Children's Hearings Redesign Board minutes: June 2025

Attendees and apologies

Members

• Laura Caven, COSLA, Co-Chair
• Brian Taylor, Scottish Government, Co-Chair 
• Neil Hunter, Principal Reporter, Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration
• Elliot Jackson, National Convener, Children’s Hearings Scotland
• Lindsey Byrne, Social Work Scotland

Officials

• John Urquhart, COSLA
• Emma Wilson, Scottish Government
• Roma Bruce-Davies, Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration
• Mellisa Parkinson, Scottish Government
• Brendan Rooney, Scottish Government
• Susan Downes, Scottish Government (secretariat)

Items and actions

Welcome and introductions

Laura Caven started the meeting by welcoming Roma Bruce-Davies who joined to provide the planning group update, Brendan Rooney who joined to provide an update on the Children’s Care and Justice (CCJ) Act and Melissa Parkinson who will be taking over the secretariat for the Board.

Members agreed the minute of the previous meeting in April and authorised publication on the Children’s Hearings Redesign Board webpage

Action RB - 30 – Secretariat to publish minutes from the previous meetings on the Children’s Hearings Redesign Board webpage.

Update on legislation

Emma Wilson advised the Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill was published and has been circulated to members.  Discussions have either been or are being scheduled with organisations individually to allow in depth discussions on any areas of specific interest or concern.

In respect of the children’s hearings sections of the bill the focus has been on legislating only where necessary, where there are clear advantages in doing so. Everything included in the children’s hearings sections of the bill was included in our previous consultation process.

Emma provided an outline of the children’s hearings legislative proposals:

Changes to the statutory referral criteria threshold from compulsory measures “may be required” to be required, to “are likely,” which should lead to a reduction in unnecessary referrals.

Power to remove relevant person status and the change to the existing powers of the chairing member to manage the attendance, will have some rights implications so will require a consideration of how this might work in practice.

Removal of the child’s obligation to attend their hearing and the power to overrule the child’s preference are aimed at ensuring the child attends when they want to and/or where it is in their best interests to do so.

Steps to support the child’s participation, arrangements to capture and share the voices and experiences of very young children and the creation of a statutory process, undertaken by the children’s reporter, to record the capturing of children’s views and participation preferences have been to ensure that children’s views, experiences and participation preferences are properly considered by the Children’s Reporter. 

Requirement that the reporter considers offering a “post-referral discussion” to the child and family, will help capture the views of the child and provide opportunity to build understanding of the grounds.

Refocus and amend wording of section 122 of the 2011 Act to reflect an earlier, more agile and flexible approach to the offer of advocacy to the child.

Obligation to support the sharing of information to advocacy workers, and other people who can help children and families to understand their rights, will ensure the advocacy worker is notified about the scheduling details for that child’s hearing at the earliest opportunity.

Streamlining of grounds hearings and the process of the reporter arranging next steps, the intension is not to put people through unnecessary grounds hearings allowing flexibility where it is clear grounds will not be accepted moving straight to court ensuring a more inquisitorial and constructive approach.

Direction for the children’s reporter to be able to initiate a review hearing before the expiry of the relevant period will reduce delays for the child and ensure all issues and concerns are addressed.

Remuneration for panel members, either paid Chair or paid specialist Panel Member, aims to increase the capacity of the children’s hearings system.

Power for the National Convener to convene single-member panels allows flexibility for single-panel member decision making for procedural or administrative decisions to reduce drift and delay.

Increase the statutory 22 - day time limit for the duration of interim compulsory supervision orders (ICSOs) and the introduce more flexibility in the duration of interim orders will ensure the system better meets the needs of the individual child rather than being limited by procedural challenges.

Emma advised as the Bill progresses through the Parliamentary process it will likely be subject to change, specifically at stage 2. Discussions will be undertaken with Scottish Government Legal Division and the Legal Academics group to anticipate some of the issues that might be raised.

Neil Huter welcomed the publication of the Bill, as it demonstrates a clear move from a transactional, procedural to a relational system. The relevant person has been a topic of discussion for some time, so it is right to take this opportunity to address this in a proportionate way with the rights of the child at the heart. The Bill demonstrates a commitment to the ethos of the shrink and specialise.

It would be useful to consider all the changes from the viewpoint of the child and how this package redesign sits together as a huge amount of change can and will be done through practice.

Lindsey Byrne noted it would be useful to develop some user journeys showing how the system currently works and feels like and how it will work and feel in the future once all the changes have been implemented for everyone involved. The Bill builds in more flexibility to allow professionals to use their skills and judgment to get the right support to the family at the right time.

Update on children’s care and justice (CCJ) act

Brendan Rooney noted that slides had been shared in advance of the meeting, most people around the table will have been involved or will be aware of the CCJ implementation. Some of the groups will be reconvened over the summer, to consider workstreams that are ongoing, such as transport, single point of contact framework, definition of safety, raising the age group to discussion what is needed.

The CCJ team will be meeting with the Minister to confirm timelines and expectations, work will also be undertaken over the summer to look at how as much as possible can be implemented this parliamentary term.

Laura Caven noted that children and families social work is a key issue and that costings were provided but will need to be revisited due to the time past and the change in circumstances.

Elliot Jackson noted that Children’s Hearings Scotland will have two significant recruitment campaigns to deal with the potential additional cases as a result of the changes to 16 and 17 year olds. Training sessions will commence at the end of the summer and will probably need about a six month lead in time to get everyone up to speed.

