Family Law Stakeholder Group
The Scottish Executive set up the Family Law Stakeholder Group to support two non-legislative initiatives designed to protect children's welfare in times of family transition and to help families who need support to get through the changes they face. The initiatives are the Parenting Agreement and Charter for Grandparents.
You can view the organisations represented on the Stakeholder Group and access papers and minutes related to the Group by following the links below.
Stakeholder Group Membership
Papers and Minutes
Parenting Agreement
The first of these initiatives is the creation of a Parenting Agreement for Scotland. The Agreement is a support pack to help separating parents make practical and durable arrangements for all aspects of their children's welfare. It provides a tool which parents could use to resolve conflict over parenting time, offer information about the kinds of arrangements that tend to work well and suggest ways to cope with the known causes of strain and with changing circumstances.
Mr Alan Finlayson OBE wrote the Parenting Agreement. Mr Finlayson is a former Children's Reporter to both Edinburgh and Lothian Region and Honorary Sheriff of Lothian and Borders at Edinburgh.
Ministers were keen when forming the Stakeholder Group to enlist experienced people from outside the Executive to work closely with Mr Finlayson and the Civil Law Division. The group was not a substitute for wider consultations on draft materials, but informed the initial drafting of these documents. We will consult a wide range of representative organisations before publication.
Charter for Grandparents
The second initiative is the drawing up of a draft Charter for Grandparents that sets out information to highlight the important role that the wider family can play. It focusses on ways in which the role and contribution of wider family members, notably grandparents, can be recognised, especially when parental relationships are under stress or have broken down. The draft Charter was drawn up by the Civil Law Division.