Education secretary Jenny Gilruth has today had to defend the Scottish government’s record from the claims by the outgoing children’s commissioner that it “absolutely” failed to improve the lives of children.
Yesterday, Humza Yousaf said he “fundamentally” rejected claims by the commissioner, Bruce Adamson, over the record of his predecessor as first minister, Nicola Sturgeon.
This afternoon in the Scottish Parliament, Labour education spokesperson Pam Duncan-Glancy asked education secretary Jenny Gilruth for her response to Mr Adamson’s comments.
Ms Sturgeon repeatedly said during her eight years as first minister that she wanted to be judged on education, and also underlined her commitment to tackling child poverty.
But Mr Adamson, whose six-year term as children’s commissioner comes to an end this week, said the administration led by Ms Sturgepon had not done enough.
Asked on BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show if Ms Sturgeon had failed on “raising the bar for all, closing the attainment gap [and] opening up opportunity for every child”, Mr Adamson said: “Absolutely.”
However, Ms Gilruth this afternoon rejected that view.
“I do not recognise the picture he paints,” she said. “This is a government which introduced the game-changing Scottish Child Payment to tackle child poverty. We are delivering 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare to all three- and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds. We have introduced free bus travel for all under-22s, and we have the most generous provision of free school meal entitlement in any other part of the UK.
“We are doing all of this...as a devolved government within a fixed budget, and despite that we will continue to make real progress in delivering for our children in what have been, and continue to be, very challenging times.”
Ms Duncan-Glancy, however, said that Mr Adamson was ”fundamentally correct in saying the SNP government has failed on its promises to children and young people”.
She added: “They failed on the attainment gap, on free bikes, child poverty, counselling in schools, free school meals, and the list goes on.”
In Mr Adamson’s interview on Sunday, he went on to say: “We have to acknowledge that the pandemic had a huge impact on children’s rights and it had a disproportionate impact on those whose rights were already most at risk, and I think that’s the really concerning thing.
“We really need a step-change in the way that we address those concerns by putting funding into those support services that families need, in order to get that early and effective support, because otherwise, we end up in a crisis situation, which costs a lot more.”
Mr Adamson acknowledged that being first minister is a “hugely challenging job” and Ms Sturgeon “did a really good job” during the pandemic.
Asked if he had faith that Mr Yousaf would do a better job for the country’s children, he said: “I think the new first minister may have made some big promises...but we’ve not seen anything on delivering those.
“I’m really disappointed that he didn’t mention children’s rights in his big vision for Scotland statement to Parliament - it’s only mentioned very briefly in the written document.
“We’ve got no commitment to actually bringing the laws forward that will deliver change, and then some of these questions around their commitment to universal supports like school meals raises some big questions.”
The commissioner was “hugely concerned” that “action isn’t following the words”.
Speaking to the PA news agency on Monday, Mr Yousaf said: “I have the greatest of respect for the outgoing children’s commissioner, but I fundamentally disagree with Bruce Adamson about what he said about my predecessor, or indeed what he is saying on the Scottish government.”
Like Ms Gilruth today, he cited “game-changing” policies such as the Scottish Child Payment, free bus travel for under-22s and free school meals.
But Mr Yousaf also said: “I am the first to accept that more has to be done to reduce our child poverty rates in Scotland, which are too high. And that’s why I’ve made it a defining mission of the government that I lead.”
Mr Adamson had also raised concerns about the lack of movement on incorporating the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into Scots Law. A bill was unanimously passed by MSPs nearly two years ago but was then struck down by the UK Supreme Court.
“I’m hugely concerned there’s been a year-and-a-half of prevarication delay from the Scottish government,” Mr Adamson said on Sunday.
Mr Yousaf said in response: “Now we have to work with the UK government when it comes to the re-introduction of that bill. What I don’t want to do is reintroduce a bill and there’s another referral, for example, to the Supreme Court.
“We are working with the UK government and I’m going to put some pace behind that to make sure we can reintroduce that bill sooner rather than later.”