Lindsey noted that Social Work Scotland are supportive of the intentions but do have concerns about the practical delivery without any additional resource. As more things are brought into the children’s services, it increases the risk that needs to be managed which is difficult if the infrastructure is not in place. Consideration needs to be given to what this all means not only for the family but also for the whole workforce.

Emma confirmed that the team are working to join up across the various policy teams to try and co-ordinate all the initiatives as much as possible. Connecting with relevant big pieces of work to try and highlight some these issues and taking them beyond this board.

Update on work of the planning group and workstreams

Roma Bruce-Davies provided an update on the work of the planning group and the workstreams noting that recent meetings have been really positive. The work of the planning and preparation for hearings workstream has been developing well, the group have met twice and are about to meet again. A parallel group of children and young people is being developed to assist with the workstream.

The referrals workstream continues to build on the work previously done by SCRA, enhancing partnership working around referrals. The workstream will include work with Police Scotland and Maternal & Infant Health to look at barriers around referrals.

The Culture workstream is being led by Vivien Thomson and is due to meet for the first time on Monday 23 June. Mel Parkinson will be supporting Vivien as the workstream develops.

The data and information workstream has not yet met as we are awaiting nominations from organisations. Resource has been secured from SG Analytical team and CELCIS. This is a complex workstream and as a result has been scheduled to take a considerable time, likely taking until well into 2027.

Action RB – 31 – Members should provide names of nominees to take part in the data and information workstream.

At the last meeting of the planning group time was spent starting to develop the next phase of future workstream. The proposals include workstreams on: 

Language and communications which will consider the language used in the hearings system, this will need to work alongside the legislation.

Babies and infants, there has been lobbying around this area so the workstream will explore whether this should be a specific project or be mainstreamed across the other workstreams.

During the hearing, will be shaped by the legislation and carry some of the themes from other workstreams, specifically the preparing for hearings workstream.

After the hearing will consider what can to improved after the hearing and linking into other supports available.

Lindsey suggested, it would be useful to look at how other existing groups to help with this planned work.

Emma confirmed that this work is scheduled up to 2030 to reflect the resourcing concerns. The workstreams do not need to only include the organisations around this table, it can be others, we can bring proposals for the board to approve. Discussions have taken place with Maternal & Infant Health and GIRFEC teams within Scottish Government to try and make the connections wherever possible and avoid duplication of effort.

Elliot suggested that instead of considering how data is currently collected, we should look at what do we want to know and how that can be achieved and not to be constrained by what is currently happening.

Timeline

Susan Downes introduced this item noting that a link to the Miro board has been included in the agenda and circulated to members. The proposed dates in the timeline are estimates as we do not yet have an idea of the parliamentary timetable for the Bill, this will be updated as more information becomes available. The future workstreams have been scheduled in and with work continuing in 2028 to take account of resource available for the development work and implementation. Connections have been made to related work including the CCJ Act and we will add more connections as they become clear.

Draft vision statement

Emma advised the team have been looking for good examples for child friendly vision, strategy or action plans across government. One example has been shared with members with the papers for this meeting. We need to be conscious that the children in the system are of different ages and stages so if members are aware of any examples they can pass on it would be appreciated.

John Urquhart advised the Scottish Child Interview Model was worked on by Jillian Ingram at COSLA, there has also been considerable work done on the Additional Support for Learning statement.

Action RB – 32 – Melissa Parkinson to contact Jillian Ingram regarding the Scottish Child Interview Model.

Ms Don-Innes, Minister for Children, Young People and the Promise

Ms Don- Innes joined the meeting at 11:30 and remarked that it was her first time at the redesign board, and thanked everyone for the very important work you have been doing. She noted she was over the moon to see the bill being published this morning and recognised that this only represents the legislative side of redesign and that there is still a lot of work to be done.

Neil noted it was good to have the Minister attend the meeting, commenting that the board has been a slow burn but is gathering momentum and have really active planning and implementation group supporting them. A conscious choice was made by the board that we wanted to be an authorising forum to help people do some work, so now have four meaty piece of work and an additional four in the pipeline. Sheriff David Mackie attended a board meeting recently and was really reflective of what has been happening but if you combine the Bill and the workstreams we have a really good programme of work which hopefully reflects all of the aspirations of the Hearings for Children working group. The role of Children’s Hearings Scotland, Social Work Scotland and Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration is essential to driving the work forward.

Ms Don-Innes agreed and not wanting to underestimate the complexity of the work that has been undertaken, how important it is having these key organisations working together.

Lindsey mentioned that she did not want to be negative but need to be real about the impact on an already stretched workforce, especially when considering the impact of 16 and 17 year olds alongside this work. Social work support the intentions but are concerned that the infrastructure is not in place to support the workforce. We want to be able to manage the complexity of risk and all the Bills at the moment seem to have an impact on the workforce, so we need to ensure they are able to manage.

Ms Don-Innes agreed that the social work workforce must be supported to ensure that they are able to deliver, we are doing somethings to try and help with this, things like the National Social Work Agency but want to keep alive to these issues as we head to 2030.

Elliot commented that he was at the Youth Justice conference last week with over two hundred delegates where we mentioned the potential changes that might be in the Bill and the audience was nodding. It is really important that we try to keep most of the really good stuff through the committee stages.

Laura asked if there was anything that the board can do to provide support the Bill through the parliamentary process.

Ms Don-Innes stated that it is important that we have a clear understanding of the work is underway and the progress being made which will complement the Bill and try to help people see this as a package.

Lindsey noted the Bill proposes a degree of flexibility which allow things to flexi around the needs of the child, this will cause more issues for some people, but it is really important to create a system that works around the families, exciting and refreshing.

Date of next meeting

Thursday 11 September 2025 at 14:00.