These are records no-one should take any pleasure in seeing broken. According to the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration (SCRA) annual report, published yesterday, last year the highest number of children were referred to the organisation since records began: 56,199, or 154 every day. The figures for referrals broke through the 100,000 barrier for the first time (a child can be referred more than once). In addition, there was a 12% increase, compared with 2005-6, in the number of toddlers under four years old who were referred.
The most common grounds for referral were in connection with schedule one offences, including cruelty, sexual offences, indecent behaviour and lack of parental care. In Glasgow, one youngster in 10 found him or herself in the SCRA system. Looked at in the raw, these are shocking figures which suggest that Scotland is failing far too many of its children. Of course, they include children who have committed an offence as well as those who are at risk or who are victims of an offence. However, the figures show there was a reduction of 7% in the number of referrals for allegedly committing an offence. This gives the overall figures an even darker hue since a far greater number were offended against than offended.
What lightens the tone, to a degree, is the fact that more than 30,000 children were referred where there was no indication that compulsory supervision was needed. In other words, the SCRA, through the children's hearing system, had decided there was no case for taking into care or supervising those deemed at risk by a variety of reporting agencies and authorities. That the figures were not so bad as first seemed the case is a cause for some relief.
But this brings its own problems. Concluding that no further action was needed is not a decision taken likely. Each referral must be fully investigated to ensure no child slips through the net. The integrity of the system is undermined each time a child at risk (or suspected to be at risk) becomes a victim. Reaching the right decision takes time, effort and resources, commodities in short supply in social work departments operating on overstretched budgets. At the same time, those agencies and individuals that look out for children must not be made to feel constrained in their responsibilities by pressure to take into account the cost implications of going to the SCRA. There is too much at stake for that. Equally, the system is under so much strain that it would be unfair, to say the least, if agencies were adding to the burdens by flagging up children about whom they had concerns as a means to secure services more promptly. That is not what the system was created to do. It all gets back to resources. Adequate provision would address many of these issues.
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