Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Data Short Life Working Group minutes: March 2026

Attendees and apologies

Chair

•    Alastair McAlpine, Chief Statistician, Scottish Government

Group members in attendance

•    Officials from the Office of the Chief Statistician, Scottish Government
•    Child Protection Unit Officials, Scottish Government
•    Children and Families Analysis Officials, Scottish Government
•    Justice Analytical Services Officials, Scottish Government
•    Centre for Excellence for Children's Care and Protection (CELCIS)
•    Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)
•    Police Scotland
•    Education Scotland
•    Social Work Scotland
•    NSPCC
•    Barnardo’s 
•    Edinburgh University

Apologies

•    NHS
•    Scottish Children’s Reporter’s Administration (SCRA)
•    Improvement Service

Secretariat

•    Child Protection Unit, Scottish Government

Additional Attendees

•    Childlight

Items and actions

Welcome, introductions and apologies

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and noted apologies from SCRA, Improvement Service and NHS. New members from Social Work Scotland were asked to briefly introduce themselves. Attendees from Childlight were asked to briefly introduce themselves and the Chair explained that they were attending this meeting to hear about the workplan and consider if there is any work they could support with. 

The Chair set out the agenda for the meeting:
•    Reflections on engagement since the last meeting in February
•    Recorded crime data - Justice Analytical Services Officials
•    Joint-Investigative Interview (JII) data - COSLA and CELCIS 
•    More detailed look at the workplan

Reflections from Chair

The Chair met with The Care Inspectorate (CI), His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS), Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education in Scotland (HMIE) on 9 March 2026 to discuss their National Review of group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE). The Chair reflected the importance of engaging with the inspectorates to reduce the chances of duplication. There are limitations to how much information the inspectorates can share with us about the National Review, but, as agreed at this group, we have shared the work of this group with them. Scottish Government (SG) officials will be meeting with the Care Inspectorate in April and will share a more detailed workplan with them. 

Public Inquiry 

SG officials provided an update on the public inquiry into group-based CSAE which was announced on 25 February 2026. Professor Alexis Jay was announced as Chair of the public inquiry. The National Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Strategic Group will continue but Professor Jay will resign as Chair and a new Chair will be appointed in the coming months. The Terms of Reference will be considered in the summer months with the Inquiry likely to commence in Autumn. Officials explained that the work of this group will continue and that the Public Inquiry is independent of the programme of work underway under the National CSAE Strategic Group. 

The Chair mentioned that he will be meeting with the other Chairs from the Workforce and Mandatory Reporting subgroups to ensure that there is alignment across all workstreams. 

NSPCC said they are pleased that phase 1 of the National Review is collecting wider data on more than just group-based CSAE. They asked if SCRA data was being considered in grounds of referral to hearing system. As the SCRA group member was not in attendance, this was noted as an action for them to respond to at the next meeting in May. 

Recorded Crimes Data

SG Justice Analytical Services Officials presented the recorded crimes data which they currently hold. The number of recorded crimes in relation to CSAE are higher than the number of children on the child protection register under this concern category. Officials are going to submit a bespoke request to Police Scotland for data to further explore this discrepancy. Members raised that Police data may not explain this discrepancy because children may be referred for a different concern category and then CSAE is determined after they are on the register. Police Scotland suggested that crime statistics may not give us the full picture, but they are hoping that the data from their case review will be helpful and will share these findings.

Joint-Investigative Interview Data

COSLA and CELCIS explained that there is local data available from Joint-Investigate Interviews (JIIs) which shows that a lot of JIIs are happening because of CSAE. COSLA and CELCIS have asked partners to share their data, and they have agreed to create a template for 2024-25 which partners will complete. The Chief Statistician will write to partners to formally request this data from them, and they hope to get this data returned by the end of April. 

Once the data has been collected, CELCIS will collate into a paper and report back to the group. 

Members were asked to contact the COSLA group member if they have any questions or views on this approach. 

Workplan

The detailed workplan was shared with members in advance of the meeting. The Chair explained that we will go through each workstream and ask for members views on the proposed actions. 

Workstream 1: Analysis of available CSAE data

The recorded crimes and JII data work that we discussed in previous agenda items are part of this workstream.

The Chair will meet with Childlight separately to discuss unreported CSAE and potential research that could be taken forward to fill this gap in prevalence data. 

The Chair will meet with the UK Department for Education and Home Office to find out what progress has been made since the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Casey Audit and subsequent work to understand what has been improved and what practices could be adopted in Scotland.

The Chair will also meet with Ofcom and continue engagement with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to ensure that we are linked across the UK.  

Workstream 2: Data to support prevention and early intervention

Officials from the Child Protection Unit (CPU) explained that they have begun some engagement on this workstream meeting with the Scottish Prevention Hub and the National Public Protection Leadership Group to find out about work they are doing on using data to support prevention.

Barnardo’s suggested meeting with the Common Ground charity in Glasgow as they have done some work on this. They agreed to follow up with further information on this to CPU officials. 

COSLA said they would be keen to see more activity looking at data on perpetrators rather than focussing on victims’ risk factors as it is equally as important for prevention. 

Workstream 3: Data quality and capture

CELCIS will be leading on this workstream. They set out plans to explore definitions of CSAE and data ‘touchpoints’. CELCIS will contact members and ask them to share the definitions of CSAE being used in their organisations. Members were also asked to consider engaging with CELCIS to discuss where CSAE might be disclosed and/or identified within children’s engagement with their organisation/services, and note what data about the abuse, victim and perpetrator are recorded at these different ‘touchpoints’. 

Members who are willing to take part in this activity were asked to contact the CELCIS subgroup member. Social Work Scotland and Barnardo’s showed support for this workstream and welcomed being involved. 

General views on the workplan

Members were asked for general views on the workplan. Edinburgh University suggested looking at population-based data. The Chair advised that the Office of the Chief Statistician are exploring whether there is survey data we can use in relation to CSAE. Officials from the Office of the Chief Statistician will share findings from this work at the next meeting. 

Members unanimously adopted the workplan as drafted and presented.

Next steps and close

Members were thanked for their contributions to the meeting and informed that the minutes would be shared with the group before they are published on the Scottish Government’s website. They will not be uploaded to the website until after the election in May.

Members were reminded that they should contact secretariat if they would like to discuss the workplan further. 

The next meeting will take place in May 2026, and a diary invite will be issued to members next week.

Actions

•    SCRA to respond to NSPCC query about data on grounds for referral to children’s hearings being considered in National Review 
•    members to contact SG Justice Analytical Services Officials with any views on the proposed approach for recorded crimes data
•    members to contact COSLA group member with any views on the proposed approach to JII data
•    Chair to write to local partners and request JII data
•    Chair to meet with Childlight
•    Chair to meet with DfE and Home Office
•    Chair to meet with Ofcom
•    COSLA and CELCIS to send a data template to JII partnerships to complete with JII data 
•    Barnardo’s to reach out to CPU officials regarding the Common Ground charity work 
•    CELCIS to send request to all members for definitions of CSAE being used in their organisations 
•    CELCIS to reach out to members requesting their participation in discussions on data ‘touchpoints’
•    officials from the Office of the Chief Statistician to share findings from exploratory work on available survey data at the next meeting
•    secretariat to organise date of next meeting and issue diary invite to members