UKG audit on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse: First Minister’s response

To: Joani Reid MP
From: First Minister John Swinney

Dear Ms Reid

Thank you for your letters of 25 April and 25 June 2025 about the introduction of a statutory duty to report child sexual abuse in England and Wales and your call for a wide-ranging inquiry into child sexual abuse in Scotland following the publication of Baroness Louise Casey’s audit last week.

Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your first letter. Given the pace of developments over the last few weeks I believe it was important to take time to fully understand the issues raised by Baroness Casey and the UK Government’s response, so that I can appropriately address the points you raise.

I first want to be clear that protecting children from harm is a key priority for the Scottish Government. Child sexual abuse and exploitation are abhorrent crimes with devastating impacts on the victims and their families.

The National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021, updated in 2023, sets out the responsibilities of everyone who works with children, young people and their families. This guidance makes clear that all concerns that a child has been abused or is at risk of abuse must be reported to the police or social work.

The guidance also provides that organisations that work with children and young people should have policies in place that allow individuals to escalate a child protection concern outside of their management structure.

In Scotland, all healthcare and education professionals already have a duty to report child abuse to social work or the police, including child sexual abuse and exploitation. A practitioner’s failure to report child abuse, including child sexual abuse and exploitation, could constitute a breach of their employment contract, lead to disciplinary action, or give rise to a claim for civil damages. Practitioners could also be struck off from social work, teaching, or medical registers for gross misconduct.

However, we are currently considering the case for an additional general, statutory mandatory reporting duty, and we are engaging with stakeholders to explore the benefits and challenges of doing so, including with the Cross-Party Group on Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse, as well as with Social Work Scotland, Police Scotland, Child Protection Committees Scotland and others.

Stakeholder views on the merits of mandatory reporting have varied, and throughout our engagement, a number of advantages, but also risks and unintended consequences have been highlighted.

For example, children and families may be less likely to disclose abuse or seek support if they are not given the opportunity to do so at their own pace – indeed this is one of the reasons we are introducing the Bairns Hoose model in Scotland to support disclosure in a trauma-informed way.

In parallel, we will continue to engage with Professor Alexis Jay on this issue. In fact, the Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise, Natalie Don-Innes MSP, met with her in May to discuss this issue and agreed to stay in touch on it. You are aware that we have established a National Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE) Strategic Group, of which Professor Alexis Jay is a member, which will also discuss this issue in the coming months. I wish to clarify that this Group has been convened four times, with associated working groups due to meet in July and August ahead of the next full Group meeting in September or October, and also highlight that Professor Jay was previously the Chief Social Work Adviser to the Scottish Government but left this role in 2013.

Turning to Baroness Casey’s Audit, I assure you that I welcome any report that sheds further light on the devastating impact of child sexual abuse and exploitation, and importantly, where improvement is required to better tackle and prevent this terrible abuse of children and young people.

As you might expect, we are working at pace with partners, including Police Scotland and the National Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Strategic Group, to assess the Audit’s findings and recommendations to understand how they might apply in Scotland.

However, in order for any action to be effective, we must appropriately consider the relevance of these recommendations for our specific legislative, statutory service and regulatory landscape, and the scale of this specific form of organised gang-related sexual abuse of children and young people in Scotland.

I would firstly like to clarify that the recent case of child sexual abuse in Glasgow cited in your previous letter, which is now subject to a learning review, whilst horrendous, was of a different nature to the organised gang grooming observed in England and the cases reported in Baroness Casey’s recent National Audit.

Furthermore, Police Scotland have advised the Scottish Government that there are no current investigations in Scotland involving offences against children which would mirror the investigations described in Baroness Casey’s audit as being perpetrated by “grooming gangs”.

However, to ensure that every appropriate step is taken to consider these issues, Police Scotland are conducting a review into previous investigations of the type referred to in the Baroness Casey audit. This is expected to be completed in a matter of weeks. Police Scotland are also reviewing the profile of on-going investigations to ascertain the profile of current offending. I wish to assure you that I expect Police Scotland to carry out this work at pace and I will closely scrutinise its findings to consider whether further investigation is required.

