Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019: child interview rights practitioners application guidance

Delivery criteria

You must be able to work flexibly within these hours:

• Monday to Thursday, 9am to 8pm
• Friday, 9am to 5pm
• excluding public holidays

You must be available outside school hours when needed, on Monday to Thursday evenings.

Working with the police and local authority

Wherever possible, we'll identify a ChIRP during the planning phase so you can offer your views to the police and local authority. You'll receive a copy of the child's interview plan.

Meeting the child before the interview

You should arrange to speak with the child in person before the interview. Ideally, this should not happen immediately before the interview starts.

You can meet the child at the location set for the investigative interview. You may also meet them at their home, at a carer's home, at school or at a young person's centre, if you can show this would better serve the child's best interests.

Choosing a location for the interview

You must hold investigative interviews somewhere that helps the child or young person feel able to talk to the police and social worker about what happened. This could include:

• the child or young person's family home or place of care
• office premises
• schools
• hospitals
• venues for formal review meetings, including children's hearings
• Bairns' Hoose facilities

This is not a full list of possible locations.

If your firm employs you to provide this support, you should ideally be based somewhere with easy access to all parts of the local authority area you're covering.

What the role may involve

This is not a full list, but your role may include:

• building rapport and trust with the child, and explaining your role, the purpose of the interview and its potential consequences
• communicating with the child or young person during the investigative interview
• supporting the child or young person to speak or take part in the interview

Communicating with children who have additional needs

You must be able to communicate effectively with:

• children and young people who have profound and complex learning disabilities, mental health problems or incapacity
• children and young people from minority ethnic or other cultural groups
• children and young people with other communication needs, such as hearing or speech impairments
• children and young people in their preferred language

Case management

You must meet the following requirements:

• use a case management approach that's auditable, showing effective case management and closure processes for monitoring and evaluation
• keep a clear record of consents, along with accurate and up-to-date details of the child or young person's case, including all associated documentation and case management records, in line with data protection law (GDPR)
• close cases promptly to make the best use of public resources, doing so when the investigative interview process has ended, when the child or young person asks you to, or when no further action can be taken
• offer children and young people a range of ways to contact you safely and privately, such as by phone, email and other digital apps

Demand for this service

We cannot guarantee a specific amount of work. Any numbers we provide are for guidance only, as demand depends on variable factors, such as how many children and young people become subject to police investigation.

The Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019 came fully into force in December 2021. Since then, 12 investigative interviews have needed ChIRP support. This is fewer than we projected at the bill stage.

We don't expect every incident to need an investigative interview. Sometimes the police will have enough information to investigate what happened without interviewing the child. However, we still need to be ready to support every area of Scotland, so we'll add to the cohort of ChIRPs when needed.

The time it takes to complete and close a case depends on several factors, including how urgent and complex the issue is, and the schedules of any related interviews. Resource availability can also affect this timescale.

You must use an electronic management information system to manage and store information about referrals, the nature of cases and service users. This helps us use resources efficiently and handle as many cases as possible.