Professor John Robertson OBA

From BBC UK two days ago:

The Princess of Wales has called for more dignity for carers and a greater respect for values such as “tenderness” in business, in her first public speech in two years. At an event in the City of London, Catherine called on 80 top business leaders to play their part in ensuring employees can have healthy family lives, including caring responsibilities.

“I believe in restoring the dignity to the quiet, often invisible work of caring, of loving well, as we look to build a happier, healthier society,” the princess told the Future Workforce Summit. The event was part of Catherine’s campaign to raise awareness about the importance of children’s early years and building healthy family relationships.

There’s not a word on Scotland in a long speech.

Why should there be?

These:

From 2019:

I missed the Fostering Network’s State of the Nation report in February 2019 despite, I feel sure, blanket coverage by our MSM. It was worth reading and reporting as it contains a number of statistics suggesting foster carers in Scotland are treated better than their counterparts in non-Scottish regions.

Here are the highlights:

Only 41 per cent of foster carers say that they will continue to foster for ‘as long as I am able’. This sentiment was highest in Northern Ireland, at 46 per cent. When it comes to uncertainty about when they will stop, Scotland is lowest here with only 19 per cent of foster carers replying: “I don’t know”, compared with the overall UK figure of 25 per cent. (11)

This is weirdly worded: ‘Scottish foster carers significantly more likely to foster as long as they are able.’

There is a clear difference between foster carers’ perceptions of support from their supervising social worker (70 per cent saying excellent or good) and the fostering service in general (only 53 per cent saying excellent or good): Scotland and Northern Ireland foster carers were more positive about the support from their fostering service in general, with 61 and 62 per cent respectively describing it as excellent or good. (14)

However, when it comes to the child’s social worker, the corresponding figure drops to only 58 per cent, a reduction of four per cent since 2016. We would like to see children’s social workers have much better training on foster care so that they are better able to understand the role of the foster carer. The picture is slightly (sic) better in Scotland here, with 63 per cent saying that the children’s social worker treats them as part of the team. (17)

In November 2022, it was the same deliberate blindness to Scotland by Reporting Scotland:

The cost of living crisis has left many unpaid carers feeling invisible, undervalued and under pressure.

Cut to the Director of the Carers Trust Scotland, Louise Morgan, who opened with a fact (alarm bells):

In Scotland we are slightly better off because there’s a carers allowance supplement.

By the 07:30 report, she had gone.

Reporting Scotland had dropped the story.

Or this in 2023:

Leading charities have praised the SNP’s introduction of a minimum standard national allowance for foster and kinship carers to support them caring for the children and young people they look after. The payment is set to benefit more than 9,000 children, through £16 million from the Scottish Government.
 
Following the SNP Scottish Government’s announcement of the new Scottish Recommended Allowance, Kinship Carers UK welcomed and said “it’s wonderful to see that Scottish Government are supporting their #kinshipcarers”.
 
The payment was also praised by Fiona Aitken from Adoption UK Scotland who said they “look forward to seeing the impact of this on our community of carers” as well as Angie Gillie the Executive Director of Association for Fostering, Kinship and Adoption (AFKA) Scotland, who said “we welcome a national and consistent approach to supporting families and in #keepingthepromise to Scotland’s children and young people.”
 
Individual carers on Kinship Carers UK’s advisory group also underlined how significant they believe this announcement to be, with one carer saying they felt it was “great news and…shows our voices are being listened to now.”

In 2025:

From the Scottish Government:

Scotland’s carers getting more financial support through Social Security Scotland. Around 118,000 unpaid carers who were receiving Carer’s Allowance have had their benefit awards safely and securely transferred to Social Security Scotland’s Carer Support Payment. 

Carer Support Payment began rolling out across Scotland in November 2023 to replace Carer’s Allowance delivered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).  Since the formation of Social Security Scotland in 2018, the Scottish Government has delivered more financial support for unpaid carers in Scotland under a very different social security system, rooted in dignity, fairness and respect. 

Carer’s Allowance Supplement provides up to £587 a year while Young Carer Grant offers over £390 each year to carers aged 16-18 years. These payments are only available in Scotland.   Carer Support Payment has also been extended to enable more carers in full time education to access the payment.  

Further improvements to carer benefits in Scotland are planned within the next six months. This includes extension of Young Carer Grant to 19-year-olds and a new payment worth up to £520 a year for carers who are caring for more than one person. 

Full report at: https://www.gov.scot/news/thousands-of-carers-benefits-transferred/

She’ll have research and speechwriting staff but I guess they too are unlikely to be asking if anything is happening in Scotland