Protecting children from harm: Education Secretary's statement - 17 December 2025

Presiding Officer, 

Protecting children from harm is of the utmost importance to this Government. 

Those who have suffered, as victims of child sexual abuse, have been let down by a system which should have protected them.

Discussion of these topics – whether that be in the national press – or, indeed, in this chamber, should be sensitive to that trauma.

All parties should, rightly, treat this matter with the appropriate care and seriousness which it demands.

I welcome that Opposition Leaders, Spokespeople and relevant committee members will have the opportunity to meet with Professor Alexis Jay and Police Scotland for a full briefing on their work on 14th January

As I previously set out to Parliament, the Scottish Government has not ruled out the establishment of an inquiry into group-based child abuse and exploitation.

The experts on the National Strategic Group have been clear, however, that there is limited evidence at the current time on the nature and on the extent of this issue in Scotland. 

It is, therefore, imperative that this evidence base is established at pace, to clarify next steps, and to lessen prolonged suffering for the victims of these crimes. And this evidence base matters to survivors, as one told me last week:

'..the current narrative is moving faster than the evidence base, and that policy, commentary, and public positioning must remain anchored in verified evidence rather than momentum or rhetoric.

‘When language runs ahead of evidence, the consequences are borne not by commentators, but by survivors — through misrepresentation, loss of trust, and further harm.’

Presiding Officer, the National Review has been established in part to scrutinise the effectiveness of local responses.

The review will be led by four statutory Inspectorates, which are importantly independent of government and the organisations which they scrutinise.

Crucially, these agencies have powers to compel public authorities to provide information which they request. 

Those powers will be critical to the success of the review – public agencies will not be able to refuse to co-operate – and the inspectorates will help obtain the evidence needed to inform future decisions and investigations.

This approach will be underpinned by Professor Alexis Jay’s expert advice on its design and at key stages of the process, drawing on her unrivalled experience in this area.

This work will, of course, also operate within Scotland’s established constitutional arrangements, including the independent role of the Lord Advocate in directing the system of criminal investigation and prosecution.

The Cabinet Secretary for Justice and I are clear that this work must be undertaken at pace, with Ministers, the National Strategic Group, and Parliament receiving regular and appropriate updates.  

The Review will be conducted in three parts, with reports provided iteratively to Ministers.

In the first part, the inspectorates will scrutinise data and evidence from all local authorities about the risk and the threat of group-based abuse and exploitation. This rigorous work will be detailed, ensuring that all local authorities responses are scrutinised.

And I can assure members, that if any harm or risk is identified during this review, that this will be escalated immediately through the appropriate channels, including to Police Scotland as required.

Action will be taken and need not wait for the review to conclude or for an inquiry.

I know that members, like me, will have welcomed the news last week that the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry confirmed that it will be able to hear and act upon evidence relating to grooming and group-based child sexual abuse, as part of its Phase 10 hearings, where this falls within the Inquiry’s terms of reference.

I want to be clear with Parliament today, that any person who considers that they may have been groomed, and sexually exploited as a result, while in residential care before 17 December 2014 has a right to contact the Inquiry.

The National Review, Police Scotland’s ongoing work, and the advice of the National Strategic Group, chaired by Professor Jay, will gather evidence, help us to take action where it is needed now and inform advice to Ministers on whether a national inquiry on group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation is required.

Ministers expect to be able to update Parliament more fully on this work by the end of February.

Presiding Officer, we must also ensure that survivors’ experience is at the heart of our considerations.

Their voices must be heard and they must be listened to.

It is critical that we take the right approach and involve survivors in a trauma-informed way, with appropriate safeguards in place.

I do not underestimate how distressing it is for survivors to share their experiences of abuse. I commend the courage of those who have already spoken out, whether publicly or privately with government. Be in no doubt, your voices matter.

I have today written to the Cross Party Group on Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, along with the Justice Secretary, to request that we attend a meeting in the New Year to hear directly from a wide range of survivors which the CPG represents.

This approach, of engagement with the CPG, mirrors that taken by the National Strategic Group, which will further consider more strategic approaches to engagement with victims at its next meeting in January.

