Keeping the Promise Implementation Plan

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 30 March 2022.

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Photo of Jamie Greene Jamie Greene Conservative

I am really pleased to participate in the debate. Many of the points that I had been going to make have already been eloquently made by front-bench members, so I will cover a number of different areas that are of specific interest to me and issues that I have raised previously in the chamber.

The Promise” opens by saying that

“Scotland must work to build a country that cares” and that has

“services that work to meet the needs of children and families ... where they are needed, when they are needed.”

That is an aspiration that we all sign up to, but the reality is that, in far too many cases, we are far from meeting the needs of every child

“where they are needed, when they are needed.”

We know, for example, that the attainment gap between our most and least deprived children has reached its highest-ever level. We know that only 70 per cent of child and adolescent mental health services patients are seen within the Government’s 18-week target, which is well below the 90 per cent target. We also know that far too many children still grow up in homes that are rife with substance abuse, addiction, mental health issues and domestic or, worse, sexual violence. We also know that children in care can face even worse outcomes.

My colleague Meghan Gallacher rightly mentioned feedback from Fiona McFarlane, the head of oversight for The Promise Scotland, who said that, over the past two years, things have got much worse for many. She also described the current system as one that served its own convenience rather than those who are in it. That is a valid piece of feedback and one that should worry us.

Who Cares? Scotland—another fantastic organisation, which I commend for all the work that it is doing in Scotland—has equally criticised progress on the plan by saying simply that not enough is happening quickly enough. However, “The Promise” acknowledged that. It said from day 1 that

“children must not wait until the end of a traditional Government review for the change” that they need now. I agree with that sentiment, because there are around 15,000 children in care in Scotland at the moment and we have to get it right for each one of them.

I will talk about children’s mental health. That greatly concerns me, and, to be frank, we are worlds away from getting it right. I was shocked to learn that Scotland has a higher mortality rate among under-18s than any other western European country. A quarter of those deaths are deemed to be preventable—every single one of them.

“The current model for mental health support for children in care is not working.”

Those are not my words; they are from the independent care review of two years ago. Seven in 10 CAMHS patients are being seen within the target time, which means that three are not. Three in 10 does not sound much, but it is if we look at the scale of the issue.

We know that mental health support services are at breaking point. In fact, 90 per cent of child psychiatrists in Scotland believe that the service is completely insufficient and underresourced. I am keen to hear from the Government about that.