Blog
Keeping you up to date on the progress of the Named Person scheme and the NO2NP campaign.
Scots toddlers may be sent to state-run “development centres”
Posted 10 years ago
Recent articles in The Times and The Mail on Sunday reported that toddlers could be placed in state-run “development centres” under plans “to give the Scottish government more control over how future generations are raised”.
The Government says the proposals are designed to help underprivileged children, but critics warn that any plans to increase the role of the state in childcare could erode the rights of parents.
Proposals include sending officials into homes to check if children have sufficient access to books and toys, and offering parenting courses.
Families found to fall foul of Government testing could see their children being sent to child development centres for up to 30 hours a week from the age of 12 months.
A NO2NP spokesman said: “This is yet another layer of the ‘nanny state’. The vast majority of parents need neither support nor interference from outside bodies and should be trusted and left alone to do what they do best: look after their own children.”
The Mail on Sunday, 29 March 2015
The Times, 30 March 2015
Massie: Named person like “Mao’s China”
Posted 10 years agoLeading Scots journalist and author, Allan Massie, has heavily criticised the Scottish Government for their named person policy in a recent news article.
Writing in The Mail on Sunday (8 Feb) Mr Massie says that the policy “hits at the autonomy of the family” and goes on to say:
“This is, of course, dressed up as a means of providing protection for vulnerable children and young people. Who, they say, could possibly object to this? The answer is anyone who believes parents are better judges of their children’s interest than the state or social workers.
“The SNP claims parents and children have asked for these guardians but, for me, the assumption is clear: parents can’t be trusted and children belong not to their parents but to the state, just as in Mao’s China.”