GIRFEC, the Named Person Scheme, and UNCRC: What Home Educators in Scotland Need to Know

If you have spent any time reading about home education in Scotland, you will have come across GIRFEC. Some councils use it to justify monitoring requests that go well beyond what the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 actually requires. Understanding what GIRFEC is, what legal force it has, and how the Named Person scheme and UNCRC Act 2024 fit into the picture will help you respond to council correspondence with confidence rather than confusion.

What GIRFEC Is

GIRFEC stands for Getting it Right for Every Child. It is a Scottish Government policy framework, not a piece of legislation. Its purpose is to ensure that all agencies working with children take a joined-up approach to promoting children's wellbeing.

GIRFEC uses a wellbeing framework built around eight SHANARRI indicators: Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured, Active, Respected, Responsible, and Included. These indicators are used by social work, health, education, and other services to assess how a child is faring and whether any support is needed.

GIRFEC is genuinely useful as a policy tool for agencies coordinating around vulnerable children. It becomes problematic when councils use it to justify levels of monitoring of home educating families that have no statutory basis in the 1980 Act.

What GIRFEC Does and Does Not Require

GIRFEC does not give local authorities any new legal powers over home educating families. It is a policy framework, not a source of statutory authority. The legal framework for home education in Scotland is the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, and the council's powers in relation to home educators derive from Sections 30, 35, 36, and 38 of that Act.

A council that says it needs to assess your child against the SHANARRI indicators as part of the home education consent or monitoring process is conflating two separate things. The Section 35 consent question is about educational suitability — not a holistic wellbeing assessment. The council's role under Section 35 is narrow: to form a view on whether efficient and suitable education is being provided.

This does not mean that child welfare is irrelevant to home education decisions. Where there are genuine child protection concerns, those may be relevant to consent under specific circumstances noted in Scottish Government guidance. But GIRFEC as a general framework does not extend the council's oversight powers beyond what the Act provides.

The Named Person Scheme

The Named Person scheme was introduced under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 with the intention of giving every child in Scotland a designated point of contact — typically a health visitor for young children or a head teacher for school-age children.

The scheme faced significant legal challenges, primarily on data protection and privacy grounds. In 2016, the UK Supreme Court ruled that parts of the scheme were incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to private and family life) and EU data protection law, because the information-sharing provisions were insufficiently precise and potentially unlawful.

The Named Person provisions were never fully commenced as originally drafted. Following the Supreme Court ruling, the scheme was revised to operate on a voluntary basis. Parents do not have a legal obligation to engage with a Named Person, and a home educating family's refusal to do so cannot form the basis for a negative assessment of their educational provision.

If a council writes to a home educating family suggesting that Named Person involvement is required or expected as part of ongoing oversight, that position is not supported by law. The scheme is voluntary.

The UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024

The UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 gave the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child legal force in Scotland. Scottish public authorities — including local authorities — are now required to act compatibly with the UNCRC rights when exercising their functions.

Several UNCRC articles are directly relevant to home education:

Article 12 requires that children's views are given due weight on matters affecting them, according to the child's age and maturity. This means that when a council is assessing a home education consent request or conducting monitoring, it should take account of what the child says about their own education and wellbeing.

Article 28/29 affirms the right to education and specifically the right to an education that develops the child's personality, talents, and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential. This is entirely compatible with home education, and the UNCRC does not privilege school attendance over other forms of provision.

Article 16 protects the child's right to privacy. This has implications for the extent to which councils can require access to homes or detailed personal information about family life beyond what is educationally relevant.

Article 3 requires that the best interests of the child are a primary consideration. Councils invoking the UNCRC in the context of home education oversight must apply this principle consistently — and home education that meets the Section 30 standard is, for many children, clearly in their best interests.

What the UNCRC Does Not Change

The UNCRC's incorporation into Scots law does not override Section 30 of the 1980 Act, which places the duty and the right to determine educational provision with the parent. A parent's right to home educate remains intact under the Act. The UNCRC adds procedural expectations around how decisions are made — particularly that children's voices are considered — but it does not create new grounds for councils to refuse consent or expand their monitoring powers.

Some councils have suggested that the UNCRC requires them to make independent welfare assessments of home-educated children beyond the educational suitability test in Section 35. That interpretation is not supported by the structure of the 1980 Act. The UNCRC shapes how the council should exercise its existing powers; it does not create new ones.

How to Respond to GIRFEC-Based Requests

If your council sends you a questionnaire or makes a request that is framed around GIRFEC indicators or Named Person arrangements rather than educational suitability, you can respond constructively without accepting that framing.

A practical approach:

• Respond to the substantive educational questions — address what provision you are making and why it is suitable for your child
• Note that your response is provided in the context of the Section 35 consent process and addresses the educational suitability question under Section 30 of the 1980 Act
• If the request includes Named Person elements, note that participation in the Named Person scheme is voluntary
• If the request asks you to accept a home visit as part of GIRFEC assessment, note that you are not legally required to accept home visits and will provide information in writing

This approach is cooperative without conceding that GIRFEC-based monitoring has statutory force over your home education arrangements.

Keeping the Legal Framework Clear

GIRFEC, the Named Person scheme, and the UNCRC sit alongside the 1980 Act — they do not displace it. Home educators in Scotland who understand this are far less likely to comply with requests that go beyond what the law actually requires, and far better placed to respond confidently when councils conflate their welfare functions with their narrow education oversight role.

The Scotland Legal Withdrawal Blueprint covers how to navigate council requests that blur these lines, including template responses to common monitoring letters.

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