Children's residential care - financial transparency and profit limitation: consultation
This consultation relates to provisions made in the Children and Young People (Care and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill, which was introduced to Parliament on 17 June 2025. The consultation is to collect views on financial transparency and profit limitation provisions.
Closed
This consultation closed 6 October 2025.
View this consultation on consult.gov.scot, including responses once published.
Consultation analysis
Background to the Consultation
This consultation relates to provisions made in the Children and Young People (Care and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill, which was introduced to Parliament on 17 June 2025. The legislation is being developed in order to meet the commitments made in The Promise, and to ensure that excessive profits are not being gained through the care of children is an important section of this work.
The Promise is clear that there is no place for profiting in how Scotland cares for its children and that Scotland must avoid the monetisation of the care of children and prevent the marketisation of care by 2030[1]. To align with this and uphold the principles of the Promise, the Bill enables the Scottish Ministers through regulations to enhance financial transparency by requiring certain residential childcare providers to provide financial and other relevant information about the operation of their services. In addition, should it be determined that excessive profits are being made, Scottish Ministers also have enabling powers through this Bill to make further regulations to limit profit being made from children’s residential care. This seeks to ensure that excessive levels of profit are not made from local authorities and from finite public funds, in relation to the provision of accommodation and services for vulnerable looked after children in Scotland.
The Children and Young People (Care and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill is currently being considered by the Scottish Parliament and all of the measures that it proposes will be subject to Parliament’s Agreement. Should Parliament approve the Bill, the Scottish Government will produce Regulations in relation to financial transparency and, subject to those, may make further regulations in relation to limitation of profits in relation to children’s residential care. These Regulations would be subject to further public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny before they would come into law.