Putting the family first in the corridors of power

As a new session of the Scottish parliament begins this week, there have been calls for families to be placed more fully at the heart of policy-making, with the appointment of a designated lead minister with responsibility for all family issues.

Many of these issues are currently spread across a plethora of committees, such as health, education, justice and social inclusion. Although the government is committed to "joined-up" policies and legislation, there is an uneasy feeling that more could be done, and more effectively, if the 800 Scottish support projects for parents could liaise with one clearly identified minister.

Opposition spokesman on children, Nicola Sturgeon, has already spoken out in favour of a Children's Ombudsman, and now at least one leading voluntary organisation reports that Scots families are in crisis because of the huge pressures they are under.

Family Mediation Services helps families through the trauma of marriage and relationship break-ups. With more than one in five families now headed by a lone parent, and so many families going through conflict, the changing nature and needs of different families is becoming increasingly urgent. More work than ever is being carried out directly with children affected by family splits.

Hugh Donald of FMS says that the beginning of the new millennium is the perfect time to open up a debate on the future provision of family support services . At a briefing session at the Scottish parliament on Tuesday, he and other mediators from Scottish Mediation Network will explain their issues and priorities to MSPs.

"Families are going through so many transitions just now. There are re-marriages, lone parent families, bereavements, new step- families being formed, grandparents losing touch with grandchildren, all sorts of changes that we have not seen before in such numbers," Donald says. "The support they all get must be more integrated, and I believe there is the political will across all the parties to look at the big picture and make families a strong focal point at the centre of policies."

Sam Galbraith, who has the Children and Education portfolio, feels the family portfolio would be too wide a remit, and in any case, the granting of portfolios is a matter for the First Minister alone. But Donald argues for there to be an appropriate focus on families in Scotland, a lead Minister for families and family policy is necessary to ensure effective co-ordination, action and liaison.

"We want the government and all members of the Scottish Parliament to look radically at these issues to help and improve family life in the new millennium."

FMS is calling for the establishment of a working party with representatives from relevant areas such as law, health and social inclusion, or a committee with a focus on the family to progress the government's own consultation document, Improving Scottish Family Law. There is already talk of the formation of an all party parliamentary group on children, which could widen its role to cover all family issues.

Donald says: "We are not necessarily talking about the appointment of a new minister, as an existing minister could be given an extended brief. Then when it came to debating issues that affect families, that person would stand up and give the issue more profile and provide a focal point both for the debate and the agenda. Agencies such as our own could work with one individual instead of a range of individuals. That would be more effective for agencies and for families."

The agency Children In Scotland also wants the setting up of a parliamentary committee to look at the interests of children, young people and families, chaired by a minister covering that portfolio. Additionally, it wants to see the establishment of a Children's Commissioner which would report to the Scottish Parliament, providing an annual report on how children are faring. The agency says too often families confront policies, legislation and services which fail to take account of their needs.

It wants the committee to co-ordinate the work of relevant ministers and to examine the impact of all proposed legislation on children, young people and families.

Nicola Sturgeon says it is a policy which is commonplace in other European countries and has worked well. "It is 10 years since Britain signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and we need a bridge between local and central government and the voluntary organisations involved," she says.

Sturgeon adds a children's commissioner would have a role to play in terms of family issues, and it is a weakness of current government structures that it is not immediately obvious who is responsible for which issues. "None and at the same time all committees in the parliament have responsibility for children. The current consultation is likely to highlight this difficulty. It would be useful if the lead minister and committee were clearly identified and recognised."

IT'S not, she says, a party political issue at all, but simple common sense, and one on which a number of voluntary agencies have voiced considerable support.

She says the Welsh Assembly has already endorsed the concept of a children's commissioner and is examining the remit. Certainly, no- one wants to go down the Westminster route, with departmental structures leading to so much fragmented policy. In Scotland the government published its consultation paper but has not yet announced the results of its deliberations and family policy framework, which are eagerly awaited by Scottish agencies.

But is there a danger of government meddling in family life? One man's holistic policy making could well be another's cranky social engineering. Whose family is it anyway, and whose business what goes on behind our front doors? Surely good parents are born rather that made at parenting classes?

Perhaps not, with increasing evidence that the good old days were not always that great for children. Social workers will tell you that child abuse and cruelty were not invented in the 1950s along with sex and teenagers. It simply wasn't discussed, but parents were as mixed a bunch then as we are now. And while fewer marriages broke up, it was sometimes purely because there was nowhere for women to go with five bairns and no money.

The 1990s and the coming decade were, and will be, very different from the grasping heat of the "me-first" 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher was able to announce confidently that there was "no such thing as society". The loads-a-money culture burnt out leaving a trail of negative equity in its path, and a general feeling that there was at least the need to protect the vulnerable status of family life. There was undoubted unease about measuring family life in the market place.

Some will doubtless perceive Wendy Alexander's current determination to socially include us all as overkill. But in reality, the pace of technology is forcing social change undreamt of a decade ago, threatening to tear open the gap between rich and poor in nano- seconds unless we intervene. And the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" can no longer apply to family life. Some of it is clearly broke, and is evolving into other forms whether we like it or not. No wonder there is a mood to protect the family as the most enduring human structure of all.

Hugh Donald says whatever new forms they take, they still exist, and the government has already undertaken to strengthen family life. So the debate has moved on from whether this should happen, to how best it might be done.

"Organisations like our own don't want to make decisions for families; we are not like the courts which can impose solutions. But parents need information and support in what are often very difficult times when a family breaks up.

"We agree with Nicola Sturgeon that children must have a voice, but we want government to look at the whole family, and not just the child, because that's where children are growing up. That gives a voice to children in the very widest sense."

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