Scottish government response to "reimagining secure care" report

5. Context

5.1 Care and Justice Reforms

The Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024 (“the C&J Act”) received Royal Assent in June 2024. This landmark legislation aligns with the UNCRC and advances Scotland’s commitment to The Promise.

Prior to the commencement of provisions of the C&J Act in August 2024, children in conflict with the law could be detained in Young Offenders’ Institutions (YOIs). The C&J Act reforms ensure that any deprivation of a child’s liberty occurs in age-appropriate, trauma-informed, and rights-based environments, such as secure accommodation.

Careful planning, additional resourcing and intensive preparations with the outstanding support of secure providers and partners meant that the Scottish Government could introduce these reforms, ending the placement of children in YOIs, less than 3 months after the C&J Act received Royal Assent.

While the prohibition of under-18s in YOIs is a significant step forward, other provisions of the C&J Act - such as raising the maximum age of referral to the Children’s Reporter to 18 and expanding the use of the Children’s Hearings System - are moving towards commencement, to be delivered this Parliamentary term where possible. These changes will require comprehensive planning, preparation and adaptation to ensure system readiness.

5.2 Restoring secure accommodation capacity

Looking at data and trends in secure care and YOI over the past few years, it is believed that 82 available beds across Scotland’s secure accommodation estate should be sufficient to meet the nation’s needs. However, in recent months, we have seen significant pressure and constraints on the availability of secure accommodation in Scotland, as a result of various factors, including:

i. a pause on admissions to St Mary’s Kenmure, one of the four secure providers, which limited their secure accommodation capacity from their contracted 24 beds to 9 from October to December, with a partial restoration to 12 at that point. This reduced the capacity across the secure estate by almost 20%;

ii. the complexity of some individual children’s needs which can require the use of multiple beds, and the associated staff, to care safely for a single child;

iii. the increased duration of some placements as a result of the increased sentenced and remanded population; and

iv. cross border placements from elsewhere in the UK to Scotland, while noting that there has been a significant reduction in recent times.

In response to these constraints, the Scottish Government’s priority has been to stabilise and restore capacity within secure accommodation.

This is to ensure every child who needs secure care continues to have access to the care and support necessary to keep them, and others, safe, in the environments which can best meet their individual needs.

A contingency plan was developed in collaboration with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and Social Work Scotland (SWS). The contingency plan actions are designed not just to manage the current challenges, but to strengthen our secure care accommodation system for the future.

Recent secure care contingency actions include:

• Funding of up to £8.4 million being made available by the Scottish Government in 2025-26 and 2026-27 to cover secure care placement costs, and up to 16 beds across the secure care estate to maintain capacity.
• A commitment made by the Scottish Government to cover the placement costs of remanded children in 2025-26 and 2026-27 – a significant further financial commitment to support the system and its sustainability.
• Funding of up to £2 million being made available by the Scottish Government to support secure care contingency actions in 2025-26.
• Detailed refreshed practice guidance on alternatives to secure care published in March 2025.
• A new fully-funded four bed national contingency resource in Rossie, to help immediate capacity restoration, which opened in April 2025.
• A dedicated Professional Lead based at Social Work Scotland, focused on enhancing the partnership with local government and supporting coordination of communications around relevant services across the country.