 Ffயrdedd ydych chi i gynuvreidd ar yr credu gyda'r meid Leithwn Cyngorol y Prif Weinidog? Felly ydych chi i gyd eich gyflawn oes oedon nhw'n gweithio cyfaint? Felly mae'n datblygu'r gilio'r leidio am Allerwy Mendell, ac mae'n gweithio'r lleidio ar gyfer Gyda'r cyffaint â'r cymdeithas tyd, yn gyffaint teimlo i gyngorol pam y CynfÕr Rheswm Ysgr fryingd Beyrd i'n cilio'r newid yn y cyfaint? We have two panels of witnesses giving us evidence this morning. I'd like to welcome our first panel, Detective Chief Superintendent Leslie Bowell, head of public protection at Police Scotland, Sergeant James Devoy of the Children and Young People business area at Police Scotland, Juliet Harris, director of Together, the Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights and Kate Rock's chief social work officer at East Renfrewshire Council and a member of social work Scotland. Good morning everyone. We're not going to have opening statements this morning. We're going to move straight to questions. There's a lot to get through, so first, if I can bring in Fulton McGregor please. Good morning panel. A couple of weeks ago we took our first evidence session in relation to this bill and what was quite clear from the two panels that were there was that there was a need for this bill to be brought into place and for the age of criminal responsibility to be increased. Do you have just a general question to open up? Do you agree that the age of criminal responsibility should be increased? As Police Scotland said in our written evidence, Police Scotland welcomes legislation to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years. Nothing would please Police Scotland more, our officers and staff, if we never had to use the powers that are being provided in the bill. That would mean that no child was implicated in causing the type of serious harm that the bill responds to. However, we're well aware, unfortunately, due to experience and reality, that that's not the case and such occasions do rise. I suppose what we want to see from the bill is to be able to respond to children who may be displaying serious unfair behaviour, the victims of serious crime and the wider communities we serve. Social Work Scotland, we also support the position of increasing the age of criminal responsibility to 12. We think that it is a positive move in terms of Scottish Government and it will help us to focus much more on the needs and the wellbeing of children, particularly under the age of 12, that have been brought into the criminal justice system before. Notwithstanding that, we have also got some concerns about some of the construction of the bill in terms of the processes that may well sit with children under the age of 12, and I would imagine that the panel would perhaps want to ask us more questions about that. I definitely welcome the fact that we're talking about raising the age of criminal responsibility. It's something that we've been pushing for for well over 10 years and it has been described as Scotland's shame that it's only eight years old. From our perspective, then, it should be higher than 12. This is just bringing us up to an absolute minimum. You could actually say that it's even below international standards. If you look across Europe out of 28 states, then 23 of them have a minimum age of criminal responsibility of over 14 or over. The countries that we like to look at in terms of their approach to children and young people, if we look at Norway, Sweden, Iceland, all of their ages of criminal responsibility are 15. It's something that the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe called for a minimum of 14 and that was back in 2010. Whilst I welcome the fact that we're talking about raising the age of criminal responsibility in Scotland, it really should be higher than 12. This isn't just from a children's rights perspective of this is what international human rights law says. I'm saying this because we know it's the right thing to do. International human rights law is of that way because we know a higher age of criminal responsibility reduces re-offending. It increases public safety. It's aligned with the trauma-based approach that everybody is now more aware of and aligned with the rights-based approach. In summary, 12 is a start, but it's not good enough and it should be higher than that. James, do you wish to add anything to that? It's part of a journey that we've been on for a number of years, particularly over the last 10 years. There's been a sea change in the way we respond to the needs of children and we're very much, even from a policing perspective, we look at it very much from a needs-based perspective. We have got a four-year plan published now that looks at the rights and the needs of children specifically focusing on those rights and needs. So this is part of that process, but it is about getting a balance. It's about the balance between the rights of a society and a community to be safe and the needs of those very young children that we're talking about under 12 and how we respond effectively to each individual child. It has to be centered on those individual children and not a process that we put the child through. Before I continue on, one of the questions that I was going to ask, because it came out very strongly in the previous panels, was if you feel that 12 is far enough, only Julia, you touched on that in your answer and I wonder before I move on briefly if the other panellists could comment on that, if they feel that 12 is the right age or if the service that you represent believes that it should be higher? I think that the bill is the starting point. However, in terms of Police Scotland's view, I suppose our position is that we police with the consent and the will of the people expressed through the democratic process and through the Parliament, and it will be for the Scottish Government on behalf of and with the support of Scottish communities to set that age of criminal responsibility. However, age, whether it increases further to 12, I think has to be recognised and acknowledged and accepted that it will require societal buy-in. I think that there was some commentary last week about occasions when children do bad things and how we all need to accept it. It is not only in relation to Police Scotland, whether we agree that it is 12 or above. It is really for every community in Scotland to be able to appreciate and agree and accept that, if children over 12—whatever age that might be—do seriously bad things, that is fine for them. I particularly do not think that, in terms of all communities across Scotland, we are there yet. I think that that is a journey that has to be embarked on. From Social Work Scotland's point of view, we have had less debate about the age and more about the impact on the bill. I think that that would be the starting point for us to pick up Juliet's point about ensuring that whatever the impact is, that it is around ensuring that it is