A slide show showing information based on the Children and Young People Bill Consultation

1. Children and Young People Bill:
An Overview
Elisabeth Campbell
Bill Team Leader
September 2012

2. What are our aspirations
for children and young people?
• Making Scotland the best place to grow up
• A shift towards effective early years support
• Greater focus on prevention and early
intervention
• Providing more effective support for parents
• Ensuring services are child-centred
• Embedding the rights of children and young
people in service delivery and design

3. What are we doing to achieve
our aspirations?
• Providing £274m+ to support the early years
• Implementing Curriculum for Excellence
• Rolling out Family Nurse Partnership programme
• Introducing minimum alcohol pricing legislation
• Developing National Parenting Strategy
• Working with Community Planning Partnerships
to implement Getting it right for every child

4. How will legislation support
our aspirations?
• Make ‘real’ the rights of children and young
people by placing duties on the public sector and
more powers for the Children’s Commissioner
• Ensure every child has access to a Named
Person and, where required, a Child’s Plan
• Increase the flexibility and amount of free early
learning and childcare
• Ensure better permanence planning for looked
after children.

5. What are we proposing on
the rights of children and young people?
• A duty on Scottish Ministers to take – and report on
– appropriate steps to further children’s rights
• A duty on Scottish Ministers to promote and raise
awareness of children’s rights
• A duty across the public sector to report on how the
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is being
furthered
• New powers for Scotland’s Commissioner for
Children and Young People to conduct
investigations on behalf of individual children

6. What are we proposing on
Getting it right for every child?
• An obligation across the public sector to work
together to improve wellbeing
• Duties to ensure every child has a Named Person
• Duties to ensure that a single Child’s Plan is in
place for children who need it
• A duty across the public service to report on how
children’s outcomes are being improved

7. What are we proposing on
early learning and childcare?
• Ensuring there is a minimum provision of 600
hours per annum early learning and childcare for
3 and 4 year olds, and 2 year olds who are
looked after
• Ensuring a range of uptake options is offered to
parents, potentially including:
- compressed hours over 2 or 3 days
- hours outwith term times
- longer sessions of early learning/childcare

8. What are we proposing on
looked after children?
• Extending the right of young people leaving care
to ask for help from a local authority from the
age of 21 to 25
• Defining ‘corporate parenting’ and clarifying the
public bodies to which the definition applies
• Putting a a new ‘order’ on statute to support the
parenting role of kinship carers
• Making use of Scotland’s Adoption Register by
local authorities compulsory

9. What is the timetable for legislation?
• Announced intention to introduce legislation in
September 2011
• Launched consultation on a Children and Young
People Bill on 4th July (closing date: 25th
September)
• Planning to introduce into Parliament in 2013
• Planning to commence from 2014 onwards

10. Contacts
If you have queries about the Bill, please
contact us at:
childrenslegislation@scotland.gsi.gov.uk