CHILDREN'S HEARINGS: A RETROSPECT

Abstract

The Scottish system of children's hearings for children under 16 who are delinquent or in need of care and protection was established by the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968. Its progenitor was the Kilbrandon Committee's Report on Children and Young Persons 1 published in 1964. The 1968 Act provided that children's panels should be formed in every local authority area. These are panels of laymen whose selection, and subse quent training, is the responsibility of local Children's Panel Advisory Committees (Haldane, 1971 ) but whose appointment rests with the Secretary of State for Scotland. A children's hearing consists of three members of this panel sitting together to discuss, with the child and the parents and the social worker, what measures of care, if any, are appropriate for the children brought before them by the reporter to the panel. It is not part of the hear ing's function to adjudicate on facts. If the child, or the parents, dispute the grounds on which the referral has been made by the reporter, the issue is referred to the Sheriff. Thus the system effectively separates the two cate gories of decision, one of which relates to the facts of the case and the other to the measures of care required when the facts have been substantiated. The new system came into operation in April 1971 and has thus been func tioning for a little over four years already. The man in the street remains, how ever, in the words used by Lord Kilbrandon (1968) in this Journal, quite unprepared for an extension of humanitarian or even experimental remedies in the face of what he regards as a growing social menace. Although most panel members, reporters, social workers and others who see the system at first hand are impressed by its potentialities, there is still insufficient in formation available to the man in the street to effect change in his attitude. Research into the work of the hearings is being undertaken, but is limited in its scope. Statistics are being collected by the Social Work Services Group but delays in securing reliable figures have tended to hold back publication. Consequently it is impossible as yet to provide a well-documented account of the way the system is developing. In the meantime, however, several conscientious interim reports have been prepared and given local circula tion.2 Since reliable information is still so scarce, it may be considered useful to present some of the facts which emerge from an analysis of the 210 hearings attended by the author as a member of the Edinburgh children's panel for two years from April 1971. The material about each hearing which was systematically collected and on which the analysis is based included the following factors: 1. the age of the child and his parents ; 2. the address of the family ;