2026 Scottish Election: What We’re Calling for from Politicians

Our five calls for a radical renewal of culture, policy and practice with respect to parenting in all household forms in modern Scotland

Shared Parenting Scotland has issued 5 calls to candidates and parties contesting May’s Scottish Parliament elections.

Together they represent a radical renewal of culture, policy and practice with respect to parenting in all household forms in modern Scotland. Parenting is one of Scotland’s most important but rarely acknowledged human resources.

Shared Parenting Scotland is calling for:

1          A renewed Parenting Strategy for Scotland

2          An independent commission on ‘The Voice of the Child’ and ‘The Best Interests of the Child’

3          Removal of embedded disincentives to shared parenting

4          Reform family courts and professional practice

5          Language and Culture Change

Shared Parenting Scotland Chief Executive, Kevin Kane, says, “While government interventions over many years has correctly focused on problems that beset significant numbers of children – child poverty, attainment gaps in school, protection from forms of abuse – the strengths of parents and the resource they and their wider family represent for most children have become strategically overlooked. Positive support for parenting has drifted.

A third of children in Scottish schools have parents who do not live together. Successive Scottish Governments have committed to a formulation that “it is best for a child to have both parents remaining involved in his or her upbringing as long as it is safe, practical and in the child’s best interests”. That is also what the UNCRC, now part of our domestic law, says. Research across the world shows that children do better in most areas of their life when they have full involvement of both parents after divorce or separation. Yet a combination of institutional structures, an adversarial family justice system, and polarised political attitudes stop Scotland’s children and parents doing the best they can for each other.” 

Shared Parenting Scotland is calling for:

A renewed Parenting Strategy for Scotland. Parenting is one of Scotland’s most important but rarely acknowledged human resources. The Scottish Government launched a National Parenting Strategy in 2012 which generated the aspiration that “Scotland should be the best place for a child to grow up”. It should also be the best place to be a parent. The Strategy launched a number of initiatives and face to face stakeholder interactions with government to challenge and inform but they have largely petered out. ‘Consultations’ have replaced challenge. A renewed Parenting Strategy would provide political leadership, policy coherence, and a culture that values parenting across all family forms.

Appoint an independent commission on The Voice of the Child and The Best Interests of the Child. These are phrases which professionals, politicians, judges in family courts use daily. They are important but in many situations have been hollowed of meaning – discussion stoppers. But do we all know what we mean, and do we all mean the same thing? The concept of The Best Interests of the Child in family law came from A Scottish Law Commission Report in 1992 and was embedded in the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. It lacked specifics and could not have envisaged the demographics of parenting in 2026. Noone could be against including the voice of the child in decisions about his or her life. It is the equivalent of being in favour of virtue – but it has too often become a political slogan. There’s a vast amount of work being done in other countries on how best to hear the voice of children without damaging them. An independent commission would gather best evidence and restore meaning to these concepts that are vital to our children.

Remove embedded disincentives to sharing parenting. Despite the general aspiration that both parents should be fully involved in the life of their child after separation, there are policies, practices and attitudes embedded in agencies and local authorities that actively work against it. Most local authorities refuse ‘assistance with travel to school’ to children, otherwise eligible, when the child is with what the council decides is the ‘secondary parent’ – even when parenting is shared equally. They impose an arbitrary “one address only” policy whatever the reality of the child’s life. The same applies in most councils to eligibility for Free School Meals/Clothing Grant and presumption within the Social Security Scotland Child Disability application process. For bureaucratic convenience or just age-old custom and practice, eligible children are excluded from systems designed to support them, on the basis of the attributed status of one of their parents. It is perverse, and does not sit well with the rights of the child set out in the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024. GPs and Dentists should be encouraged to recognise that more than one parent has Parental Rights and Responsibilities. Health information should follow the child.

Reform family courts and professional practice. Delay, costs, lack of transparency and the tunnel vision imposed by the underpinning adversarial system that pits parents against each other to settle arrangements for the care of their children, damage almost everyone involved. Two crucial reforms included in the Children (Scotland) Act 2020 have not been implemented 6 years later: overhaul of the Child Welfare Reporter system and opening the doors to alternative dispute resolution. They appear still to be years away. Work should be underway in the meantime to build the knowledge base that will underpin their success. We should know what training sheriffs have about the best interests of the child, not only as a generalisation but on best evidence from other jurisdictions; sheriff should publish anonymised judgments to clarify the criteria they use; training on hearing the voice of the child has to be open-minded and as rigorous as the existing system of interviewing child witnesses in criminal cases. Where cases do go to court the inequality of arms between legally aided and privately funded parties should be addressed.

Language and Culture Change. Language and terminology shapes how we think and how children hear what we think about them. A third of our school roll have parents who do not live together. Too often political and policy discourse – and bureaucratic preference – renders one of their parents invisible or ‘secondary’. What does that tell a child about half of him or herself? Children who live across two homes with two loving parents should be visible in data gathering. The 2031 Census should be instructed to incorporate accurate questions on households with dependent children. Political leaders and parties should use inclusive, accurate language that reflects the reality of parenting across all household types. That will be easier when they have data to draw on and that will require more curiosity than is presently evident.

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