Cross-Border Placements Regulations: island communities impact assessment

Consultation

We have already engaged with key stakeholders about the Regulations.

We published a policy paper on our proposals on 6 January, seeking stakeholder responses by 28 January. Officials also met with stakeholders, including The Promise Scotland, Social Work Scotland, COSLA, Scotland's Children's Hearing System (SCHS), the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration, CELCIS, the UK Government, and Chief Social Work Officers. The Minister for Children and Young People also met with her UK Government counterpart, Mr Will Quince MP, on 2 February to express the importance of resolving the capacity issues fuelling these placements as a matter of urgency.

A variety of feedback was received from around 30 stakeholders. That included responses from regulatory and oversight organisations, health and social care providers, third sector organisations, and legal stakeholders. The engagement was focused, inviting views by email, given the urgency of bringing forward regulations to regulate cross-border placements. That means most responses were submitted without the expectation that we would publish them.

We have since contacted all those who provided feedback, to seek permission to cite their views in a summary paper. We published that summary paper^[5] on 25 March 2022, outlining key themes raised and the updated policy position. In particular, we adapted the policy to remove the original proposed role for SCHS – as explained above.

Stakeholders largely shared our concerns about current practices and their impacts on the children affected by these placements, agreeing with the need to move to end cross-border placements in the longer-term, in line with Keeping the Promise. There was also agreement from stakeholders that the non-Scottish placing authority should be the implementation authority, and should therefore retain full responsibility for the implementation, oversight, review and financial costs of the placement.

Following the above engagement, we cannot identify any significantly different impacts the Regulations would have on island communities as compared to other communities. These placements entail a child being placed far from home, whether they are placed on an island or not. Often there are distances of hundreds of miles between the child's home and the residential setting in Scotland which accommodates them as part of a cross-border placement, given the lack of suitable accommodation in the child's local area. This means that particular effort needs to be made by the child's social worker to ensure that they are able to make regular and meaningful contact with their loved ones.

It is key to highlight that the Regulations will put in place a more robust and streamlined process for recognition of DOL orders in Scotland than that which currently exists. Whilst this will ensure that the placements are better regulated than they have been to date, the decision as to where to place a child and whether the granting of a DOL order is in their best interests will continue to lie with the relevant court elsewhere in the UK, as informed by submissions from the placing authority. Accordingly, we do not anticipate that the Regulations will impact on how many children are subject to DOL orders are placed in Scotland, nor where they are ultimately accommodated.

Throughout the development of the policy, Ministers have considered the potential impacts on those who could be affected by it, including island communities. As noted above, all interested stakeholders have been given the opportunity to express their views on the proposed policy and, where concerns have been raised, further discussion has been undertaken to address the relevant issues. It is accordingly considered that consultation on the policy has been robust, meaningful and sufficient to comply with the duty under section 7 of the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018.^[6]