Disabled young people: National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy Strategic Working Group

In the 2021/22 Programme for Government, Scottish Ministers committed to delivering a National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy during this parliamentary term to support disabled young people as they make the transition to adult life: 

“We will begin work on a new National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy to support disabled young people as they make the transition to adult life, and provide them and those who look after them with joined up guidance and support to unlock better educational and employment opportunities and health outcomes”.

The overall purpose of this strategic working group is to bring together organisations who can play a key role in contributing towards the development, and support the implementation, of Scotland’s first National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy for disabled young people.

The strategic working group will act as a forum for members to:

• share expertise and knowledge of key issues that need to be taken account of in improving disabled young people’s experiences of transitions to adulthood, in order to provide advice to Scottish Government
• share expertise and knowledge of effective practice to support the development of meaningful and realistic actions for consideration in the strategy
• contribute to the design and development of the strategy and associated work, for example accompanying impact assessments and the monitoring and evaluation framework
• support Scottish Government to plan, promote and facilitate a range of stakeholder engagement opportunities, to test and promote the Strategy
• share and discuss feedback collated from stakeholder networks to update draft iterations of the strategy
• work in parallel with other key partners to develop the strategy, including the Scottish Government cross-policy working group and young people’s groups

Group structure 

Membership of the strategic working group aims to be representative of parents and carers; education; social work; health; local authorities; third sector partners; and other relevant stakeholders with a role or interest in improving disabled young people’s experiences of transitions to adulthood.

It is expected that member organisations will have one lead, with a nominated depute who can attend meetings in the absence of the lead, representative on the strategic orking group.

From time to time, the strategic working group may call on advice and support from any individual or organisation where specific additional advice is required. This will be fed back to the group for consideration and acknowledged as such. 

The strategic working group will initially meet monthly, with proposed meeting dates during calendar year 2023 scheduled and shared with all members. Agenda items and accompanying papers will be issued to members at least one week in advance of every meeting. As the work progresses, members will be consulted on the frequency of meetings, with a formal, planned review of the Terms of Reference scheduled for December 2023. 

A hybrid model will be adopted, with meetings primarily conducted online using Microsoft Teams, with the possibility of some in-person meetings subject to members’ agreement.

Secretariat

The Secretariat will be provided by the Supporting Disabled Children and Young People Unit within Scottish Government, and can be reached at DCYPtransitions@gov.scot. 

The Secretariat will:

• organise the logistics and facilitation of each meeting and inform members of arrangements
• circulate an agenda and other relevant papers at least one week in advance of each meeting
• provide a point of contact for members when required
• capture the note of the meeting, issue minutes and actions to members following each meeting and follow up any actions which are required
• publish the terms of reference, membership of the strategic working group and minutes of each meeting on the Scottish Government’s website, to ensure transparency

Members’ role

Group members are encouraged to take views from and share work with their wider networks. Where any discussions or Strategy drafts are provided to group members in confidence and marked as such, these should not be provided or discussed externally.

Group members are asked to read any papers circulated in advance of the meeting to enable focused discussion on the content.

The lead member or their nominated depute where the lead cannot attend, are asked to attend monthly meetings and participate in discussion and work planning. Where neither the lead nor the depute can attend any given meeting, members are asked to send apologies in advance of the meeting to the Secretariat. 

Where required, members are asked to contribute to progressing actions identified at meetings of the group within their own organisations and stakeholder networks, or other working groups that they sit on. 

Members are also asked to support engagement with stakeholder groups to ensure their views are considered and reflected in the development of the Strategy.

Timeline

An indicative high-level timeline from 14 March 2023 is outlined as follows, and is subject to ongoing review:

2023 - The group will participate in regular meetings, focusing on developing and testing the vision, aims and priorities of the strategy within existing stakeholder networks; developing the formal public consultation; and collaborating on both the development of impact assessments that accompany the strategy, and the public consultation, including the consultation questions and engagement plan. 

2024 - The group will focus on promoting wider public engagement on the strategy, including formal public consultation; collating stakeholder feedback to inform the draft strategy; contributing to any revisions of the strategy and impact assessments following consultation; testing the first iteration of the strategy with children, young people, parents, carers and other relevant stakeholders through existing networks and providing feedback to the group; contributing to the design of the monitoring and evaluation framework; and promoting the launch of the strategy at publication. 

