National Missing Persons Framework for Scotland 2025
The National Missing Persons Framework for Scotland (2025) provides updated roles and responsibilities of respective agencies, standardising key practice from a wealth of good practice across Scotland, that aims to help and safeguard those who go missing through multi-agency working.
Good Practice
Missing persons is a thread that runs through so many different areas of public policy. To positively make a difference it is necessary to be able to look at the reasons why an individual has gone missing to understand their journey. Following the publication of the Framework in 2017, a similar journey has been taking place across local authorities in Scotland, to learn and understand the issue of people going missing locally, the response to people going missing and what is required to achieve our ambition to keep people in our communities safe.
Good practice is key to build progress towards achieving the aims of the Framework. Good practice was in place prior to the Framework and has been developed, identified and shared since the publication of the Framework in 2017 through the Framework Implementation project. We want to build on that work to continue to prevent people from going missing and limit the harm when they do.
Through this Framework update, key areas of practice that are important in preventing harm related to missing have been identified. We encourage partners in all thirty-two local authority areas to consider how each of the following can help or enhance their missing response.
Contact
Email: contactus@gov.scot