Since the public has been kept in the dark and deliberately misled by the Scottish Government as to the agenda behind its Children and Young People Act, many parents remain oblivious to the shift in the relationship between family and state, which will hit them right between the eyes in August 2016 when state imposed snoopers are granted lawful authority to monitor the “wellbeing” (as defined by them) of every child, and to access the personal data (including heath, education, social work and police records) of family members and other third parties.
In an effort to raise awareness of the coming social tsunami, NO2NP has just re-posted a link on its Facebook page referencing para 76 of the CHYP Bill policy memorandum which completely contradicts the propaganda that is still being shamelessly peddled by ministers and allied cheerleaders who stand to gain big bucks from Grand Theft Data.
76. Currently, information about a child may be shared where the child is at a significant risk of harm. However, the role of the Named Person is based on the idea that information on less critical concerns about a child’s wellbeing must be shared if a full picture of their wellbeing is to be put together and if action is to be taken to prevent these concerns developing into more serious issues. Without the necessary power to share that kind of information, the Named Person will not be able to act as effectively as is intended. This was a point raised consistently by practitioners and professionals.
Readers should note the erroneous definition of the current information sharing threshold, where it is the harm that must be significant, not the risk. The CHYP Act has, in effect, lowered that long established threshold to one which allows for the non-consensual sharing of the personal data of every child and every associated adult on the basis of a nebulous wellbeing concern (or potential concern) as defined by the state and open to wide interpretation.
To add insult to injury, those charged with implementing the scheme are being “trained” by the Scottish Chocolate Fireguard Department [30 secs in] not to tell their victims they are breaching UK wide data protection legislation, EU privacy directives and the common law duty of confidentiality, since to do so might damage trust (and besides, the lab rats don’t have a choice). Watch the video link above and weep! It’s a different sort of cringe-worthy from the Hopscotch SHANARRI brainwashing song, but every bit as disturbing.
And as we reported at a NO2NP roadshow in Dingwall,
A presentation on GIRFEC information sharing,* delivered at Stirling University last year by Alan Small** on behalf of the Scottish Government, leaves us in no doubt that parents are being deliberately sidelined. As he reminds his audience, the CHYP Act’s information sharing provisions override the duty of confidentiality. The Act also empowers a Named Person to make statutory requests for help to ‘relevant authorities’, including health boards and local authorities. So that last bastion of personal privacy has been officially sacrificed on the altar of SHANARRI and your child’s teacher will be able to access your family’s medical, social work and police records without your knowledge or consent by using the excuse of “promoting, supporting and safeguarding” your child’s wellbeing.
* Direct link was removed from university website, link goes to saved copy. ** The same Alan Small more recently struggled to define proportionality on the BBC.
Data sharing is beginning to have an impact on families, as can be seen from some of the public comments on NO2NP’s Facebook thread. It is clear that parents are being deliberately lied to by “services” about what practitioners are lawfully permitted to share without consent as the legislation is not yet enforceable (and is still subject to ongoing legal challenge in the Supreme Court by NO2NP).
By way of example,
Demi P: We’ve already had issues with sharing of information down here and when I made a formal complaint I was told it’s ok now because of girfec and the named person scheme. My children are not subject to any type of order, they are merely disabled.
The information that was shared was MY medical information, not my child’s!
William C: Demi. They have no statutory power until the bill comes into force , which is August 2016 . Any sharing of personal info without consent taking place before that date is unlawful (if your kids are not at risk or vulnerable) . If it was me I’d be making a subject access request and making a complaint to the uk ICO as this looks like a data protection breach IMO.
Rebecca C: This happened to my family too. My child was victim of a serious crime. Both myself and husband had our medical information shared. When we complained we were told as the lady above – this is okay due to girfec/named person. My child was not at risk of any harm from us, let alone significant risk. We are going to tribunal as this is NOT okay.
Demi P: We were a pilot area apparently so they said it was fine. But if you think it’s definitely something we can fight then I will
Colin H: It’s not fine. Even in a pilot area and it still isn’t even grounds to obtain your details. Girfec and named person are not automatically words that can be used to justify anything especially if they are used totally out of context to obtain information. That is also fraud to deliberately mislead and lie to obtain information illegally.
Demi P: That’s what’s driving me crazy, if you ask the professionals concerned now, you get a different story from everyone and no one seems to know what the truth is.
I was told my sons mental health records now automatically get shared with the school. I’m concerned he will stop talking to his psychologist if it’s going to become common knowledge.
That last comment demonstrates exactly what effect the data free-for-all is already having because services can no longer be trusted.
The Minister’s public assurances, repeated ad nauseam by myriad vested interest GIRFEC cheerleaders from the “children’s workforce”, have also been called into question on Twitter.
All the evidence suggests that yes, she did.
We have meanwhile been told, in confidence (and we never reveal our sources), that drug and alcohol rehab agencies are sharing every client’s hitherto confidential details (i.e. not just those where the statutory notification threshold applies) with the Named Person of any associated child (even if not related and not living in the same household), which is deterring individuals from seeking help with addictions.
