In order to reduce the death rate of care-experienced young people, it is vital to address inequalities in their life chances and wellbeing. The Scottish Government is committed to improving outcomes for all care-experienced young people in Scotland and to making Scotland the best place to grow up. The Getting it Right for Looked After Children and Young People Strategy (published in 2015), outlines our priorities of early engagement, early permanence, and improving the quality of care. This approach ensures that looked after young people will receive the support they need when they need it, that they receive support services which meet their needs, and that they are provided with safe, stable settings which allow them to thrive.

Specifically, we have a range of work underway to reduce trauma and to support some of our most vulnerable children and young people. The Mental Health Strategy 2017-2027 outlines the importance of responding appropriately to the emotional distress linked to both the circumstances that led to a child becoming looked after, and the experience of being looked after in any setting. The Strategy also emphasises that professionals working with looked after children and young people should have the necessary knowledge and skills around issues such as trauma and attachment. Scottish Government officials are working towards setting up a system in Scotland to ensure that all child deaths, whether those children are looked after or not, are reviewed and to learn lessons to prevent avoidable deaths.

The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 introduced Continuing Care, extended Aftercare support and put Corporate Parenting on a statutory footing. These provisions support a more graduated transition out of care settings and encourage a focus on maintaining supportive relationships.

It is important to emphasise that GIRFEC – Getting it Right for Every Child – underpins all work by the Scottish Government to reduce inequalities experienced by looked after children and young people. GIRFEC puts the rights and wellbeing of children and young people at the heart of the services that support them to ensure the right help is offered at the right time from the right people.

The Scottish Government is committed to keeping as many young people as possible out of the criminal justice system.

Substantial progress has been made over the last 10 years in keeping young people, including care-experienced young people, out of the criminal justice system:

• The number of young people (12-17) prosecuted in Scotland’s courts has fallen by 78% from 9813 in 2006-07 to 2203 in 2015-16;

• The average number of under 18s in custody has decreased by 77% from 223 in 2006 to 51 in 2016;

However, we know that care-experienced young people are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system, and in custody. The Scottish Prison Service 2015 Prisoner Survey found that of the 327 young men under 21 in HMYOI Polmont who responded, 33% reported being in care as a child, while around 2% of all Scotland’s children are looked after.

Our priority is to improve life chances for children and young people involved, or at risk of becoming involved, in offending. Implementation of the youth justice strategy Preventing Offending: Getting It Right For Children and Young People will secure further progress for vulnerable groups. It includes a strong focus on supporting young people with complex needs - many of whom are looked after children.

The Independent Care Review will help shape further improvements as we continue to drive a preventative, whole system approach to offending to improve life chances and help keep communities and young people safe from crime and disorder.

I refer you to the answer to question S5W-11400 on 2 October 2017. We do not yet have detailed information on the number of young people who have requested Continuing Care. The first full year of data will be collected in 2017-18 and, depending on data quality, published from 2019 in the annual National Statistics publication Children’s Social Work Statistics. We will monitor this information and any other evidence offered by Scotland’s local authorities to clarify numbers in the years post-implementation.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The Scottish Government commissioned resources for young people and promotes those developed by other organisations including the Children and Young People's Commissioner in Scotland and Who Cares? Scotland. These have been specifically developed for children and young people to help them understand their rights.

The Scottish Government has paid £4.2 million to Scottish local authorities in 2015-16 to support costs of implementing Continuing Care and this funding commitment rises to £9.3 million by 2019/20.

Taking into account the 2017-18 local government finance settlement, including the extra £160 million announced at Stage 1 of the Budget Bill, plus the other sources of income available to councils through reforms to council tax and funding for Health and Social Care Integration, the overall increase in spending power to support local authority services now amounts to over £383 million (or 3.7%).

The majority of funding to local authorities is provided by means of a block grant. It is the responsibility of each local authority to allocate resources on the basis of local needs and priorities.

