Chamber and committees

The Minister for Housing has convened a Ministerial Oversight Group on Homelessness which brings together ten ministers from across the Scottish Government to identify the actions required across portfolios to prevent and end homelessness.

The group provides a space for shared political leadership and enhanced policy links with a view to ensuring everyone has a safe, warm place to call home. The last meeting was held on 20 March 2024 and had a focus on young people, including care experienced young people.

Membership, terms of reference, minutes and actions from the meetings can be found here – Ministerial Oversight Group on Homelessness - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Outwith this group, policy officials across government work together on policy development and implementation with the aim of preventing homelessness for care experienced young people and veterans. This includes participating in A way Home Scotland Coalition meetings and Veterans Scotland Housing Group meetings as appropriate.

While the Scottish Government does not collect statistical data on the total number of children and young people from a different legal jurisdiction who are currently in a care setting in Scotland, there is a range of data available which enables us to monitor cross-border placements made in to residential and secure care accommodation. This includes –

• The latest Secure Care Statistics which show that, on average, 22 children and young people from outside Scotland were in secure care in 2022-23.
• The Cross-Border Placements (Effect of Deprivation of Liberty Orders) (Scotland) Regulations 2022 , which require placing authorities from other jurisdictions to notify Scottish Ministers, and a range of other Scottish partners, of the placement of children and young people into Scotland who are subject to a Deprivation of Liberty Order. This information is collated and monitored by the Scottish Government. At the time of writing, there were a total of 10 live Deprivation of Liberty order placements notified to Scottish Government.
• A regulatory requirement for residential and secure care services to notify the Care Inspectorate when a child or young person moves in or out of placement in Scotland from a different legal jurisdiction within the UK. This data is collated by the Care Inspectorate and shared with the Scottish Government. From this data, we know, at time of writing there to be approximately 180 children and young people in residential and secure care who have been placed in Scotland from a different legal jurisdiction.

The Care Inspectorate inspects residential and secure care homes at least once each year and has a responsibility to ensure that services are upholding, protecting and promoting the rights of children and young people; meeting their needs; and keeping children, young people and others safe.

The Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill ("the Bill”) is currently proceeding through the Scottish Parliament and contains new powers in relation to cross-border placements. If passed by Parliament, the new powers in the Bill will enable Ministers to bolster the existing regulatory framework in relation to cross-border placements to protect and uphold the rights of all children placed in Scotland. This would include regulating for matters such as: notification of an amendment to/end of placements; ensuring appropriate access to services is secured such as health, education and any other supports that the child or young person may require for the duration of their placement; and transition planning for the child’s return to home jurisdiction.

The Scottish Government and CoSLA’s Suicide Prevention Action Plan contains a commitment to work with The Promise Scotland to engage with care experienced people to better understand what action is needed to embed suicide prevention activity in our support to children and young people in care and care leavers, whom we know are at elevated risk of suicide.

During 2023-24, this has included work to build in suicide prevention across policies which tackle the social determinants of suicide, as part of our whole of government and society approach, and maximising opportunities to support care experienced people who are suicidal through their contact with services, such as homelessness and Social Security Scotland. Our innovative partnership-led delivery model is driving the implementation of our action plan and helping to extend our reach and impact in preventing suicide among care experienced groups by bringing together partners to share resources, learning and expertise. Central to this model is our Youth Advisory Group which includes care experienced young people affected by suicide. The Group is helping to shape our suicide prevention work to ensure it can best support and meet their needs.

We are now intensively developing our 2024-25 delivery plan, working collectively with The Promise Scotland as part of the development process, and considering how together we can achieve closer alignment across our outcomes measurement. The Scottish Government and COSLA will sign-off this delivery plan in coming months.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that the tragic death of any looked after child or young person is accurately reported on and reviewed to improve services and ensure that children and young people are receiving the best care possible. A total of 49 children and young people have sadly died in the care of local authorities prior to their 18th birthday since 2018 to the present day. These figures include children and young people with complex/life limiting health conditions.

Scottish Government statistics are produced in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. The Code of Practice states that statistics producers should routinely review the relevance and usefulness of statistics, including the timeliness of the statistics and data.

The Code of Practice also requires statistics producers to maintain and refresh their understanding of the use and potential use of statistics, and that they regularly engage with users. This is to ensure that statistics support the public good, which includes the development and evaluation of public policy.

The application of the Code of Practice in Scottish Government is overseen by the Chief Statistician, with decisions about particular collections and publications made on a case-by-case by the responsible statisticians.

Data on education outcomes of care experienced young people is collected and published as part of the annual Education Outcomes of Looked After Children (EOLAC) Official Statistics publication. This covers pupils in publicly funded mainstream schools in the 32 local authorities, and one grant aided school. For the latest EOLAC 2021-22 publication, information was linked from:

• Looked After Children statistics, 2008-09 - 2021/22
• School Leaver Initial destination data
• School Leaver Follow-up Destination data
• Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels data

Information on the methodology used to match looked after children’s data is available in the background notes of the EOLAC 2021-22 publication. The latest education outcomes for looked after children statistics include analysis for:

• All children looked after within the year
• Children looked after for the full year
• Children looked after for part of the year
• Children who had been looked after at some point for any duration since age 5, and since age 12. These statistics were published for the first time in the 2021-22 publication as Experimental Statistics.

The experimental statistics will be reviewed before the next iteration of the statistics, planned for publication in August 2024.

Data on (b) achievement , (c) attainment and (d) positive destinations is collected annually. Further information on the types of analysis breakdowns provided for these education outcomes can be found in the supporting Tables document of the 2021-22 publication. Data on (a) attendance is collected every second year, and was last published in 2020-21. Further information on the types of analysis breakdowns provided for attendance can be found in the supporting Tables document of the 2020-21 publication. Information on the groups each of these education outcomes is analysed for can be found in the respective section of the publication report, as per the hyperlinks provided above.

On the morning of 25 March 2024 there were (a) no 16 year olds and (b) five 17 year olds held in Young Offender Institutions in Scotland.

I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

Table: The spend on employing temporary staff each year since 2012. To note, these figures relate to both agency staff and contractors.

I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

There are 13 staffing vacancies currently unfilled within Disclosure Scotland.