Scottish Conservative Group Leader on Aberdeen City Council, Ross Thomson, has successfully called for a report detailing the costs to the Council in implementing the SNP’s Named Person role for Head Teachers and Guidance Teachers.
At today’s meeting of the Education and Children’s Services Committee Councillors considered a report “GIRFEC/Children and Young People Act Update” which provided elected members with information on how the legislation around Named Person for every child is being implemented within the directorate and or schools.
Every young person in Scotland will be assigned a state guardian “named person” until the age of 18 as part of the Children and Young People Act. This controversial piece of legislation has placed additional statutory requirements on the Council and schools and without additional resource from Scottish Government poses a real risk that the drain on teacher time, school budgets and additional training could mean that some of our children facing the greatest challenges could lose out.
Councillor Ross Thomson said:
“The Named Person for every child tips the balance of responsibility away from parents towards the state, it is an attack on family life which serves to undermine the role of parents.”
“Further, forcing all our young people to have a named person will, inevitably, dilute the resources available for our most vulnerable children.”
“Today’s report before committee was not clear on the financial implications that this legislative burden will have on the Council and schools. Naturally, with increased statutory duties there will be costs in terms of Head Teacher time, senior management time, administration time which does above the current work that they do not to mention all the support and training that will have to be carried out to give teachers the confidence to take on a role that places an enormous obligation on them.”
“Despite this being a statutory duty imposed on Councils by Scottish Government they are providing no additional resource to help with its implementation. Previous estimates suggested the costs to schools would be in the region of £2,100,000 million. It’s crucial that the Council and local tax payers know the full cost of this misjudged piece of legislation.”