The `single point of contact` myth has been exploded

From Iain MacWhirter of the Herald:

"John Swinney turned the indignation meter up to 11 in his defence of the Named Person scheme in Holyrood yesterday. Critics should be `ashamed of scaremongering` he roared and `creating a climate of misinformation`. But there`s been no need for the opposition to do that. It was after all Nicola Sturgeon who said that the NP scheme was not compulsory, when it emphatically is."

"Mr Swinney added to the confusion by comparing the Named Person with a family doctor - a `service` to be accessed as Mr Swinney put it `only when the family needs it`. But GPs are not responsible for preventing child abuse. The Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, Tavish Scott, insisted that `parents and carers can say thanks, but no thanks` to a Named Person. He then contradicts himself by saying that families will `no longer be allowed to hide abuse.` Exactly."

"Child protection is not optional. This has to be made clear, whatever side you take on this issue..."

"Inevitably the shadow of two-year-old Liam Fee, who was murdered by his mothers, hung over the debate. The SNP MSP Jenny Gilruth accused the Tories of `using the death of a child to score political points`. The Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson had tweeted that Liam Fee already had a Named Person, which was half right. Fife Council admitted that Liam had indeed been assigned one as a `point of contact`. But they went on to say that this wasn`t a fully operational, all-seeing NP with all the extensive powers that go with the post."

"The trouble here is that a `point of contact` is precisely how the Government has been selling the scheme. The phrase was used repeatedly in Holyrood yesterday by MSPs. Yet it is clearly very much more than that. The SNP furiously object to the term `state guardians` but that is exactly what a Named Person is turning out to be, whether they intended this or not."

"They are appointed by the state for every single child in Scotland from the moment they are born, without exception. This is an entirely new proactive approach to child welfare that is called Getting It Right For Every Child or GIRFEC..."

"The Named Person is `a key part of the early warning system we need to make sure that every child in Scotland is protected` according to Barnardos. An early warning system only works if it has an unrestricted view. Named Persons will be expected to spot the early signs of abuse and exchange information with GPs and police - in other words to create a database in which abnormal behaviour will be monitored, recorded and assessed. This could create a bureaucracy of state intervention in family life that is unprecedented anywhere in the world."

"The responsibility on the named person will be onerous. When the next Liam Fee happens - and it certainly will happen - the finger of blame will first of all point, as it did last week to the Named Person who is suppposed to be the protector of the child."

https://twitter.com/iainmacwhirter/status/740507667425300481

Sad to say, the Liam Fee murder has brought to the surface serious questions about the Named Person scheme that are not going to go away.

As the writer makes clear, it has been the Scottish Government which has been misinforming the public about the role of Named Persons.

The Named Person scheme is much more than a `single point of contact` - it `s a surveillance system - and anybody who reads the ACT and the guidance can see that.

Meanwhile the Scottish Government intends to waste more taxpayer money inventing refreshed `spin` about it, for what they hope will be a still ignorant or gullible public.

`Digging a bigger hole` comes into mind at this point.

In order to understand the powers of the Named Person, a good place to start is with the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, paying particular attention to Part 4.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2014/8/contents/enacted

Joining the dots at UK Column

 

UK Column 22 April 2016 [continued from previous post, and going through an excellent piece of work by David Scott.]

 

Speaking to David Scott, Mike Robinson says, "David, we`re starting off with GIRFEC here."

On screen appears a letter to Sally Ann Kelly, Chief Executive of Barnardo`s from the Local Government and Communities Directorate, Third Sector Unit.

"And this is a grant? £750,000 is it?" 

"Yes, just under 3/4 of a million pounds and that`s gone to Barnardo`s and a few other charities and they`re running a system of integrating the third sector with the general GIRFEC framework... So this is the system of looking after children in families, through education, in healthcare, that permeates every aspect of the Scottish Government."

"We`re now seeing the third sector, the charitable sector, brought into that fully in detail. So they`re involved in the planning of new developments - they`re involved in every aspect of it - there is in functional terms no difference between the government and these charities."

Mike Robinson asks: "And this is the gentleman who`s done this; is that correct?"

"This is Gareth Allen of the Scottish Government.  He`s all over this. If you google, you`ll find a lot by him encouraging charities to come on board and talking to charities and you can even look at his slide show presentation which explains exactly how it`s all done and how wonderful it`s going to be in the new Scotland. Now the letter there, that award letter was written to the, then, head of Barnardo`s Sally Ann Kelly... Martin Crewe is now head of Barnardo`s... She`s moved on to another charity and this is also a charity dealing with children in Scotland, receiving Scottish Government grants, backing the Named Person scheme wholeheartedly overall for the state snooper scheme... And they are entirely in the pocket of Government. And this lady is running the show there and I`m sure she has lots of contacts which will ensure the Aberlour Trust here will see a great deal of financial support from the government."

Brian Gerrish interrupts: "David I`m fascinated by that website because again we`ve got this look. The website is very childish but, of course, it`s not designed to be read by children. It`s designed to be read by adults and so we`ve got this inversion going on; silly, childish writing about a very serious subject to do with children."

"Yes and little piggy bank for the donate button. It`s all very jolly and as though it`s child friendly but you`re quite right. It`s not there to be read by children."

