Consultation response: Moving on
Part of: Policy work
In October 2024, The Promise Scotland responded to The Scottish Government’s Moving On consultation.
The consultation focused on policy and legislation around young adults moving on from childhood – and care – into adulthood.
Its stated aim is to make sure young people leaving care and moving into adulthood have the right scaffolding of support available to make sure they thrive.
What was The Promise Scotland’s response based on?
The Promise Scotland’s response is based on a simple principle: changes to the ‘care system’ must be centred on how children and young people experience it.
That means that changes must involve discussions with care experienced children and young people. The workforce must be aware of their hopes, aspirations and future plans , and proactively considering how they can support these.
So the response was informed by sources including:
- the voices and experiences heard by the Independent Care Review, which led to the recommendations set out in The Promise Report.
- the ‘Moving On Experts’ whose views were heard during the recent 100 Days of Listening.
What are the general points of this consultation response?
The current policy and legislative landscape has become cluttered and confusing for the workforce and for children, young people and care experienced adults
National policy and legislation relating to children and young people moving on from care into adulthood involves:
- at least 5 pieces of legislation
- 4 statutory regulations or orders
- 8 policy or guidance documents.
The existing laws and policies Scotland has to support care experienced young people and adults must be consistently implemented in practice
A lot of Scotland’s legislation around Moving On from care into adulthood is good— but it’s not always implemented consistently in practice.
Four years after the promise was made, in many cases the concerns raised during the 100 Days of Listening were the same as those heard during the Independent Care Review.
And care experienced young people often don’t have access to the same kind of support as their peers. The average age of leaving home in Scotland is 24— but the average age of leaving care remains between 16 and 18. That’s a stretch of time without the extra security which families often provide.
Laws and policies still don’t put the child at the centre
Scotland’s laws and policies don’t always see the “care system” from a child’s perspective. Seeing things through a child’s eyes can highlight where something should be changed.
For example, one of the changes recommended in The Promise Scotland’s consultation response is that birthdays must be avoided as days to send letters, plan moves or create cliff edges of help and support. Birthdays are supposed to be joyous occasions, not opportunities to be alerted to fundamental life changes.
Key messages from the consultation response
Any changes which are made as a result of the Moving On from care into adulthood consultation must take the views, experiences and rights of children and young people as the starting point.
This is true for changes to:
- policy
- practice
- legislation.
Changes must be consistent with the promise, through being compatible with:
- the conclusions of the Independent Care Review, and
- what is set out in Plan 24-30.
The areas which clutter the current landscape of policy and legislation must be both identified and addressed.
Doing this should help make sure that fragmentation, confusion and overwhelm doesn’t continue to be a barrier to:
- upholding young people’s rights
- ensuring the needs of young people are met.
Children, families, care experienced adults and members of the workforce must be able to:
- understand rights and entitlements
- understand how to access these.
But sometimes, different pieces of policy and legislation can appear to be in conflict around the rights and entitlements someone should have. For example, there is a disparity between the rights and entitlements of those who are in kinship care on a Compulsory Supervision Order, and those who have Kinship Care Orders.
Conflicts like these can cause more harm than good, and they must be identified and addressed. The legislative landscape must aid understanding of rights and entitlements, instead of prohibiting it.
There are many examples of good practice across Scotland.
These are led by dedicated and kind members of the workforce, who are helping Scotland to keep the promise. They must be supported, and this good work must be shared and built upon.
Scotland must grasp this opportunity to create meaningful, long-lasting transformational change.
This includes:
- making sure the workforce is adequately resourced
- creating a legislative, regulatory and policy framework which is simplified and cohesive
- making sure funding is sufficient, consistent and reliable.
To help them navigate moving into adulthood, young people must have strong and supportive relationships with people they can trust.
Right now, continuing care is implemented disparately and inconsistently. This must stop.
The first step in doing this must be to implement existing duties in a meaningful way. This will involve understanding the systemic barriers in the way of this, then overcoming them. For this to happen, additional resources will be required.
There must be a national understanding of both:
- the resources a smaller and more specialised care system will require
- how these resources can be best directed.
Determining how resources can be best directed will happen through understanding the needs of the children who will depend on this care system. This includes the small number with disabilities or complex health conditions, who will transition immediately into adult social care to meet their needs.
The terms used in both policy and legislation to refer to children moving on into adulthood must change— including terms such as ‘continuing care’, ‘throughcare’ and ‘aftercare’.
Young people must be encouraged to ‘stay put’ in their setting of care for as long as they need or want to, in line with the ‘Staying Put Scotland’ guidance.
Planning within the care system must include a presumption that:
- children and young people will stay in care for longer
- ‘aftercare’ will be provided until the age of 26.
This presumption should be clearly communicated to children and young people and members of the workforce.
A statutory ‘right to return’ must be introduced for young adults for whom Scotland has taken on parenting responsibility.
Care experienced young adults must be nurtured for as long as required. For that to happen, they must have access to services and supportive people to nurture care experienced young adults for as long as required.
Decisions about children and young people moving on from care into adulthood must be made in their best interests— not influenced by financial or resource challenges.
Access to ‘continuing care’ and ‘aftercare’ must be extended for:
- children and young people on Kinship Care Orders
- young people in further and higher education, so that this matches their length of study.
When corporate parents have ongoing parenting responsibility, they must demonstrate how they’re delivering integrated support from childhood to adulthood.
There must be appropriate support services for care experienced adults once ‘continuing care’ and ‘aftercare’ duties ‘end’.
This should help mean there is no longer a ‘cliff edge’ of care and support.
All young care experienced people transitioning into adulthood from care must have access to safe, secure and suitable housing.