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A major inquiry into the children’s hearing system in Scotland has discovered a service under strain caused by the number of referrals on grounds of care and protection rather than offending, writes Maggie Wood.

NCH Scotland’s inquiry report into the hearing system called for a return to the hearings’ original purpose recommended in the Lord Kilbrandon report 35 years ago. The hearing system, which was established by the Social Work Scotland Act in 1968, was set up to cater for young offenders as an alternative to court, and for children in need of compulsory measures of care.

The NCH report, ‘Where’s Kilbrandon Now?’, warned that the hearing system was never designed as a route for services for children in need. It identified the burden of inappropriate referrals as well as lack of community resources, and social work staffing problems as the main reasons for the system not working in the way that was originally intended.

The report recommended that serious gaps in mainstream and preventive services should be urgently addressed, and that there should be a shift of resources from institutional care of children to care within their wider families and communities.

It also called on the Scottish executive to adopt a “preventive not punitive” approach to youth justice. Evidence from England and Wales given to the inquiry showed that punitive measures for tackling youth justice do not work and serve to criminalise children, with three quarters of young people sentenced to custody likely to re-offend.

Other recommendations in the report include:

- Greater involvement of the police in hearings

- Action to address recruitment and morale problems for panel members, with consideration of whether panel members should be paid

- A staged transfer of resources away from custody and secure care

- An independent research and monitoring review system

'Where's Kilbrandon Now?'

Meanwhile, the annual report from the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration confirms the problem of inappropriate referrals - it has recorded its busiest year since the children’s hearing system was created.

The rise in referrals relates not to youth offending, but to referrals to the hearing system of children requiring care and protection. Meanwhile numbers for offending have gone down.
 
Speaking at the launch of the report, Alan Miller, principal reporter, said: “Despite intense media attention on youth offending the majority of cases we see relate to non offence referrals. The number of cases for alleged lack of parental care has doubled in the past five years.”

Miller added that the increase in these referrals reflects awareness of issues such as domestic abuse, the impact of drug abuse and family breakdown.