Mandatory Reporting Task and Finish Group minutes: May 2026

Attendees and apologies

Chair

•    Dr Ariane Critchley, University of Stirling 

Group members in attendance

•    Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES)
•    Child Protection Unit Officials and Professional Advisors, Scottish Government
•    Centre for Excellence for Children's Care and Protection (CELCIS)
•    Children First
•    COSLA
•    Child Protection Committees Scotland
•    CYCJ
•    Edinburgh Women’s Aid
•    Education Scotland
•    Lucy Faithfull Foundation Scotland
•    National Social Work Agency
•    Police Scotland
•    Scottish Nursing Leadership for Child Protection (SNLCP)
•    Scottish Children’s Reporter’s Administration (SCRA)
•    Social Work Scotland
•    Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC)

Apologies

•    COPFS
•    Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH)
•    Society of Personnel and Development Scotland (SPDS)

Secretariat

•    Child Protection Unit, Scottish Government

Items and actions

Welcome, introductions and apologies

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and noted apologies.

Scene setting – Formation of Parliament

A Scottish Government official provided an overview of the newly formed Cabinet and explained which Ministers would have a strong interest in the work of the group. 

Introduction of aims paper

The Chair introduced the Aims paper which summarised points raised in previous discussions, both within the group and in individual meetings, as well as drawing on wider literature. The Chair invited the group to have open discussions around how these aims might best be achieved. 

The paper was designed to help the group to define the aims that the introduction of Mandatory Reporting could reasonably be expected to contribute to achieving in Scotland. The list of potential aims were divided into two broad areas:

•    aims designed to increase children and young people’s welfare and safety
•    aims designed to increase sanctions for harm to children and young people

The paper set out the rationale and explanation for those broad areas, with the group of aims specifically focused on increasing children and young people’s safety further broken down into aims around:

•    identification and reporting 
•    responding
•    widening of duties in relation to children and young people

The small group discussions throughout the day were structured around each sub-set of Aims and focused on the necessary conditions for these aims to be met.

Aims designed to increase children and young people’s welfare and safety

Identification and reporting

The group discussed this theme in smaller groups before sharing key reflections in the large group. There was broad agreement that if mandatory reporting duty were to be introduced in Scotland, that this should extend to all forms of abuse, rather than differentiating between these. However, it was noted that different forms of abuse require different responses, and may require different thresholds for reporting.

Some groups noted that a Public Health Approach would be beneficial with an aim to improve health, safety and wellbeing on a broader, multi-agency, systemic basis. This linked to discussions around ensuring that children and young people understand their rights and needs and are able to understand what constitutes abuse and empowered to articulate that abuse. This approach may support a culture change that encourages a broader and more consistent understanding of child abuse and earlier discussions around harm, and is consistent with the aims of the recent UNCRC Act.

Discussions reflected training and workforce challenges and the importance of enabling the system to respond to reports of abuse by investing to build capacity and competence across all levels of the system. The group noted that a focus on professional curiosity and reflective supervision would be beneficial in order to supporting the workforce to consider the child’s wider world and to step back to objectively assess risks through discussion with other relevant professionals.

The group noted that neglect was under-recognised and systemically challenging to identify and respond to. Challenges were discussed around effective multi-agency working, and improvements that could be made to information sharing were noted as an opportunity to ensure that risk assessments and decision making were evidence based.

The group noted particular challenges around ‘grey areas’ in complex cases, where open and multi-agency discussion and information sharing would be particularly beneficial.

Responding

Following further small group discussions, feedback to the whole group included a theme around the ability for practitioners to share and check concerns at an earlier stage. There was support for a more consistent national approach to responding.

There was an acknowledgement that by broadening the responsibility for responding to abuse via mandatory reporting, this would include practitioners who do not have expertise in child abuse. Therefore, building knowledge and confidence in the workforce would be crucial.

If mandatory reporting was introduced there would be an increased need for meaningful, holistic recovery support responses such as therapeutic play and counselling services. They noted that access to these services is currently limited due to resource constraints.

Group members highlighted that mandatory reporting would need to be embedded effectively within existing structures and systems, such as Bairns Hoose, which co-locates multidisciplinary teams to coordinate a response to abuse. 

The group noted that GIRFEC is a good model and is well embedded. It supports a proportionate level of response that is exploratory and holistic.

Group members were interested to understand more around the functioning and reach of the PVG scheme. They discussed interest in exploring the scheme’s links to mandatory reporting further, as well as any opportunities for including training and increasing awareness for those with safeguarding responsibilities.

There was agreement that increasing reporting on its own would not reduce harm to children and young people. The group highlighted that the system as a whole is currently extremely stretched and would not have the capacity to respond to increases in reports of potential harm or abuse without considerable investment.

There was consensus among the group that if the system cannot adequately respond to increased reporting, then there would be no benefit to introducing mandatory reporting.

Summary of discussions 

The Chair thanked the group for engaging in their careful consideration and open discussion around the themes of identification, reporting and responding to abuse. The Chair summarised the key areas of consensus as: 

The group is broadly agreed on the inclusion of all forms of abuse and neglect in considerations of both mandatory reporting or any strengthening of the system. However, the group also discussed an approach where mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse was introduced initially, with a view to extending it to include other forms of abuse and neglect over time.

The group were interested in supporting the early risk assessment stage of a case which precedes the formal inter-agency referral discussion, which could benefit from more exploratory discussion between professionals, or more supervision support, to explore concerns about children.

Group members would like to explore whether the PVG scheme could form a possible vessel for mandatory reporting and would like further clarity on the applicability of the scheme to the group’s considerations. 

The group articulated clear training needs in respect of identifying abuse. At this stage, there is broad consensus that consequences for failing to identify and report abuse should not involve criminal sanctions. Rather, that professionals require supervision and training that supports earlier identification of harm, and appropriate multi-agency responses to this.

Wilful concealment of abuse, and whether criminal sanctions may be appropriate in relation to wilful concealment, is something the group would like to return to consider in more detail.

The introduction of mandatory reporting only, without any further improvements or supports, could create more harm. It is necessary for mandatory reporting to be considered within the context of additional systemic supports and changes.

There are some areas the group need to come back to, such as: online harm, Bairns Hoose, universal services. The group needs to consider the relation of mandatory reporting to these matters.

Next steps and close

The Secretariat will share the programme of dates for upcoming meetings. Input from experts, both national and international, will be scheduled to supplement upcoming meetings. 

Actions

•     Secretariat to invite Disclosure Scotland to attend future meetings