Current status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 27 November 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6O-05134 by Angela Constance on 12 November 2025, what work has been done to establish a cross-sector coalition aimed at protecting children from online violence and abuse.
The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that children and young people in Scotland are safe and supported in their online lives. We recognise the significant risks posed by harmful online content and the importance of robust regulation to protect children from exploitation, abuse, and exposure to inappropriate material.
We also recognise that real progress can only be achieved through partnership working, bringing together the knowledge, skills and expertise required to prevent and reduce the effects of online harm, informed by lived experience.
To help prevent violence, including online, and reduce its harm, the Scottish Government supports the work of multiple cross sector partnerships with justice, education, health and across communities. This includes the work of the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, Medics Against Violence and Youthlink Scotland, who have collaborated to create a Quit Fighting for Likes campaign to support front line practitioners working with young people, to encourage conversations about their online experiences, including discussions on the impact of filming and sharing harmful violent content online.
In 2024, the Scottish Government established the National Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Strategic Group - gov.scot, which comprises of operational partners, including Police Scotland, and other expert stakeholders from the statutory, third-sector, academic and service delivery organisations, to review current actions and agree where additional focus is needed to better protect children from abuse and exploitation, including online-enabled harm. This group’s overarching priority is prevention and will work together to identify priorities and actions to more effectively prevent, disrupt and provide support to victims of child sexual abuse and their families, including those facing online harms.
In January 2025, I announced the establishment of an Online Safety Taskforce to strengthen our approach to keeping children safe online, providing oversight and direction to work being undertaken across Scottish Government, and identifying what more can be done to protect children and young people. A responsibility that I and the Minister for Victims and Community Safety as Ministerial leads take very seriously.
The Taskforce is currently considering how engagement on the government’s overarching approach to online harm can be enhanced further to support a more joined up dialogue with stakeholders including the third sector and those with lived experience.