It is vital that the views and the experiences of survivors inform the work that we are taking forward.

And I want to assure survivors today on a significant concern to them, about the retention of records and information relating to their experience and which is pertinent to this work.  I know that this is a matter which has caused – and continues to cause – significant distress.

The Director General for Justice and Education has therefore written today to key agencies and organisations asking them to review their document retention policies to ensure the retention of all documents that may be relevant to the National Review.

This is additional, of course, to the instruction that the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry which it issued when it began its work on keeping records and information which it would wish to review and consider.

Presiding Officer, it is shocking and sickening that children and young people in our society continue to be sexually abused – often, by members of their own family, as well as increasingly through online exploitation.

Therefore we must also invest in initiatives which address such harm and help children and young people to recover.

To date, the Government has provided £20 million for the Bairns’ Hoose programme, to enhance holistic child-centred support for children who have been harmed. 

This is in addition to funding for third sector organisations working to prevent and protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation.

Today, I am announcing a further £220,000 of funding, to be deployed immediately during this financial year.  This will enable:

• the UK Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse to undertake pilots in two Scottish local authorities in 2026-27. These pilots will provide access to experts and resources, to help build the skills and confidence of frontline practitioners in identifying and also responding to child sexual abuse cases;
• It will also support funding for the Lucy Faithfull Foundation to strengthen its work in Scotland with young people and families impacted by online sexual offending;
• And it will support free access to online harm training from the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice and the Lucy Faithfull Foundation
• And additional funding will also be provided to enhance Police Scotland’s digital forensics capability and ability to act on online harm

The funding to Police Scotland will, importantly, build upon the existing capabilities of the National Child Abuse Investigation Unit. 

That unit provides a specialist approach to tackling child abuse and exploitation. It is focused on complex cases involving multiple victims or perpetrators and organised networks and conducts around 700 investigations per year.

Presiding Officer,

Just as we must investigate and address what has happened in the recent past, so must we ensure that we are doing all that we can, in the here and now.

We must work to protect children and young people from harm, and, importantly, to identify improvements required in current approaches.

We published revised National Child Protection Guidance in 2021 to support the development of evidence-based responses.

This guidance makes clear what everyone working with children must do to protect children from harm, including reporting to social work and the police when a child is experiencing, or at risk of, abuse or exploitation.

We are also rolling out national training for local services and professionals on Inter-agency Referral Discussions.

These discussions are fundamental to our system of child protection in Scotland. They bring together the police, social work, health and wider partners to share information, assess risk and agree a safety plan.

In recognition of the increasing complexity of child sexual abuse, we established the National Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Strategic Group last year, and from January, the Group will be chaired independently by Professor Alexis Jay.

I want to pay tribute to the determination today and drive of its recent co-Chair, Iona Colvin, Scotland’s Chief Social Work Adviser, who is retiring this week, following a career dedicated to protecting Scotland’s children and young people from harm, abuse and neglect.

To build on the work of the strategic Group, I want us to go further. 

The mandatory reporting of child abuse has been the subject of recent discussions in this chamber. Many professionals in Scotland already have a duty to report child abuse – I know this from my own time in schools. 

However, the National Strategic Group has been actively considering the case for a broader, statutory requirement for mandatory reporting, and I want to be clear with Parliament today – mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse is a position supported in principle by Scottish Ministers.

A Task and Finish Group is being established under the guidance of the National Strategic Group to consider potential models.

Presiding Officer, this government determined to take action to establish the potential extent and scale of child sexual exploitation.

That includes conducting an independent national review to assess the prevalence of this type of abuse, the effectiveness of local systems and to identify any risks or evidence that require early action. 

I have today provided further detail on our approach to the national review. I have set out how we will involve survivors to ensure their voice is heard. I have announced additional funding to help professionals better protect children and prevent harm.  And I have indicated our support for the development of mandatory reporting options for Scotland.

But this must be a shared endeavour.

All MSPs – all political parties – have a role to play in protecting Scotland’s children and young people from harm.

I therefore invite MSPs from across the Chamber to support the work underway and – crucially - to offer their own input and ideas, by engaging meaningfully.

Our children and young people deserve nothing less.