Hansard

I am grateful for the opportunity to address the important issue of Scotland’s secure accommodation capacity. As Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise, I recognise and value the critically important role that secure care services play in safeguarding our most vulnerable children.

Members will be aware that, in passing the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill in April, Parliament voted to enshrine in law age-appropriate care and justice for vulnerable young people across the country. As part of wider work to further advance our commitment to children’s rights and embed the Promise, the bill—which became an act on 4 June 2024—importantly ensures that children are kept out of prison and young offenders institutions, with secure accommodation being the normal place of detention instead.

Secure accommodation services are the most intensive, restrictive and specialised form of childcare in Scotland. They are highly regulated and high-cost services. Secure accommodation is designed to meet the needs of a small number of children who need to be deprived of their liberty to keep them or others safe. It is therefore imperative that we have sufficient secure provision to meet Scotland’s needs.

The number of vacant places in secure accommodation fluctuates and is monitored closely. This morning, there were three places available in secure accommodation in Scotland. That is not unprecedented, because the needs of children in secure care can be complex, often requiring multiple interventions such as the use of multiple secure accommodation beds when a child’s needs are too complex to be managed within a single space. Capacity can therefore shift daily. Although that provides only a small margin—smaller than we would wish—it is vital that members recognise that redundant overprovision would run contrary to keeping the Promise and would be intolerably expensive.

There are, therefore, challenges within and around secure care, and I am here today to be transparent to Parliament and assure members that the Government is fully committed to taking action to address them. In this statement, I will describe how we are doing so.

Secure accommodation is not just about providing a safe place to stay. Providers work to understand and address the root causes of each young person’s behaviour and needs and they provide each child with the specialist and tailored care and support that they need to promote positive outcomes.

Secure accommodation is a demand-led service that is provided by four independent charitable organisations in Scotland. It is highly regulated and is subject to regular inspections by both the Care Inspectorate and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education.

As I said at the outset of my statement, the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024 saw Scotland take a major step forward to keep the Promise. Prior to those reforms, children who were in conflict with the law could be placed in young offenders institutions. Careful planning, additional resourcing and intensive preparations meant that we could introduce the reforms less than three months after the bill received royal assent. Implementing the reforms at pace has involved an enormous collaborative effort, and it is with thanks to our secure care providers and our wider partners that I can proudly say that Scotland is a country that does not imprison children.

However, the profile of and focus on this landmark legislation has brought into sharp focus some long-standing challenges around the provision of and access to secure care, and those issues need to be addressed to enable sustainability and resilience, particularly as demand fluctuates in these early post-commencement stages.

I will set out the actions that the Government is taking, but first I will provide some context. Today’s tight occupancy position is not unprecedented. There has always been pressure on secure care capacity due to the need for high occupancy levels to maintain viability. I reassure Parliament and the public that the Scottish Government is already addressing capacity. In recent years, we have seen a steady overall decline in the number of secure care placements that are required in Scotland, from an average of 74 in 2021-22 to 59 in 2022-23. That reduction in demand has opened up the opportunity and capacity for reforms. However, in recent months, the position has been affected by the small increase in remand and sentenced children being placed in secure accommodation rather than in young offenders institutions. In 2022-23, on average, there were nine under-18s in Young Offenders Institution Polmont.

St Mary’s Kenmure in Bishopbriggs was served an improvement notice by the Care Inspectorate following its inspection in October, which triggered a pause on new admissions. I was deeply concerned about that development, and the Government has been kept updated regularly on the progress of the Care Inspectorate’s review. It is right that admissions were paused while work was undertaken to make the required improvements. That pause has displaced demand to the other three centres and reduced the overall availability of beds across Scotland over recent months.

Following the Care Inspectorate’s visit to the centre on 18 December, it was satisfied that progress had been made and it agreed to lift the pause on new admissions. Some areas still require further work, so the Care Inspectorate has agreed that the maximum capacity should be capped at 12. That pre-Christmas progress is welcome, and it has increased the capacity in the secure estate by four beds. It is my hope that St Mary’s will continue to make the required improvements, as set out by the Care Inspectorate, as soon as possible.

Of course, secure capacity is not just about numbers of vacant beds; it is also about quality. We must ensure that children and young people receive the highest quality of care in environments where their welfare is prioritised. A secure capacity contingency plan has recently been developed in collaboration with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, Social Work Scotland and the Care Inspectorate. The plan is designed not only to manage the current challenges but to strengthen our secure accommodation system for the future.

On short-term actions, one of the immediate actions has been for the Care Inspectorate to update the secure care admission guidance to provide greater flexibility in respect of the protocol for use of the four emergency bedrooms. That allows secure care providers the flexibility to make decisions on the use of an emergency bedroom to provide relief in emergency situations when its use is required for a live situation or to allow a child to be safely cared for temporarily until a place becomes available.

We are working closely with secure care providers and other stakeholders to establish a clear agreement on the minimum vacant secure care capacity requirements for Scotland overall at any given time. We are exploring the potential urgent establishment of a new national contingency resource and consideration is being given to opportunities to repurpose some elements of the existing secure accommodation estate on at least one site, which would provide additional capacity in the system. We will update Parliament on that as soon as possible.

We are in the process of finalising a memorandum of understanding with centres and other partners. That will set out a clear codification of responsibilities, as well as a robust protocol for managing issues relating to the most complex secure care placements.

As members know, secure care should only ever be used when it is absolutely necessary. Contingency actions, which are focusing on high-intensity wraparound services, include identifying and enabling effective alternatives to secure care, such as health interventions that focus on diverting individuals with certain mental health needs into appropriate settings.

The Scottish Government is making available funding of up to £7 million to cover the placements of sentenced and remanded children in this financial year, and the Government has committed to maintaining that funding in 2025-26. That is, of course, subject to parliamentary approval this year.

The Government also continues to pay for up to 16 beds across the secure estate. That is to maintain capacity for children who are placed by the courts and to provide a level of financial security to secure providers. That intervention has been effective in driving down reliance on cross-border placements, the number of which is down to 10 from 19 last January. In addition, last summer, £500,000 of funding was offered to secure providers to support their preparations for the movement of children from young offenders institutions to secure care.

In the medium to long term, we are committed to developing a more resilient and responsive system of secure care provision, capacity preservation and placement management. We commissioned the University of Strathclyde’s Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice to consider the future needs of children in or on the edges of secure care, which resulted in the publication of the “Reimagining Secure Care” report on 27 September. Our aim is to provide a more detailed response to the report in late spring. To do that, we are engaging with a range of stakeholders, including by holding a round-table discussion with the chairs and heads of all four secure care centres, which took place in late November.

Meanwhile, focused fortnightly post-commencement meetings are held with care and justice partners, and regular contingency action meetings continue with COSLA, Social Work Scotland and the Care Inspectorate.

We will continue our work to keep the Promise and ensure that our care and justice services for children are informed by the views, rights and needs of our children. I look forward to setting out a vision for the proposed Promise bill in the weeks ahead and to working with colleagues across the chamber to ensure that we uphold the promise that each of us made five years ago.

I hope that today’s statement has provided reassurance to members that secure care capacity and delivery are of the utmost importance to the Scottish Government. We continually monitor capacity and have structures in place to ensure that demand is met. However, I hope that it is clear from what I have said that we are committed to making the system more adaptable and robust in the year ahead.

Given that this is a complex and shifting issue, I am aware that members will have further questions or will want to seek clarifications, and I am happy to answer their questions now.