One in 10 Glasgow youngsters were referred to children's reporters last year as national figures hit a record high, it was revealed last night.
Nearly 10,000 under-16s were flagged up for the children's hearing system, more than two-thirds of them because of concerns about their safety or well-being, the Scottish Children's Reporter's Administration (SCRA) said yesterday. They were among 56,000 youngsters across the country referred to the SCRA in 2006-07, a national total of more than a 150 a day and 4% more than a year before.
SCRA, which will publish full details of its annual report today, said the number of children referred on care and protection grounds soared 9% in the year while the number who had committed offences dropped, by 7%.
The body, which is responsible for looking at concerns about both the wellbeing and behaviour of youngsters, is coming under increased pressure because of rising numbers of referrals. Its chairman, Douglas Bulloch, hinted that some of the children referred may not have needed to be. Children's reporters and hearings took no compulsory action in respect of nearly 32,000 of the 56,000 youngsters referred.
Mr Bulloch said: "The 31,811 children, for whom there was no indication of a need for compulsory measures, nonetheless constituted a significant workload for the Children's Reporters in 2006-07, as they worked to ensure that no single child slipped through the net. SCRA has been working closely with its partners, locally and nationally, to address the challenging issue of ensuring only appropriate referrals are made to the Children's Reporter."
Adam Ingram, the Children's Minister in the Scottish Government, signalled that agencies should consider acting themselves immediately rather than seeing a referral to the SCRA as the be-all and end-all. He said: "Increasing referrals mean more young people who need help are being identified. But few of these referrals result in supervision requirements. I want to make it clear that agencies must take action when they spot a child who needs help.
"That means being proactive, getting together with education, police, social work and health colleagues and finding a way to support that child."
Almost a quarter of all children referred on care and protection grounds in 2006-07 were under four years old, a major increase. Mr Bulloch said: "These figures clearly indicate that the needs of children and their families have to be addressed much earlier."
The west of Scotland has traditionally encountered disproportionate numbers of troubled or troubling youngsters.
The share of the under-16 population referred to reporters was 10.1% in Glasgow and 10.4% in West Dunbartonshire. Fully 5.9% of Glasgow children aged between eight and 16 were referred on offence grounds in 2006-2007. The figure in West Dunbartonshire was 4.7%.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article