Scotland's ASN Planning Frameworks: Child's Plan, Named Person and the Code of Practice

If you're trying to understand how your child's support is planned and recorded in Scotland, you will encounter several overlapping documents and roles. Some have legal force. Some don't. Understanding the difference is essential before you can effectively advocate for what your child needs.

A Brief History: The Record of Needs

Before 2005, children with significant educational needs in Scotland were covered by a "Record of Needs" — the statutory precursor to today's Co-ordinated Support Plan (CSP). The Record of Needs was replaced when the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 came into force on 14 November 2005.

The shift from Record of Needs to CSP reflected a broader philosophical change: moving from a medicalised, diagnosis-centred model to a needs-led framework where support is triggered by barriers to learning rather than clinical labels. In practice, the CSP has a higher threshold than the old Record of Needs and is even harder to obtain. If someone mentions their child had a "Record of Needs," this is the historical equivalent of the current CSP.

The Child's Plan: GIRFEC in Practice

The Child's Plan is not an ASN-specific document. It is the multi-agency planning tool that sits within Scotland's Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC) framework — the overarching national approach to supporting all children's wellbeing.

A Child's Plan is developed when a child's needs require coordinated input from more than one service or agency. It brings together professionals from education, health, and social care to record agreed actions and responsibilities across eight wellbeing indicators: Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured, Active, Respected, Responsible, and Included (commonly known by the acronym SHANARRI).

What a Child's Plan can and cannot do for ASN families:

A Child's Plan can be a useful document for capturing the broader picture of a child's needs and ensuring that all services are coordinating their support. If your child has CAMHS input, community OT involvement, and school-based support, a Child's Plan is the mechanism for bringing those strands together.

However, a Child's Plan does not have the statutory enforceability of a Co-ordinated Support Plan. If the authority fails to deliver what is specified in the Child's Plan, there is no direct right of appeal to the ASN Tribunal. Authorities sometimes use Child's Plans as an alternative to a CSP — a way to appear to be coordinating support while avoiding the legal obligations that come with a statutory plan. If your child's needs are complex enough to require multi-agency support, always assess whether the CSP threshold is met alongside any Child's Plan process.

The Named Person

Every child in Scotland has a "Named Person" whose role is to be a single point of contact for the child's family and for other professionals. In primary school, this is usually the head teacher. In secondary school, it is typically a pastoral guidance teacher or year head.

The Named Person's role is coordination and communication, not advocacy. They are the person you would contact first if you had concerns about your child's wellbeing, and they are responsible for initiating multi-agency support if it is needed. If your child needs a Child's Plan, the Named Person either coordinates it or identifies a Lead Professional to do so.

One clarification worth making: a legal challenge to the Named Person scheme was heard by the Supreme Court in 2016, which ruled that certain aspects of the scheme as originally drafted were incompatible with European Convention rights regarding family privacy. The Scottish Government subsequently amended the scheme. It remains in operation, but its scope is more limited than originally proposed. The Named Person is not a state oversight figure monitoring your parenting — they are a point of contact for your child's wellbeing support within school.

The Code of Practice: Why It Matters for Your Advocacy

The Supporting Children's Learning: Code of Practice (currently in its Fourth Edition, published 2026) is the statutory guidance that operationalises the ASL Act. Education authorities and NHS Boards are under a strict legal duty to "have regard to" this Code when carrying out their functions. It is not optional guidance — it is the rulebook.

The Code covers every aspect of the ASN framework: how needs should be identified, what planning should look like, what information authorities must share with parents, how transitions should be managed, and what processes must be followed for formal requests and reviews.

Why does this matter for parents? Because when an authority deviates from the Code's requirements — fails to involve you in planning meetings, misses statutory timelines, or provides vague unsupported documentation — you can cite the Code directly in correspondence as evidence of non-compliance. The Code is publicly available from the Scottish Government website.

How These Frameworks Fit Together

The practical hierarchy for most ASN families in Scotland looks like this:

• Most children with ASN will have an IEP (Individualised Educational Programme) — a non-statutory school-level document setting short-term targets.
• Where multi-agency involvement is needed, a Child's Plan coordinates provision across services.
• For children with complex, enduring, multi-agency needs, a CSP provides the statutory framework with full appeal rights.
• All of this operates within the authority's duty to have regard to the Code of Practice in every decision they make.

If you are trying to push for better provision without a CSP, the Code of Practice and the GIRFEC wellbeing framework give you language and legal hooks that can be used in written correspondence with the authority. The Scotland ASN Appeals Playbook explains how to deploy these frameworks strategically in escalation letters.

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