'Named person' legislation threatened with 'significant delay'
Holyrood's Education and Skills committee has said that the Scottish Government's 'named person' proposals cannot proceed until there is a definitive code of practice.
However, deputy first minister john Swinney - also Scotland's education secretary – warned that this risks a significant delay to the scheme.
The committee has been examining proposed secondary legislation designed to help the plans comply with information-sharing laws.
Its convener, James Dornan, wrote to Mr Swinney on 29 November to say the group could not recommend that the legislation should proceed to a debate in the chamber.
"Based on the evidence heard to date, the majority of the committee do not consider that they are able to make a decision on whether to recommend that the general principles of the bill be approved at Stage 1 until the Scottish government has provided the committee with an authoritative draft of the code," he wrote.
Mr Swinney responded by saying the committee’s stance risked "significantly delaying" the timetable for the scheme’s implementation. The Scottish Government aims to introduce the ‘named person’ programme in 2018.
Related to the committee’s concerns, the deputy first minister had earlier unveiled a new expert panel that would develop a "workable, comprehensive and user friendly code of practice, statutory guidance and other support materials that take account of new data protection laws".
The panel will be chaired by Ian Welsh, who is Chief Executive of the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland.
The named person legislation – the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 – seeks to have a nominated professional identified as a single point of contact if any child in Scotland or their parents wants information or advice, or wishes to talk about any worries and seek support.
You can see James Dornan's letter here.
Details on the new panel are available here.