Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Expanded Table of Contents
- Table of Cases
- Table of Statutes
- Table of Statutory Instruments
- Foreword by The Hon. Lady Wise
- Introduction
- 1 The Statutory Framework before 1968
- 2 The Statutory Framework after 1968
- 3 Child Protection through the Criminal Law
- 4 The Legal Process before 1968: The Juvenile Court
- 5 The Legal Process in the Modern Era: Scotland’s Children’s Hearing System
- 6 Home Supervision
- 7 Boarding-out and Fostering by Public Authorities
- 8 Institutional Care
- 9 Emergency and Interim Protection
- 10 Aftercare
- 11 Emigration of Children
- 12 Adoption of Children
- Index
2 - The Statutory Framework after 1968
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Expanded Table of Contents
- Table of Cases
- Table of Statutes
- Table of Statutory Instruments
- Foreword by The Hon. Lady Wise
- Introduction
- 1 The Statutory Framework before 1968
- 2 The Statutory Framework after 1968
- 3 Child Protection through the Criminal Law
- 4 The Legal Process before 1968: The Juvenile Court
- 5 The Legal Process in the Modern Era: Scotland’s Children’s Hearing System
- 6 Home Supervision
- 7 Boarding-out and Fostering by Public Authorities
- 8 Institutional Care
- 9 Emergency and Interim Protection
- 10 Aftercare
- 11 Emigration of Children
- 12 Adoption of Children
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
We will see elsewhere in this book that the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 was less radical in its effects than is often assumed, but it would be wrong to deny that it marked a significant milestone. 1968 was a watershed year, before which our law was based on Acts from the 1930s; since then our law has developed the contemporary structures it maintains to this day. We remember the 1968 Act primarily for giving effect to the recommendation of the Kilbrandon Report, discussed immediately below, to establish a new tribunal for dealing with children who previously would be dealt with through the juvenile court. But the Act did far more than that. In particular, it restructured the way that social services, and not only for children, were delivered. The substantive legal changes since 1968 have all built upon the framework established in the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968.
THE KILBRANDON COMMITTEE, 1961–1964
In May 1961, John Maclay, the Secretary of State for Scotland, appointed a Committee whose remit was “to consider the provisions of the law of Scotland relating to the treatment of juvenile delinquents and juveniles in need of care or protection or beyond parental control”. Its chairman was CJD Shaw who, as a Senator of the College of Justice (and later Lord of Appeal in Ordinary), was known by the judicial title of Lord Kilbrandon. Kilbrandon himself described the makeup of the Committee as follows:
There were two judges of the sheriff court … One of them was a woman. There were three magistrates experienced in juvenile court work, two of them being women, an expert in probation work, a professor of law, an approved school manager, a clerk to a juvenile court, a very distinguished child psychiatrist, a well-known secondary headmaster and a senior county chief constable.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A History of Scottish Child Protection Law , pp. 42 - 84Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2020