% of the results from the supervisory office I think even for those 1% going to care authorisations there are issues that the report is beginning to highlight that we need to understand better what is happening in practice and we are working with the data collectors to move to more all compulsory supervision orders but we've quite a way to go the next report we think will come in June because we've now gone through the process first time there'll be another report next year based on exist the data that we can capture at the moment so it's a lengthy process and I don't think it is the feedback loop is working as Parliament originally intended but we're starting on it ok thank you for that and if anybody wants to read that 220 page document it was laid in Spice on Monday can I just thank everybody for their attendance this morning that was another useful session before we do I want to thank you all we have the minister appearing before the committee in a fortnight and certainly issues that were raised today will be coming up with Mr McDonald and depending on what the children said I'll cheat then we may well be speaking to some of the young children next week ok and we will be speaking to some teachers next week who have dealt with the system thank you very much for your attendance and thanks for your evidence thank you I close the formal session my apologies


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