Number of children in care reaches highest level for almost 30 years

Published on Wednesday 24 February 2010 21:00

THE number of children in care has reached its highest level for almost 30 years.

Official statistics yesterday showed that at the end of March last year there were 15,288 youngsters in care across Scotland – 3 per cent more than the previous year and the largest number since 1983.

The figures were released at the same time as the Scottish Government published new legislation aimed at improving the children's hearing system.

The proposals, contained in the Children's Hearings (Scotland) Bill, will create a new national body with a convener, who will be responsible for setting standards for the recruitment, support and training of local children's panel members.

The bill also aims to ensure the fundamental principle of protecting children's welfare remains at the heart of the system.

Children's minister Adam Ingram said the rise in the number of children in care showed why reforming the system was so important.

He said the changes, along with other measures from the government, would "help us ensure earlier and more effective support for vulnerable children to reduce the need for so many children in Scotland being taken into care".

The statistics revealed 39 per cent of those children who were in care were looked after at home, while 20 per cent were cared for by friends or relatives. A further 29 per cent had been placed with foster carers and 10 per cent were in residential accommodation.

A total of 5,194 children entered the care system in 2008-9 – an increase of 1 per cent from the previous year. There were 4,386 children who stopped being under the care of the local authority – down 3 per cent from 2007-8.

The children's hearing system was set up in the 1960s to deal with youngsters who were in trouble or at risk. It is based on the system of local people in the child's own community making decisions about how best to help and there are more than 2,500 volunteers on local children's panels.

Mr Ingram said: "Early intervention lies at the heart of the Scottish Government's approach to improving people's life chances and our unique, welfare-based children's hearings system exemplifies this principle.

"That system – in which local volunteers make decisions to improve lives of local young people – remains the best way of offering support, but children and families today are facing different challenges and circumstances from when it was created.

"The bill will modernise and reinforce the system, , ensuring better support for the professionals and volunteers who deliver it, which in turn will mean better outcomes for children through more consistent decision-making.

"Maintaining children's hearings made up of local people, drawn from the community who are best placed to make decisions that are in the best interests of the child or young person, is at the centre of these reforms."

Labour said the government's previous attempt to change the children's hearing system had caused some volunteers to threaten to resign before the proposals were aborted.

Karen Whitefield, Labour's children and early years spokeswoman, said:

"It is now vital that today's revised proposals are fully scrutinised to ensure that they strengthen the existing system.

"As we have seen today with the number of children in care reaching a 30-year high, any changes made to the children's hearing system must assist panel members in carrying out this vital work.

"The system must have the best interests of children at its heart."