'Intense' named person plan consultation announced by John Swinney
The Scottish Government is to carry out an "intense" three-month consultation on how to make its controversial named person scheme comply with European human rights law.
The Scottish Government is to carry out an "intense" three-month consultation on how to make its controversial named person scheme comply with European human rights law.
Education Secretary John Swinney announced the move six weeks after the UK Supreme Court ruled elements of the policy to be ''incompatible'' with the right to privacy and family life, as set out in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)
The flagship policy, introduced as part of the Children and Young People Scotland Act of 2014, set out to appoint a single point of contact, such as a teacher or health visitor, to look out for the welfare of all children up to the age of 18.
Mr Swinney, also the Deputy First Minister, said that while the Supreme Court had ruled "changes are needed" to provide greater clarity over data-sharing between health visitors, teachers and other professionals, the Scottish Government was still "absolutely committed" to the scheme.
He said: "The Supreme Court judgement does not dilute our commitment but it has required us to revise part of the legislation to ensure that it is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights
"We want the legislation to achieve exactly what the Supreme Court says it needs to achieve."
Mr Swinney said ministers wanted there to be "a clear consensus across Scotland on how information-sharing should operate" as he pledged an "open dialogue" on the issue.
He told MSPs at Holyrood: "For that reason, the Scottish Government will undertake a three-month period of intense engagement in Scotland, we will take input from practitioners as well as parents, charities as well as young people, those who support the named person policy and those who have concerns about it."
The Scottish Government will also involve the Children's Commissioner and the Information Commissioner as it seeks to deal with the issue "effectively", Mr Swinney added.
After the legal challenge from opponents, Mr Swinney was forced to act to halt the roll-out of the scheme, which has already been trialled in some parts of Scotland.
It had been due to be introduced across the country on August 31 2016 but Mr Swinney said he now hopes the named person policy can now come into force a year on from that.
"Once that engagement ends and we have an agreed way to proceed I will return to Parliament and announce the next steps in terms of legislation," he told MSPs.
"However it is my ambition to work towards a commencement date of August 2017."
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Mr Swinney accepted that support for the named person policy "has not been universal", with the Conservatives calling for the scheme to be scrapped and Labour arguing for it only apply to youngsters up to the age of 16.
He also stressed the Supreme Court judgement from July had "ruled definitively that the principle of providing a named person for every child does not breach human rights and is compatible with EU law".
Instead, he said the Supreme Court had described the aim behind the policy as "unquestionably legitimate and benign", and added: "So the attempt to scrap a service which can bring benefits to young people and their families in different areas of Scotland failed.
"This Parliament - which passed the necessary legislation on a cross-party basis with zero votes against - was vindicated."
He urged local authorities and health bodies to work to "continue to develop and deliver a named person service in your area" while stressing that any sharing of personal information "must be done in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Human Rights Act 1998".
He criticised the "debilitating impact that the peddling of misinformation" by opponents of named person has had on those involved with the scheme.
But he said: "The commitment to the provision of a named person service has not wavered.
"The Supreme Court judgement provides us with an opportunity to amend the information-sharing provisions in the 2014 Act in a way that improves the named person service and reassures parents and practitioners and the wider public.
"It provides us with the opportunity to continue in the spirit of shared purpose and consensus - to getting it right for every child."
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Simon Calvert, of the No To Named Persons (NO2NP) campaign, which was part of the legal challenge, claimed Mr Swinney's statement would "be laughable if it were not so offensive to the parents whose human rights were so cavalierly ignored in the drafting of the named person law".
Mr Calvert said: "The Supreme Court said the kind of widespread, routine sharing of sensitive personal data that the Government wanted is unlawful and a breach of human rights, and cannot go ahead.
"It said this data sharing was 'central' to the named person policy and its ruling blew it out of the water.
"So, whatever the Deputy First Minister may claim, the named person scheme he ends up with in a year's time will be very different from the policy he wanted."
He added: "The consultation, and the acknowledgement that it will take a year to draw up and implement the new proposals, is an admission that they have to heavily rewrite key aspects of the named person policy.
"Having spent years encouraging the widespread illegal sharing of sensitive personal data, they should now be doing everything they can to put a stop to it."