The Scottish Government launched a public consultation on complaints concerning functions relating to the Named Person and Child’s Plan. The consultation is open for eight weeks until Friday 30 October 2015 on Citizen Space.
Link to consultation and how to respond: https://consult.scotland.gov.uk/girfec/complaints
The Named Person and Child’s Plan are part of the Getting It Right For Every Child approach and the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014.
This consultation document outlines two options for the management of complaints relating to the functions of the Named Person and/or Child’s Plan:
- A parent or child will make a complaint to each organisation involved in a matter. This will mean that the complaint is investigated by the organisation or body whose performance is being complained about.
- A parent or child will make a complaint to the organisation providing the Named Person or to the organisation acting as the managing authority for complaints made about the Child’s Plan. The complaint, regardless of the number of organisations or issues involved, will be investigated by one point of contact for the parent and child.
If the parent or child is not satisfied with the response to their complaint, and local processes have been exhausted, it is proposed that for both options, they can escalate it to the Scottish Public Sector Ombudsman (SPSO) as an independent arbiter.
These proposals have been developed by the Scottish Government in close partnership with professionals in Health, Education, Social Work and SPSO.
Any responses received after the 30 October 2015 will be considered but cannot be included in the subsequent consultation analysis report or published on the Scottish Government website.
If you would like to return a paper copy of your consultation response you can find the consultation documents on the Scottish Government consultation page here.