Edinburgh children's home abuse scandal: Nicola Sturgeon should intervene to remind council leader Adam McVey of his duties – Susan Dalgety

Speaking at the Global Family Care Gathering in 2018, she said that while she had many responsibilities as First Minister, there was none more important than the one she has as Scotland’s chief corporate parent.

“Chief Mammy, as I prefer to describe it,” she said, deploying a phrase so couthy even she seemed slightly embarrassed to use it.

But saccharine aside, Sturgeon was right. When a child enters the care system in Scotland, the state becomes responsible for their welfare. On a practical level, that means the local council becomes the young person’s corporate parent, and the rules on what are expected are clear.

The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 sets out the statutory guidance on being a good corporate parent. Any public body charged with looking after children will want “the best outcomes for their looked-after children, accept responsibility for them, and make their needs a priority”.

And the Scottish Government published a helpful guide, “These are our bairns”, to advise councils and their partners on how best to care for looked-after children.

One can only guess that the people responsible for looking after the troubled children in Edinburgh’s two secure units in recent years didn’t bother to read the guide. The recent report by the council’s monitoring officer, after complaints by a whistleblower about abuse, found “illegality, maladministration and injustice” at both places.

If that wasn’t scandal enough, it now seems that Adam McVey, Edinburgh’s council leader – the city’s ‘Chief Daddy’ – is determined there will be no public discussion about his administration’s failure as a corporate parent.

It was bad enough that councillors could not debate the monitoring officer’s full report two weeks ago at full council, because the SNP-Labour ruling group refused a plea by Tory councillors to continue the meeting past its 5pm cut-off time. God forbid that a scandal involving the abuse of children should get in the way of the council leadership’s tea-time.

And last week Councillor McVey showed an uncomfortably authoritarian streak when he stopped two Tory councillors from asking questions about the report during the monthly meeting of the policy and sustainability meeting. He simply muted their microphones when they tried to raise the issue.

According to McVey, the councillors “tried to break rules and conventions relating to questioning officers” and, perhaps the worst crime of all in his eyes, they attempted to propose “an incompetent amendment”.

And his Labour sidekick, depute council leader Cammy Day, complained that the “disrespect” shown by some Tory councillors was “unacceptable”.

Forgive me for being old-fashioned, but I think the failure of Edinburgh City Council to discharge its legal and moral responsibility as the corporate parents of the city’s most troubled children is “unacceptable”.

And shutting down debate on the matter is disrespectful, not only to the victims, but to Edinburgh citizens. We need to know what happened behind the closed doors of those secure units.

Perhaps Scotland’s Chief Mammy should pick up the phone and remind her SNP colleague Councillor McVey that, of all his responsibilities as council leader, he has none more important than his role as the city’s chief corporate parent.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.