Question reference: S6W-08143
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 21 April 2022
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Current status: Answered by Ash Regan on 4 May 2022
Question
To ask the Scottish Government how many local authorities have developed their own multi-agency, collaborative missing persons strategy and protocols to respond to and track missing children.
Answer
Through the National Missing Persons Framework for Scotland, which was launched in 2017, the Scottish Government has developed and strengthened local multi-agency partnerships. A survey in 2020 by the Working Group for Missing People in Scotland showed that there are now multi-agency groups in 27 local authority areas and we aim to work with all areas to implement them by 2025.
The Scottish Government has funded the Missing People charity to deliver a Framework Implementation Project; and funds a National Coordinator to deliver a programme of consultancy, training and best practice sharing in local areas in Scotland.
Since 2019 the Implementation project has worked with local partners in Edinburgh, Fife, Dundee, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Moray, Dumfries and Galloway, East Dunbartonshire, North Ayrshire, Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire to develop their multi-agency partnerships, protocols and strategies. A further seven local authority areas will be engaged with the project in 2022-23.
Thankfully, the overwhelming majority of children who go missing in Scotland return home safely – but, any child who goes missing is one too many. Through these actions, Police Scotland, the lead agency for tracking missing people, is working more closely with families, friends and statutory bodies to track and safely return those children who go missing.