Child Protection Guidance 2021

National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021 Part 1: The context for child protection 34 Version 1.0 September 2021 Children and Young People (Scotland) Act, 2014 1.159 Part 1 defines the duties of Ministers and of public authorities in relation to the fulfilment of rights of children, and in furthering the effect of the UNCRC in Scotland. Part 3 (Children’s Services Planning) requires local authorities and health boards to take a strategic approach to the design and delivery of a wider view of services used by children and families than those previously set out in the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. Section 8 requires every local authority and its relevant health board to jointly prepare a Children’s Services Plan for the area of the local authority, in respect of each three year period. 1.160 A range of other relevant local and national bodies are expected to participate in the development of the plan. The Act requires the local authority and relevant health board to jointly publish an annual report outlining the ways in which provision of children’s services and related services in that area have been provided in accordance with the plan. 1.161 The Act contains provisions about the rights of children and young people; investigations by the Commissioner for Children and Young People in Scotland; the provision of services and support for or in relation to children and young people; the extension of early learning and childcare; the role of ‘corporate parents’; the extension of aftercare support to young people leaving care (up to and including the age of 25); entitling 16-year-olds in foster, kinship or residential care the right to stay in care until they are 21; support for kinship care; the creation of an adoption register; consultation on certain school closure proposals; amendments to children’s hearings legislation; appeals against detention in secure accommodation; the provision of free school lunches. Guidance has been produced to support those parts of the Act that have been implemented. 1.162 Where there is duty to assess the wellbeing of children and young people under the Act, there are provisions to require this to be done with reference to the eight wellbeing indicators. There is an intention to seek to repeal Parts 4 and 5 of the 2014 Act, on named person and child’s plan (which were never implemented and are therefore not currently in force). The commitment remains to deliver these core components of GIRFEC within existing law. Policy and practice guidance is being developed to support on- going implementation of GIRFEC underpinned by necessary, relevant and proportionate information sharing. Children (Scotland) Act 1995 1.163 This remains one of the primary pieces of legislation providing the range and scope of local authority intervention in the lives of children and their families, and the duties and responsibilities it establishes are discussed at different points elsewhere in this Guidance. The duties of the local authority within this legislation are, in the main, discharged by statutory social work services. 1.164 This Act sets out the duties of a local authority to publish information about services provided by them for children in their area, or which are provided for these children by other local authorities (section 20). 1.165 The Act also permits the local authority to request help, in the exercise of their functions in children’s services, from a range of persons specified, and imposes an obligation on the person requested to provide help, unless where doing so would not be compatible with that person’s own statutory or other duties (section 21).