Non-confidential responses to the consultation on the proposed Children and Young People Bill are now on the Scottish Government’s website. View them here.
This bit caught our eye:
Please note that some consultation responses have been partially redacted due to potentially defamatory / confidential content. The full responses were considered in the consultation exercise.
On the matter of Engagement on the Bill, the government has given itself a big pat on the back for having ‘engaged’ with both children and young people and stakeholders and partners – not at the same time, of course, which is entirely in keeping with the artificially contrived separation of children and young people from the rest of society, parents in particular.
The views of children and young people, none of whom to our knowledge was home educated, were apparently canvassed and ‘represented’ via chosen gatekeeper organisations in the form of the Children’s Parliament, Scottish Youth Parliament and Young Scot, all of whom (we are assured) have ‘great expertise in working with children and young people’. We don’t recall our being invited to canvas and share (anonymously, as we don’t go in for data rape) the views of home educated young people in surveys or other exercises, but we are known not to be fans of any organisation which presumes to be able to share personal information with ‘partners’ unless the young person actively opts out.
Home education representatives (our Named Persons were Alison Preuss and John White, by the way) did meet with government representatives (Philip Raines and Shirley Anderson) in September at the government’s request. However, our response to the consultation was based entirely on the views of adults, children and young people from the home education community. As we have previously intimated, that response was the least contentious we have ever produced, such was the universal antipathy towards the Scottish Government’s determined efforts to introduce legislation to allow unwarranted state interference in the lives of every child and family. (The clue is in the E for Every in GIRFEC, there is no V for Vulnerable).
We will read the other consultation responses with interest and continue to monitor the Engage for Education blog posts by the GIRFEC Programme Board, whose views on woolly ‘wellbeing’ indicators we absolutely do not share (and from other comments, it seems we are not alone).
No matter how many times they say it’s for the good (or is it ‘wellbeing’, without the hyphen?) of ‘our’ children (i.e. our children, not theirs or Scotland’s, as they keep insisting), it doesn’t make it true. We are more than prepared to point out that the emperor is starkers, even if nobody else wants to risk their own professional ‘wellbeing’ (salaries and pensions) to Do The Right Thing For Every Citizen by butting out where they’re not wanted.