A worrying number of reports have also been received of health visitors claiming a right of entry to family homes and that their services are compulsory (not until August 2016, they’re not – and only then in a Named Person, not health visiting, role – but they are surprisingly coy about citing the specific legislation which apparently confers quasi-policing powers on their particular silo).
Home educators are used to being targeted by the clueless, but the persecution is now being stepped up a gear as parents of children who have not even attained compulsory education age (the August following the child’s fifth birthday) are being lied to, harassed and even referred to the children’s reporter because they are exercising a lawful choice to decline “free” (but unwanted and non-mandatory) nursery and early school places to look after and educate their own children. Soon we could have a policy of “stop and search” for every child who is spotted making his way to the local library or corner shop; then again, maybe we already do, since two home educated children have already been subject to “arrest” and databased as “vulnerable” simply for going about their lawful business.
The fact that directly parented children are not being overseen on a daily basis by SHANARRI state guardians (except during the holidays and at weekends when the monitor classes like to enjoy their leisure time) now apparently means that their wellbeing is automatically deemed at risk, but the only thing such families are placing at risk is the state’s daily dose of personal data being covertly collected from the children via intrusive school surveys, direct interrogation and “circle time”. In other words, innocent, young, malleable children, whose care has been entrusted by parents to so-called professionals, are being used and abused to gain access to details of their families’ private lives. As one parent of a primary aged child reported:
“My son’s class had ‘circle time’ where they were asked to talk about something that they find embarrassing (an actual learning outcome) or something that worries them. When he came home, we got to hear all about the divorces, money worries, illnesses (and more!) of his classmates’ families.”
This is, or should be, a Niemoeller moment of reflection for all. As ARCH warned of eCAF in England seven years ago,
Children are to become the access point to the family in order to find out what’s going on – or what might happen in the future – behind closed doors. It’s not only families, either. The document refers in passing to the plans to develop the eCAF in adult services in order to bring together health and social care data on elderly people and those with mental health problems. There aren’t going to be many people left to protest once they start rolling eCAF out to everyone else.
Inverclyde is already well on the way to Getting it Right For Every Child, Citizen and Community, as can be seen on page 17 of its Single Silo “Nurturing” Agreement, but Glasgow really is miles ahead.
We have learned from another unnamed person that NHS professionals who raise concerns about the new regime will be subject to disciplinary action if they criticise what is essentially unlawful activity. Older staff, especially, are worried as it breaches the duty of confidentiality that has always been core to their profession (or “silo” as it has become known in the shared language of Scotspeak). Such threats are undoubtedly an effective way of clearing the decks of trusted and experienced professionals to replace them with the cohorts of useful idiots now coming through the outcome-based replacement “education” system and post-school “training” for work in Brave New Single Silo Scotland.
The shocking M9 tragedy shows just how badly Single Silo Police Scotland has served the public. And Aileen Campbell’s recent Mornington Crescent episode on the BBC (when she was prompted by an audible background whisperer to shroud-wave “child protection” [31 mins into video] as her facile defence of the regime was being torn up by someone who knew more about the legislation than she did) demonstrated just how low the government will go to ensure they obtain the personal data of every child and adult in Scotland without their knowledge or consent. Those in any doubt should start asking why the murdered school pupil, Danielle Reid, was suddenly dropped as the GIRFEC poster girl. [Clues here].
Finally, since the Scottish Parliament has remained embarrassingly silent on the matter of protecting citizens’ civil liberties (or perhaps just complicit?), here’s a wake-up blast from the Westminster past, when Every Child Matters, ContactPoint and eCAF (please do find time to watch these short videos) were being used, with their familiar state-dictated outcomes, for the same nefarious purposes as GIRFEC, the Named Person scheme and new Scottish NHS database, before being finally scrapped in 2010:
Early Day Motion 2911: That this House notes with concern the increasing incidence of data intrusion or `data rape’ as it is increasingly becoming known, the process whereby personal and hitherto confidential data is transferred to central databases established by the Government which can then be made available to third parties, such as police and security services, without consent being required; notes that the operation of the new national medical database will require medical records, which until now have remained in the confidential custody of general practitioner practices, to be uploaded to the Spine, a computer which will collect details from doctors and hospitals; supports the British Medical Association in its demand that patients should be asked for their explicit permission before their files are transferred; further notes with concern the reports of plans to establish and expand national databases in relation to the identity card scheme, DNA and the national census; and calls on the Government to establish a legislative framework that will safeguard access to personal data which has as its foundation not only the requirement for explicit consent but the right to know which agencies have a right to, and have requested access to, personal information.
Grooming and interfering with children is a crime, no matter who the perpetrator is, and R in SHANARRI may as well stand for Raped as it certainly doesn’t stand for Respected or Responsible. When we say no, we mean no, and if we’re asleep or drugged up on soma, we cannot possibly have consented.
