Meeting of the Parliament 14 November 2017
I am very grateful for the member’s comments. Let me pick up on the two issues that she raised, the first of which was the involvement of families. There will be scope for families that have been affected by one of their members being either a victim or a perpetrator to have some input into the process. We are not specifying how that will be conducted, as that will be for the expert group to devise, together with the organisations that will support it in taking forward this work.
That leads to the member’s second point, on engaging with online service providers. We have not specified that the expert group must do so, but I think that it would be very difficult for the group to do its work without considering service providers and the role that they can play in helping to support young people who are dealing with these issues.
The member may be aware that the Scottish Government is already involved in the United Kingdom body that deals with online service providers. We continue to have input into that process at a UK level.
I have no doubt that Catherine Dyer and the expert group will want to consider the nature of their engagement with online service providers, as and when they consider it appropriate. There is no doubt that those providers have an important role to play in helping to address some of the concerns that are likely to be highlighted in the course of the expert group’s work.