The only requirement to join a panel was to have been a child - an idealistic approach that has kept Anderson involved ever since.
"Like most of the Scottish population, I didn't have a clue what the system was about," says Anderson. "Everybody knows about other courts, but nobody actually thinks about the system of care and justice for young people."
But now, the Children's Hearings system is the subject of more thought than at any other time in its 33-year history.
For the first time, a review is under way of the country's unique alternative to youth courts, which involves groups of trained volunteers finding remedial solutions for young offenders or young people needing protection.
Questions have been raised over the ability of lay volunteers to deal with the complex needs of today's young people. Indeed, much has changed since the early days of the system - cases where children need care or protection now make up 60 per cent of referrals, compared with just 16 per cent in 1976.
The 58-year-old father of two acknowledges that the role has become more complicated, attributing the dramatic increase in care and protection referrals to a rise in drug and alcohol abuse, as well as an increased willingness to report child-protection incidents.
"These problems have always been there, but 24 years ago they tended to get brushed under the carpet," he says.
Despite the demands on panel members, Anderson is confident that the volunteers' dual role of dealing with young people needing care and those who offend will remain intact.
He sees youth crime as a symptom of need and insists there is no such thing as a straightforward offender, adding that panel members work together with professionals who can help strike the balance between discipline and therapy.
But he acknowledges that panel members' morale can be dented by delays and failures on the part of other organisations in preparing reports and implementing decisions - largely caused by problems in social work recruitment.
"It has been a fair criticism that things take too long," says Anderson.
"Justice needs to be seen to be done and done quickly, especially with children, when the incident is still fresh in their minds. Six months is a long time to a child."
Ensuring that panel decisions are acted on is also important, Anderson notes. "A big frustration is when you can see that with greater resources, changes might have been made," he says. "Panel members can get disheartened when they spend all this time making decisions only for them not to be followed through."
Anderson acknowledges that better enforcement of decisions is vital if public confidence in the system and volunteer morale is to improve. But he is at a loss about how the outcomes of their decisions can be evaluated.
"Measuring outcomes is difficult, because it's all down to judgment," he says. "Children's lives are so complicated, and family life is so complicated, that it has to be a case of three people making a decision based on what they understand."
Anderson's happiest moments have been when supervision orders on young people have been stopped because they are no longer needed.
Responses from the Scottish Executive's consultation on the system's future are now in the hands of independent consultants. Within several months, they will propose changes to ministers.
Anderson does not predict any huge change. The necessary evolution of the system, as he sees it, lies in strengthening panel members' influence over parents, providing greater advocacy for children and better enforcement of panel decisions.
FYI
- Scotland's Children's Hearings system was established in 1971 and took over from the courts in dealing with under-16s who offend or are in need of protection
- Scotland's 32 local authorities have a Children's Panel of volunteers, from which teams of three are drawn to sit at hearings
- Panels' powers include being able to place young people under supervision or move them into care.