The duty to provide Continuing Care does not apply if the accommodation the person was in immediately before ceasing to be looked after was secure accommodation. Continuing Care placements are intended to entitle eligible care experienced young people to extend their care setting in order to maintain established relationships with trusted, supportive adults. For a number of reasons, secure accommodation is not an appropriate setting for Continuing Care. However, when external factors outwith the young person’s control make a Continuing Care placement unavailable local authorities will be expected to discuss and agree alternative support measures which meet the young person’s needs.

It is the responsibility of each local authority to use resources as efficiently as possible and deliver services effectively to ensure taxpayers get the best possible value. How this is done is a matter for each council - councils are autonomous bodies, responsible for managing their own day to day business and answerable to their electorates.

We will expect to obtain credible evidence of actual uptake from local authority returns, which will be collected in 2017-18 and published from 2019 in the annual National Statistics publication Children’s Social Work Statistics. We will consider this, and any other information that we obtain from across local authorities, to monitor numbers and support local authorities to ensure they offer support best suited to each care leaver.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the age at which local authorities cease to track the outcomes of care-experienced young people.

The Scottish Government collects data from local authorities on children and young people who are looked after and/or in receipt of aftercare services, which includes data on their health, housing status and employment status.

The Scottish Government data collection from local authority social work departments ends when either 1) the child leaves care (majority at or before age 18) and does not take up aftercare services; 2) the young person is no longer in receipt of aftercare services (at or before age 26).

We are unable to say what information local government may collect that is not requested by Scottish Government.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) is committed to ensuring staff are appropriately qualified for the roles that they undertake and receive appropriate training on the needs and rights of young people; including those with care experience. This includes, but is not restricted to, the SDS Academy of learning and development activities for all staff across the organisation. The Academy offers a core set of equality focused modules and learning. Partner organisations are also engaged to deliver staff capacity building and learning where local needs extend beyond what the Academy offer. In 2016 SDS updated standard operating procedures in order to better support care experienced young people to access SDS services and progress into positive outcomes.

SDS has benefitted from the SG-funded training for corporate parents which is delivered by Who Cares? Scotland and involves hearing directly from care experienced young people. SDS recently launched an E-Learning module on Corporate Parenting for all its staff which incorporates video clips of care experienced young people telling their story and talking about the various issues and barriers they faced along the way. This training is accompanied by a series of worksheets to direct team discussions across the business which raise questions about how these young people could have been supported further and also possible ways to improve SDS practice going forward.

The first of the 16 commitments included in the SDS 2015-2018 Corporate Parenting Plan is to ‘Introduce all-staff training on the subject of Corporate Parenting, with additional training opportunities offered where appropriate.’ Towards this SDS has launched a Career Information Advice and Guidance Equalities E-Learning module with a specific focus on Additional Support Needs (ASN), Corporate Parenting and Community Justice, which is compulsory for all Operations staff and is assessed. Operational staff have also recently had training in the delivery of the Next Steps post school service offer which entitles care experienced young people to intensive individual engagement with an SDS Adviser up to their 26th birthday.

SDS has an ASN resource area on its staff intranet, which includes a specific area on working with care experienced young people. This intranet resource contains a range of guidance documents on how colleagues can support care experienced customers with their individual needs. As a final example, an SDS Community of Practice has been established with a representative from each local authority across Scotland. The Community of Practice meets to share effective and interesting practice in working with care experienced young people, which drives continuous improvement across the country. The Community of Practice members have also received additional training from CELCIS (the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland).

If a local authority becomes aware that a child or young person who is looked after by them or is in receipt of advice, guidance or assistance from them has died, the local authority must, within 24 hours, notify the Care Inspectorate. The Care Inspectorate, on behalf of Scottish Ministers, receives, reviews and provides feedback to the local authority on a report compiled by them reviewing the circumstances of the child or young person and his/her death.

Once notified, the Care Inspectorate alert Scottish Ministers as soon as reasonably practicable, and information around the name of the child, his or her date of birth, the legal circumstances in which he or she was being looked after and where, and brief details of the cause and circumstances of his or her death, if known are recorded.

The exact (medical) cause of death is not always known. The Care Inspectorate’s principle concern is with the circumstances of the child's life and pathway. It should also be noted that this group of children includes children with life limiting conditions whose deaths are anticipated.