The SNP has introduced brand new form of interference in the lives of Scottish families:
Under the “scary” legislation, known as Getting It Right For Every Child or GIRFEC, every child aged under 18 will have a ‘Named Person’ with the legal right to ensure they are raised in a government-approved manner.
It will also mean that sensitve personal details about every child — even down to the names of their pets — can be recorded, stored and shared on a central database.
Incredibly, GIRFEC has already been adopted by almost every local authority in Scotland and yet most people — including some MSPs — have no idea of the full extent of its Big Brother-style interference.
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For children under five, the state guardian will usually be a health visitor, while for school-age children it will usually be the headteacher or deputy head.
They will have to record “routine information” about their charges, which is then stored in a vast database, and can raise concerns about a child’s wellbeing that could ultimately result in them being taken into care.
Marion Samson, headteacher at Westquarter Primary and Nursery in Falkirk, is a ‘Named Person’ who says her role is to “challenge” families who are not bringing up their children properly.
However, in response to her profile on the government’s Engage for Education blog, one teacher – giving her name as Sian Dawson — described GIRFEC as “quite a scary notion”.
She wrote: “Perhaps the Scottish Government would be far better tightening up the processes surrounding child protection for those who actually need help rather than not trusting the majority of families to do a good job.”
According to a Scottish Government training document seen by this newspaper, the specific aim of GIRFEC is to undermine parents and give the “community” a greater role in raising children.
