The Scottish Government and councils \u201cdid not give sufficient thought to the work that would be needed\u201d to deliver the pledge made to care-experienced young people, a report has found.<\/p>\n
Nicola Sturgeon launched the project, called The Promise, in 2020 in the hopes of improving the lives and outcomes of young people who had been in care.<\/p>\n
But a report from the auditor general and the Accounts Commission has suggested there was not enough planning done in the early stages of the pledge, laying out what needed to be done and how much it would cost to meet its 10-year time scale and criticised a lack of a framework to measure progress until late last year.<\/p>\n
A joint statement from the bodies involved in keeping the Promise \u2013 including the Scottish Government and local authorities body Cosla \u2013 said they were taking the report \u201cseriously\u201d and \u201cremain fully committed\u201d to the Promise.<\/p>\n
The report recommended setting out a plan for the next five years, along with an assessment of the Government\u2019s \u00a3500 million Whole Family Wellbeing Fund \u2013 which has only paid out \u00a3148 million, according to the report.<\/p>\n
\u201cDelivery of the Promise requires a partnership approach across a wide range of bodies spanning national and local government,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
\u201cInitial planning for the Promise by the Scottish Government and Cosla did not give sufficient thought to the work that would be needed to deliver its aims over a 10-year period \u2013 including the resources required, and how success would be defined and measured.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has meant that public bodies across Scotland were not given a strong foundation to deliver on the care review ambitions, and work since then has been slow.<\/p>\n
\u201cFurther development of plans and a monitoring framework are due at the end of 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese must provide a catalyst for greater pace and momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the joint statement, which also included the charity Solace, the Promise Scotland and the independent adviser on the Promise, said: \u201cScotland has a responsibility to all those to whom the\u00a0Promise\u00a0was made, to ensure that the pace of change is increased and delivery is felt in people\u2019s lives, every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis requires person and family-centred approaches to how Scotland provides care and support.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are taking today\u2019s report from the auditor general and the Accounts Commission seriously. Together, we remain fully committed to the shared goal of ensuring that all of Scotland\u2019s children grow up loved, safe and respected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe report has a number of recommendations on how to help achieve this, many of which align with work underway. This includes continuing to develop Scotland\u2019s delivery plan, Plan 24-30, and telling the Promise story of progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will review all the recommendations and respond accordingly, ensuring we continue to work in the best way possible for children, families and care experienced adults.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the Scottish Tories accused the Government of moving \u201cat a snail\u2019s pace\u201d on one of its key pledges.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe report exposes that delivering the Promise for Scotland\u2019s most vulnerable young people has simply not been a priority for the SNP,\u201d said the party\u2019s children and young people spokeswoman, Roz McCall.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir plans lack any detail, and it is astonishing that there was never any assessment put in place to define if the policy had been a success or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cSNP ministers are also presiding over a chronic under-funding of what is needed to meet their ambitions, despite claiming \u00a3500 million would be spent in relation to this.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe\u00a0Promise\u00a0was supposed to make a real difference for vulnerable young people, but in typical SNP fashion, they have monumentally failed to deliver on their warm rhetoric.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour children spokesman Martin Whitfield said the \u201cdamning\u201d report exposed the \u201cshameful failure\u201d of the Government.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Scottish Government has a responsibility to do right by these children, but it\u2019s clear there has been a lack of leadership and delivery under the SNP,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA Scottish Labour government will step up and make\u00a0the\u00a0changes needed to keep\u00a0the\u00a0Promise\u00a0and give every care-experienced child\u00a0the\u00a0best possible start in life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Willie Rennie said: \u201cThe report shows that the SNP has let down children in care by promising major reform without any assessment of the resources and skills needed to bring it about.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been a vacuum of clear leadership, and a lack of urgency and cohesion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Government must now prioritise the development of a comprehensive roadmap with clear actions and timescales if the transformation of care is to be fully realised.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Scottish Government and councils \u201cdid not give sufficient thought to the work that would be needed\u201d to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[136792,38935,748,159752,4884,7853,159753,712,11312,159754,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-481467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-accounts-commission","9":"tag-audit-scotland","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-cosla","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-nicola-sturgeon","14":"tag-roz-mccall","15":"tag-scotland","16":"tag-scottish-government","17":"tag-the-promise","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115335498615506948","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}