Code of ethics consultation report

Introduction 

The CLD Standards Council for Scotland has decided that agreement to a Code of Ethics should be a future prerequisite of any level of registration with the Council. In pursuit of this it commissioned Professor Howard Sercombe and Peter Taylor to produce, consult upon and revise a draft Code.  

Drawing on Professor Sercombe's extensive knowledge and experience of ethical codes and especially of youth work ethics, and on existing examples from Australia and elsewhere, a draft that attempted to reflect the Scottish situation and the common requirements of the varying strands of Community Learning and Development was prepared. Professor Sercombe also produced a discussion paper outlining issues about 
the purpose and value of a Code of Ethics, which was circulated to all participants in the consultation. 

The draft Code was presented to a meeting of the Standards Council Registration Committee on 21 January 2010. Following comment and amendment, a plenary joint meeting of all members of the Standards Council's Committees considered the Code on 1 March 2010. Again, comments were gathered and subsequent amendments were made to the draft.  

The resulting version formed the basis for the wider consultation process reported upon here. For reference it is appended to this report, labelled 'Previous Draft' (pp 21-22). Before it in the report, we also append, labelled 'Draft', the version that we now recommend to the Standards Council for adoption, based upon the consultations (pp 19-20).  

In this report we describe briefly the consultation process, and outline the general views that were expressed about a Code of Ethics and how it might be used, noting issues that the Standards Council may wish to consider. We then describe the points on the contents and wording of the Code that were raised. Inevitably, not all the comments that were made can be recorded here, but we have tried to note all those that were widely shared, and others that we felt raised distinctive or significant points. We explain how these comments are reflected in the changes made in the draft presented here, or in some cases why they are not.