Mike Robinson puts another document on screen. Funding for the Getting it Right for Every child GIRFEC third sector national project.  "And you wanted to highlight this:"

"This project will work with CPPs to develop an approach to GIRFEC in which there is full recognition and contribution of the Third Sector."
"There are three aims which include:"
"... to embed the role of the Third Sector in GIRFEC at local and national level..."
"To conduct a three year project in which the Public Social Partnership will work with the Community Planning Partners to reinforce and embed the role of the Third Sector in the implementation of GIRFEC."

"Right. What that means, because it`s a bit, you know, central government gobbledygook; what that means is that there`s going to be a whole series of things called Community Planning Partnerships. They will then enter into formal written agreements with central government. They will involve, not only local authorities and police.. NHS and other services but they will also involve... integrated... third sector charities ...Barnardo`s and Aberlour. So they will have a seat at the table. They will form these written agreements with central government. They will then apply government policy, including [the] Named Person, data gathering and complete state surveillance of the family."

"Now the effect of this is that there is nowhere to go. If you then go to any major children`s charity in Scotland with any sort of problem - and those of us who follow the Hollie Greig case know the sort of problems those might be - then you`re dealing with the Scottish Government. You`re dealing with the state; you`re dealing with the great big singular entity that is the Scottish model of government. But it`s not just that there are no functional departments within the government ...almost the entire third sector ... has been rolled into government as well."

Gerrish responds: "This is the third sector or the Third Way which, of course, Tony Blair was absolutely boasting about back in 2001/2002 - if I`ve got my dates right. So unaccountable people in the NGOs` quasi-government systems. Now it`s all being rolled in together. This is Big Society...It`s communitarianism is the closest description I think we can get to it."

Mike Robinson continues: "Well David, tell us about Joining the dots."

"Right, so Joining the dots is the core document that underpins GIRFEC. This is the Named Person and all of these things. So this is the defining document. Now you will be pleased to hear it was an independent document; it was an independent report, so that`s ok and it was headed by a former Labour MSP but she clearly didn`t write it. The person who seems to have written it is, in fact, this lady, Laura Meagher. [James Hutton Institute] Now she`s a very interesting lady... She came to Scotland ... from America, and she came to Scotland at a very interesting time, 1999.  And this is not the first time I`ve found this. When you look at the people who are actually generating the ideas, they all arrive in Scotland in 1999. Why? Because we`re getting a new parliament."

"What happened was people came from all round the globe - globalists if you like - to influence the policies of that new parliament because it was a clean slate. So where Scotland thinks it received a degree of independence, what`s actually happened is we`ve got globalists, think tanks and people influencing the policy behind the scenes and the change from Westminster to the Holyrood parliament simply opened up a new opportunity for these people to control what we actually do. And we`re seeing the policy of the Scottish parliament actually being set by people such as Laura Meagher."

 "And we`ve got a number of other people involved in producing this document. One is the Centre for Confidence and well-being.  Now the Centre for Confidence and well-being is meant to be Scottish because Scots are meant to lack self confidence, ok? I don`t know if you noticed that; that`s the allegation.... [It] is in fact Common Purpose sitting on a thistle because all of the people seem to have huge Common Purpose links, including Mr Alf Young here. Very friendly looking chap. I like the smile ...and what`s his background?"

Mike Robinson says: "Well from 2007 he chaired the Glasgow Advisory board for Common Purpose."

"Yes... so what you`ve got is the import of the ideas from America [and] the UN via American universities. That`s brought in. We`ve got Common Purpose providing the organisational infrastructure to actually get everything set up and ... then we have assorted charities and quite a few PR companies ... Charities give cover and the appearance of it being from the people and the PR companies get the message out. And that`s what we`ve got. That`s the origin of GIRFEC. That`s the origin of the Named Person. It did not come from Scotland. It did not come from our politicians. It came from elsewhere."

The ideas also came via Westminster: See http://alicemooreuk.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/thinking-about-future.html

Fairbridge to become part of Prince`s Trust

by Goody

"Britain’s Child Migrants"

"..unanswered questions about the rationale for the child migration policy and who drove it forward within a context of secrecy, deception and lies. "

"…need to address the relationship between the charities, the churches and the state in the implementation of this policy."

Quoting Liz Davies

"The forced migration of children as a social policy began in the 17th Century and continued for 350 years until coming to an end in 1970."

"It is estimated that 130,000 child victims of 200,000 parents were sent to Canada, New Zealand, Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and Australia. Most child migrants had no idea of their birth families or the reason why they were sent to the colonies and parents were not told what had happened to their children. They were sent to populate the Empire with ‘good, white British stock’. Many of the children lived in large institutions and were used as cheap labour suffering abuse, cruelty and neglect..."

"The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry in Northern Ireland has already heard evidence from child migrants, as has the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse."

"It is not yet known whether the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in the UK will grant child migrants core participant status and therefore enable them to be legally represented."

"It is concerning that the main IICSA public hearings are not accepting personal accounts of child abuse which are instead being presented through the Truth Project strand of the Inquiry which is not part of the legal process of prosecution and justice."

"The [Fairbridge] society was one of several child migration charities which dispatched about 100,000 impoverished British children to Australia, Canada and other far-flung parts of the Empire from the late 19th century to the 1970s."

"Unlike Barnardo’s, which has acknowledged that its child migrant scheme was `shameful` and `barbaric`, Fairbridge has refused to apologise for past injustices."

"In January 2011 it was announced that Fairbridge will become part of The Prince’s Trust."

Read more: http://loucollins.uk/2016/04/25/britains-child-migrants-the-fairbridge-societythe-independent-inquiry-into-child-sexual-abuse-iicsa/