"Campaigners opposed to the Scottish Government's Named Person scheme have accused ministers of `throwing a veil of secrecy` around its progress to reform the policy."
"Education secretary John Swinney announced an `intense` three-month consultation on how to make the scheme comply with European human rights law in September last year."
"The consultation was announced six weeks after the UK Supreme Court ruled elements of the policy to be `incompatible` with the right to privacy and family life, as set out in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)."
"Mr Swinney intended to outline his next steps before the end of 2016."
"But the group which mounted a legal challenge against the scheme said there have been no updates from ministers."
"Freedom of Information requests by the No To Named Persons (NO2NP) for details of the consultation discussions were rejected."
"`He refused to engage with us even though we represent an important cross-section of Scottish society, huge numbers of parents and more than 35,000 people who signed our petition`."
"`The three-month 'engagement' has long since ended. It looks like it could be more like six or seven months, March or April 2017, before we hear anything`."
"He added: `The Supreme Court agreed with us that the intrusive sharing of private information which was at the heart of the Named Person scheme was unlawful`."
"`The court granted our appeal, and ordered the Scottish Government to pay all our costs. It was a total defeat for the Scottish Government`."
"`The substantial delay in announcing their plans to try to navigate a way around the ruling indicates that reality is finally beginning to bite`..."
"The Deputy First Minister will update Parliament in due course."
https://stv.tv/news/politics/1381692-veil-of-secrecy-around-named-person-consultation/
reblogged
ReplyDelete