I also wish to highlight, that as a single force, with one vulnerability database feeding local and national child protection procedures, and a National Intelligence database, Police Scotland is well placed to address the information and intelligence sharing challenges highlighted in Baroness Casey’s Audit. Police Scotland will also continue to work closely with the UK National Police Chiefs’ Council child protection leads, to ensure mutual sharing of any emerging best practice and learning.

Turning to the points you raised in relation to the independent Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, I want to emphasise that this is already one of the widest ranging inquiries ever undertaken in Scotland and includes an extensive review of child protection policy and practice in Scotland.

Whilst you state that the Inquiry is “limited” by its terms of reference, Baroness Casey’s report specifically highlights the vulnerability of children in care to sexual exploitation, which are within the existing remit of the Inquiry and is likely to be a further source of evidence for the Scottish Inquiry to draw on. Widening the remit of the Inquiry to include abuse in non-residential settings would result in it taking much longer to respond to survivors of abuse in care, who campaigned for the Inquiry for many years.

As you note, the primary aim of the Inquiry is to investigate the extent and nature of abuse in care settings from 1930 to 2014. However, it is also considering whether changes in current practice, policy or legislation are required to better protect children in care in Scotland from such abuse in future.

We will carefully consider the Inquiry’s recommendations in due course, however, we are not waiting to take action to protect children from harm. The National Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Strategic Group is actively working to increase cross-sectoral coordination and capability to address the risks and harms of child sexual abuse and exploitation in Scotland. The Group’s co-chairs have written to members following the publication of Baroness Casey’s Audit seeking their views and to further identify opportunities to improve our collective response to this horrendous form of abuse.

With the current focus on child abuse, including child sexual abuse and exploitation, we have an opportunity to raise awareness of how to report concerns about children and organisations that provide support to those people who have been or are being abused and their families. More information can be found on the child protection pages of mygov.scot.

In addition to the immediate response to the Audit, the Scottish Government is taking forward a range of work with our partners to prevent abuse and intervene early to recognise and act quickly and effectively on any risk and harm to children and young people.

This includes our work to address violence against women and girls which is a fundamental violation of human rights and is totally unacceptable. Those who perpetrate violence and abuse, as you have pointed out, the majority of whom are men, must change their actions and behaviour. It is only through fundamental societal change that women and girls can be protected.

Our Equally Safe Strategy is aimed at preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls and is focused on early intervention, prevention and support. This is backed by £21.6m of Scottish Government funding this year from our Delivering Equally Safe Fund, supporting 115 projects from 107 organisations. We also have awarded £48m to victims’ organisations for the period 2022-2025 under our Victim Centred Approach Fund as part of our commitment to putting victims at the heart of the justice system, including £18.5m for specialist advocacy support for survivors of gender-based violence.

I also want to be clear that we are committed to working in partnership with the UK Government to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation, including new and emerging harms impacting children in Scotland.

In this spirit, we have engaged the Home Office on the Crime and Policing Bill’s proposed new penalties on online child sexual abuse and it is our intention to extend to Scotland. We would welcome your support for these amendments as the Bill progresses through the UK Parliament.

Further to this, the Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise and the Minister for Victims and Community Safety wrote to UK Ministers in January, inviting further cooperation between Governments in respect of online safety, particularly in relation to protecting children and young people, and urged for further legislative action. They have also written to the UK Minister for Safeguarding, Jess Phillips MP, inviting her to meet to discuss online safety with a particular focus on preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation and violence against women and girls.

Finally, I want to reiterate that at this time when our publicly funded services are facing significant challenges, it is more important than ever that we focus our collective efforts on actions that will make the most difference to the people of Scotland. This means ensuring these services deliver the benefits children, young people, families and communities all expect. It is important that we improve and evolve public services, and make strategic choices based on specialist knowledge and evidence.

Therefore, I can assure you that I will continue to consider the need to establish a further inquiry into child sexual abuse and exploitation in Scotland, should further information demonstrate a need for this in due course. It is paramount that we maintain a resolute focus on ensuring that children and young people’s needs and rights remain at the heart of this process.

I trust this information reassures you that the Scottish Government are committed to tackling child sexual abuse and exploitation and ensuring children and young people in Scotland are protected from harm and are supported to thrive.

 

John Swinney

UKG Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse: First Minister’s response

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