Letters: Care review focuses too much on consequences and not enough on causes

child's life (including from the point of conception). Too many children in Scotland experience the effects of poor parenting, which may include exposure to domestic abuse and/or to problems associated with alcohol or drug abuse, poverty, quality housing and the like and end up in care.

The Promise says that the care system should have love and nurture at its heart.

As a society we should be addressing the issues and problems which families face and offer love and support which could avoid situations which lead to children and young people entering the care system.

This might then reduce the number of young people we in Scotland lock up and achieve a better outcome for all.

Ron Lavalette, Ardrossan.

HEAD TEACHERS MUST BE HANDS-ON

LOCAL councils are strapped for cash and this forces them into making decisions to save cash, which can have an adverse effect upon the provision of services.

That is the perception of various parents in North Lanarkshire over the appointment of one head teacher to oversee a secondary school and a feeder primary ("Protest over plan for single head teacher at primary and secondary school", The Herald, April 1).

This is thin gruel in the eyes of those parents who do not feel that a head teacher can do justice to the schools under that person's command. I think it is a cruel solution in its dilution of the understanding a constantly-present head teacher can bring to a school.

Head teachers do need to be with the everyday goings-on and the crises which can erupt during any school day.

The everyday running of a secondary school presents totally different challenges from those in a primary school, the former emphasising different subjects of study for important exams to be faced by teenagers, the latter laying the solid foundations of literacy and numeracy to equip youngsters for the challenges ahead. That demands a virtually daily presence by the person in charge, who has to be fully aware of the predicaments of all pupils and the problems faced by every individual teacher in just one of such establishments

There is no way that a single person can fulfil that particular remit in depth. North Lanarkshire has dismissed the fears of the affected parents by saying that such an experiment has proved a success in other areas. In whose eyes and in relation to which criteria does it make this claim?

Denis Bruce, Bishopbriggs.

MAKE GEORGE SQUARE GREEN AGAIN

WHO can believe that a boy employed 12 hours a day from the age of 10 in a cotton mill earning money to support his parents and six siblings almost 200 years ago would be castigated in the 21st century for taking a rise in wages? Pity David Livingstone – how dare he do such a thing ("Future of statues linked to slave trade ‘should lie with the public’", The Herald, March 31, and Letters, March 31 and April 1)? This is the man who attempted to persuade chiefs from selling their own people to Arab traders; who attended lectures in Glasgow on anti-slavery in 1836; was known for treating Africans with respect; has memorials in Zambia and Malawi; and has hospitals, towns and schools named in his honour in other African countries.

By the lucky chance of having his poems published, Robert Burns, on his way to a sugar plantation in Jamaica making money from slaves, has escaped censure: oh David, if only you had not been given a pay rise.

James Oswald is also cited in the report, but from a talk given to the Old Glasgow Club in 1922, we read “his father’s wealth might have been greater but from an intense hatred of slavery he refused to have anything to do with the West Indies trade”.

Further, the majority of responders to surveys on the future of George Square have said that they want to see their money being spent on trees and flower beds and restoring the Square to what it once was – a little green oasis in the heart of the city.

Margaret Bell, Paisley.

SHAME ON THE BURRELL DESIGNERS

I SEE that the Burrell Collection is reopening following a five-year revamp costing £68 million ("Burrell set to reopen after £68m revamp", The Herald, March 29). The original building earned lots of plaudits for its design and earned the architects various prizes for the building. I think that they should hang their heads in shame. The building was not fit for purpose and it lasted only 23 years before it had to be closed for refurbishment.

The primary purpose of a building is to keep out the weather. The Burrell manifestly failed in that respect. With its flat roofs and horizontal glass skylights that leaked, the staff were forever mopping up and positioning buckets to catch the water. Some artefacts had to be moved to protect them from the ingress of water. What an admission.

I just hope that the new Burrell lasts a bit longer than 23 years and that the Scottish weather is kept at bay. It is, after all, not rocket science. My house is almost 90 years old and the roof has never leaked because it is pitched. Why anyone would think that a flat roof in Scotland, with the drainpipe’s tendency to block with leaves and the subsequent flooding and hence leakage, is a good idea is perhaps only known in the minds of architects who perhaps are overly affected by the initial costs of building. What, however, of the subsequent costs? £68 million?

Colin Gunn, Glasgow.

RUNNING OUT OF STEAM

GORDON Ross’s use of the term “steam-powered” as a pejorative description of Calmac’s current booking system ("Calmac’s services are failing to meet the year-round needs of island communities", The Herald, March 29) was inappropriate. “Technical issues” came in with the replacement of steam by diesel propulsion.

Robin Dow, Rothesay.