Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to reducing the need to practice restraint and seclusion in secure care. The wellbeing and safety of children and young people is paramount. The Scottish Government is clear that restraint should only be used in exceptional circumstances.

The use of restraint was a focus of the joint inspection carried out by the Care Inspectorate and the Mental Welfare Commission in August 2025. St Mary’s Kenmure has undertaken efforts to improve the experiences and outcomes for young people in its care since the inspection, including improved governance around practice, ensuring that the use of restraint and seclusion is more visible and subject to greater scrutiny by the Board of Trustees.

In November 2025 St Mary's Kenmure reported that it had achieved an 85% reduction in the use of restrictive practices and an 80% reduction in the use of restraint over the previous year.

There are appropriate channels where issues and complaints can be raised and addressed independently, both through St Mary's Kenmure’s internal complaints process and complaints raised directly with either a placing authority, or the Care Inspectorate.

The care manager for the child must be notified immediately when a formal complaint has been raised in any aspect of the child's care.

Independent advocacy is also provided to every child residing at St Mary's to enable them to express views, raise issues, make complaints or representations to ensure that their rights are promoted and upheld.

St Mary's, like all secure centres, is inspected at least once a year on an unannounced basis. The Care Inspectorate has a responsibility to ensure that the service is upholding, protecting and promoting the rights of children. The Care Inspectorate inspectors are responsible for working alongside the secure providers to ensure that children get the care and support they need while living in secure.

As work is undertaken to enhance secure care in Scotland, consideration of the CPT’s findings – including those on children’s confidence in internal complaints processes – alongside a range of other evidence will be taken into account.

The Scottish Government has not undertaken a separate assessment of the extent of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) within university estates.

I refer the member to the answer to question S7W-01597 on 30 July 2026. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

The population in secure care can change at least daily, due in part to the short-term nature of some placements, and in part due to an active approach towards minimising the time that children spend under a care regime that requires the deprivation of liberty. Real time data on the make-up of the population in secure that identifies the reasons for which they have been placed there is not held centrally.

All of Scotland’s secure accommodation services offer an integrated model of delivery, usually caring for children together regardless of the route via which they have been placed in secure accommodation. This is consistent with Scotland’s approach to The Promise, GIRFEC and the Kilbrandon ethos - namely that both children who have been offended against and children who have committed offences are all to be seen, understood, and responded to, as children in need. The Kilbrandon report states “in terms of the child's actual needs, the legal distinction between juvenile offenders and children in need of care or protection was-looking to the underlying realities-very often of little practical significance”. These matters were directly considered by Parliament during scrutiny of the Bills that became the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024 and the Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning (Scotland) Act 2026.

Responsibility for the management, maintenance and safety of university buildings rests with the institution as the owner of the estate. Responsibility for engagement with institutions on these matters lies with the Scottish Funding Council (SFC). As part of its outcomes framework and assurance model the SFC engages directly with institutions on estate matters and has maintained oversight of issues relating to RAAC across the tertiary education sector.

The Scottish Government remains in regular contact with the SFC regarding it’s assessment of sector-wide risks, issues and impacts.

The Scottish Government had no role in, and does not hold any details of, this case. Plans, assessments and arrangements relating to the care of this child will have been reached directly between St Mary’s Kenmure and the placing authority in England.

More generally, the Scottish Government is not directly involved in the placement of any children into secure care on welfare grounds.

Secure accommodation services in Scotland are registered with the Care Inspectorate to care for boys and girls up to age 18 together. This approach has been in place for more than 10 years. Care Inspectorate placement guidance requires qualified professionals in secure centres to apply robust matching procedures – in consultation with placing authorities - to ensure the safety of any child under consideration for placement as well as the safety of all children already in a centre’s care. Whilst independent advocacy provision is in place in each centre, and children’s views are taken into account, placement decisions follow on from legal orders. The applicable arrangements for individual children remain with experts who consider the needs, vulnerabilities, risks and rights of each individual child and others within a unit.

When a child enters secure care, an assessment is completed which includes the child’s needs, strengths, hopes, vulnerabilities and risks. The child’s physical, mental, emotional and wellbeing and educational needs are assessed holistically as part of this process, which is also usually underpinned by information shared by the placing local authority.

Secure accommodation centres use a range of interventions, supports and strategies to meet the needs of all children placed there, ensuring that their safety is maintained and risk is managed. Risk assessment and risk management frameworks allow for decisions about the level of care, supervision, and restrictions on a child to be proportionate, individual and tailored to the needs of the child.

These arrangements enable appropriate account to be taken of the needs of all children, to ensure compliance with all of their applicable legal rights, including under the Equality Act 2010.

As previously stated in the Scottish Government's response to the Freedom of Information request FOI/202400419507, the then-Deputy First Minister did not engage with or accept the offer of a donation to a charity of his choice from the CEO of the WAVE Trust: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202400419507/ The meeting was arranged entirely independently of this offer.

The Scottish Ministerial Code already clearly sets out the standards expected of all members of the Scottish Ministerial team. Paragraph 3.22 of the Code notes that ‘…Ministers should not accept gifts, hospitality or services which would, or might appear to, compromise their judgement or place them under an obligation to people or organisations that might try to influence their work in government.’ It is the personal responsibility of each Minister to determine how any activity would engage with the terms of the Code, based on the circumstances around any specific event or interaction.

The Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF) Programme aims to create the enabling conditions for local areas to transform their delivery of holistic whole family support. As such, system change outcomes are the key focus of the Programme evaluation, with the long-term outcomes being improvements in the wellbeing of children, young people and families.

WFWF has been independently evaluated since 2022. This is done on a national basis, informed by CSPP reporting and more in-depth case studies. Report findings show that Children’s Services Planning Partnerships (CSPPs) value the flexibility of the funding to respond to local needs, have strengthened the delivery of early family support, and are supporting more families to access services. Evaluations have also found evidence of improvements in service quality, informed by feedback from families, with many families reporting support that is delivered without stigma or judgement. CSPPs continue to report positive partnership working and have made further progress against programme recommendations identified in earlier evaluations available from Year 1 and Year 2. The Year 3 activity review also highlights continued progress against earlier recommendations.

We are continuing to evaluate the WFWF programme and have commissioned IPSOS to carry out the Year 3-4 evaluation. This will cover the period April 2024 to March 2026, with publication planned for early 2027.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the number of people diagnosed annually with dementia, but Public Health Scotland (PHS) does publish information on the number of people in different health settings with a diagnosis of dementia. This doesn’t necessarily reflect when a person would have been first diagnosed with dementia.

The Scottish Government works with HM Revenue & Customs and other partners on the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce, including the National Crime Agency and Border Force, to disrupt all aspects of organised criminality including the production, distribution and sale of counterfeit and illicit goods.

The Scottish Government also supports the Scottish Anti Illicit Trade Group which was re-launched in March 2025 bringing together a wide range of agencies, including HMRC, and brand representatives to identify and develop interventions and tactics that improve the combined effectiveness of enforcement activity.