The Cross-border Placement of Children (Requirements, Effect and Enforcement) (Scotland) Regulations 2026: Equality Impact Assessment

Executive summary

In this assessment, ‘cross-border placements’ are used to describe temporary placements of children into residential or foster care in Scotland from another part of the UK. Children placed into Scotland on cross-border placements remain the responsibility of the placing local authority. For most cross-border placements coming to Scotland, Scottish parties (including health and education) know very little about those children or their circumstances. In many cases, they do not know that children have been placed and often find out through crisis interventions.

The Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024 includes provision to allow the Scottish Ministers to further regulate cross-border placements of children from England, Wales and Northern Ireland into Scotland, which should only ever occur in exceptional circumstances. The Regulations provide for the legal effect in Scots law of court orders or arrangements underpinning placements from elsewhere in the UK and set out conditions to be met in respect of temporary placements into residential and foster care.

Cross-border placements into Scotland should only occur in exceptional circumstances where the placement is in the best interests of the individual child. The Scottish Government’s intention through the Regulations is to ensure that cross-border placements into residential and foster care in Scotland are appropriately considered and assessed, and that a clear regulatory framework applies to these placements. This, in turn, will ensure that the rights and wellbeing of children who come to Scotland through cross-border placements are safeguarded and promoted.

The Regulations set out conditions to be met for temporary placements and also provide a route for the “conversion” of certain non-Scottish orders into compulsory supervision orders (CSOs) where the host local authority in Scotland agrees for this to happen. For temporary placements, the Regulations will help to ensure that children’s rights are upheld by imposing exacting requirements for recognition of the order or arrangement underpinning the placement, as well as requirements which apply during it.