Scotland may have rejected the opportunity to leave the UK altogether last month but it’s provincial assembly, which more or less acts like an independent state, is continuing to implement its national ‘named person’ policy despite significant concerns and objections.
The Scottish National Party may have been defeated in the drive for independence but they still run things at Holyrood and their ‘named person’ concept to create state Guardians for every child is moving right along. For details see the original story on Canada Free Press here.
The Scottish Government has now introduced a website, which cost taxpayers £18,000, to convince (brainwash) children that state guardians, set to be brought in under the scheme, will be their ‘friends’. Unsurprisingly the site has come in for significant criticism with a spokesman for N02NP (No to named person) saying “This is an astonishing example of blatant propaganda by a Scottish Government intent on stripping the rights and responsibilities of mums and dads for their children.”
The only good thing that can be said about the website is the cost. Although exorbitant by simple propaganda standards for a government production this is quite efficient. It’s got nothing on the Affordable Care Act which only needed the additional cost of a payment system.
The Scottish Conservative spokesman for young people, Liz Smith, was also critical of the move. She said: “The named person policy is an unacceptable intrusion into family life which is why it is facing a legal challenge. This taxpayer-funded website is unnecessary and I am sure that will be the view of most parents.”
According to the Christian Institute (a party in the afore mentioned legal challenge) the website aims to portray named persons, who could be a guidance teacher or a head teacher, as a “friend instead of a teacher”. On one part of the site, a named person is described as a “kind, elderly lady with rosy cheeks and a permanent smile”. On another, children are reassured: “Most likely you won’t notice anything different at school. You’ll only get help from your named person if there are concerns about your wellbeing.”
Maggie Mellon of NO2NP, a social work consultant with over 35 years experience shot back warning that the “crucial” role of parents is completely denied under the Named Person scheme. She said that families are only seen as being “caretakers on behalf of Government (while) children’s rights have also been interpreted, almost exclusively, as something that’s opposed to parents’ rights”.
Mellon added that the Named Person scheme is part of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, which doesn’t mention family once. She said the legislation “as a whole does represent a complete denial of families and of the crucial role of parents”.
Children are the responsibility of their parents and as such the state should be empowering parents to get on with that most important of lifetime commitments. The most effective way they can do that is to craft legislation to stay out of the way as much as possible.
Scottish domestic policy though has determined that it knows best how to care for Scottish children and that it will dictate to parents how to raise them, along with when the state will step in and provide assistance or even take over.
Scotland does not need this! Legitimate concerns about poor home situations are a relatively small percentage of the sum and action should be taken when problems are identified. The government could do a much better job of identification but that would involve offending liberal sensitivities concerning profiling, economic status and religious participation etc. etc.
So in order not to offend, sensible and effective profiling will be abandoned in favour of a typical one-size-fits-all government approach which will, as always, cause many unintended consequences and solve almost nothing.