The group will support the implementation and promotion of the strategy, and its monitoring and evaluation, where appropriate. 

Governance and decision making

This is a short-life working group which will collaborate to develop the National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy. 

The Strategic Working Group will be chaired by Scottish Government officials from the Supporting Disabled Children and Young People Unit, who will also provide leadership for the development for the Strategy. The strategic working group will provide advice and recommend content. Routine updates on the work of the group will be provided by Scottish Government officials to the relevant Ministers, including advice on potential actions.

A record of discussions and decisions will be produced from each meeting and, once circulated to group members for comment, published on a dedicated Scottish Government webpage.  

Remuneration

Members of the strategic working group are invited to participate on a voluntary basis.

Document control and version history

Date: December 2022
Updated by: Rachel Bell, Scottish Government
Version: 0.1
Reason for change: first draft development

Date: March 2023
Updated by: Sarah Lawson, Scottish Government
Version: 0.2
Reason for change: changes made following feedback from first Strategic Working Group meeting on 14 March 2023

Date: December 20223
Updated by: 
Version: 
Reason for change: scheduled review by all members

Annex 1: Privacy notice and data processing information 

Data controller:

National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy – External Strategic Working Group Secretariat
Supporting Disabled Children and Young People Unit
Improving Health and Wellbeing Division
Directorate of Children and Families
Scottish Government
Victoria Quay
Leith
EH6 6QQ

Secretariat email: DCYPtransitions@gov.scot 

How we will use your information

The Supporting Disabled Children and Young People Unit within the Scottish Government provides the Secretariat to the National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy External Strategic Working Group (the strategic working group).

In order to fulfil the terms of reference of the strategic working group, the Scottish Government needs to maintain a list of contact details and email addresses for all members and appointed depute members of the group. Email addresses will be held internally and not disclosed to third parties unless we are legally required to do so.

Members of the strategic working group are asked to read this Privacy Notice and contact the Secretariat with any questions.

The legal basis for processing member’s information that is being relied on is under Article 6(1)(e) of the UK GDPR ‘Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller’.  Relevant laws include the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004, the Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013, the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 and the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016.

The Scottish Government will use the contacts list, which includes your full name, organisation and email address, in order to communicate with you for the purposes of the National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy External Strategic Working Group, including:

• relevant Scottish Government policy updates
• to share meeting details
• material which helps organisations to update their networks about relevant National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy External Strategic Working Group progress
• appropriate or necessary sharing of information about the existence and progress of work

As part of our commitment to being an open government, a list of the organisations represented in the strategic working group, as well as minutes from each meeting will be published on the gov.scot website on a dedicated page. Individual members will be identifiable from these minutes, however, contact details will not be shared externally unless legally required to do so. If you have any concerns or objections about this then you should discuss this with the Secretariat.

Your contact details will be held internally and stored electronically. If you are leaving your post, we would be grateful if you could nominate a replacement within your organisation and ask them to contact the Secretariat with their contact information, organisation and the name of who they are replacing so that we can keep our membership list as up-to-date as possible. We will not share contact e-mail addresses with third parties unless legally required to do so. 

We will hold your personal information for only as long as is necessary to perform the tasks we acquired them for and to meet our legal obligations.  Should you request to be removed from the National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy External Strategic Working Group distribution list, we will endeavour to remove your details from that list within 20 working days (but we will retain documents pertaining to the strategic working group including minutes of meetings that may reference you). 

If you need any further information please write to us or email the address above.

Information on your rights

Your rights are protected under the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK General Data Protection Regulation. Your rights under UK GDPR include the rights:

• to be informed
• of access
• to rectification
• to erasure
• to restrict processing
• to object

Not all of these rights are absolute, which means that they may only apply in certain situations and may be subject to legal exceptions and exemptions.

Further information regarding your rights can be found on the ICO website.

If you feel that we are using your information in an unfair way, you have the right to lodge a complaint. In the first instance, you should contact the Scottish Government Data Protection Officer at DataProtectionOfficer@gov.scothttps://ico.org.uk/global/privacy-notice/your-data-protection-rights/

Following this response, if you are still unsatisfied with the handling of your information you may lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) via: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint   

For queries about our privacy notice, please email the Secretariat with the subject “privacy notice”.