trauma. There is a level of trauma recovery because children do not commit offences in isolation to their experiences and the trauma that they have throughout their childhood. That would be our plea. Irrespective of whether you are 10, 12 or 14, the system needs to be curious enough to ask what has happened to the child. I suppose to just look at criminality being the causation of it or some kind of one-off event because that is not our experience as social workers. That is not what happens to children. They do not suddenly wake up one day and decide to commit a crime. It is not a cop-out from Social Work Scotland in terms of that. It is just that we need to have a different focus. We need to have a different philosophy of care. That is about how we, as a society in Scotland, view children and get underneath about why children commit those offences as opposed to looking at some kind of outcome or a process that is only a process that does not help that child to recover. That is our possession. Fulton, I am sorry. I am just going to give Alex a quick supplementary on that. Just on that very specific point, Kate, you elucidate very clearly the importance of a trauma-informed approach to this. The last session that we took evidence, we heard a very compelling story of Lindsay Hanbridge, who is a person of care experience. She is a champion for who cares Scotland, telling us the terrible story of the night that she was about to be taken into care at the age of 13, didn't want to be taken into care, kicked off and spent the night in the cells for the behaviour that she exhibited in trying to resist being taken into care. That is one catalyst of trauma being met by a deeply traumatising experience of having to spend a night in a police cell. I was struck by the unanimity of our last panel that said that the 12 is a floor and not a ceiling and that we have heard from Juliette and the rafter countries that do not have that. Even if we do not move past 12, we should be dealing with kids between 12 and 18 in a different way than we do adult offenders. Absolutely. What we know is that we have now got the neuroscience to show that, in the past, and I have probably been there that just considered the behaviour as a social worker many years ago of that young person and not thought enough about why it survived and what has happened here. We have to have a much more humane way and compassionate way as a society about how we deal with 12 to 18-year-olds. What we are now understanding is that, for many, even older, although that is a different conversation for a different place, we know that the teenage brain continues to develop up to the age of 25. The fact is that we are moving it to 12 as a game, so we should work with Scotland to support it, but I think that it is only the beginning of a conversation and it is not the end of the conversation. Thornton, sorry, I am going to abuse my chair a little bit and just jump in briefly. Folks, I suppose that I would endorse what you are saying, but I suppose that as I sit here, I wonder about when we talk about serious crime, we are obviously talking about violence or sexual crime, and if it is teenagers that are perpetrating that, it is probably likely to be children teenagers that are on the receiving end. How do they come into this when we are looking at the impact? Of course, yes. We deal with these situations every day within social work, police and social work deal with it. We have really good child protection procedures and processes that safeguard children at this moment in time. Our starting point in child protection is what has happened here and where does the risk lie to children, not only to that individual child because we still have to manage the behaviours that have resulted in it being brought to the attention of police and social work, but the risk to other children. We have to formulate plans. Our child protection process is a child centre process in Scotland. We are undertaking work jointly between police Scotland and ourselves around making that process even better and making sure that it is trauma informed by the developments around GIII as a consequence of the recommendations of Lady Dorian. I am very hopeful that the situation and how we support children in Scotland will be a much better positive outcome. In the future, we will have less stories from children that have experienced those processes because that is what they are, their processes. We have a children's hearing system that allows us to provide the level of safeguards around the welfare of children for children who require compulsion. We regularly refer those children into the children's hearing system and manage it through that process. That process, children's hearing in itself are on a journey and the journey is to make sure that it is child centre tribunal. It is not, although it is a legal tribunal, it is not a legal court system. I think that we do quite a good job. There are some children that are young people who are really challenging, but it is not just about a bill that will resolve that. We need to look at the resource issues and the support for those children in parallel to any bill because irrespective of having a process to manage the risks that that child may have to themselves, to other children or even to the community, if we do not have the right supports that are trauma informed, we will still be managing the impact of what happened to that child well in its adult life. I absolutely agree with Kate and the work that is ongoing between Social Work Scotland and Police Scotland. Even if a child has been, for example, the victim of serious sexual crime, where in actual fact it would not fit within the child protection procedures, the child is not a significant risk of harm, so that they have family and carers around them and they have support. We still, on the vast number of occasions, still deal with it in a child protection manner, even though the child might not be in need of protection, if that makes sense. They will still have, for children who have, the family support around them and their needs may not be as critical as others. We will still have that conversation with Social Work right at the very beginning to say that it would be good to have a joint approach to that. Whether the child fits within the child protection environment or whether it is a child victim, but in actual fact there are still maybe some wellbeing needs that are required but not protection, we will still try and approach in that manner. I think that from a protection and a general victim wellbeing perspective, we work very well together. I can be near but god dear. I have only got one brief question in one area that can be kind of brief. I just wanted to finalise the last line of questioning by asking James his view on the age question, if 12 is enough or it should be higher. I think that, as Lesley said, it is a question that is difficult for us in the context of we police by consent, we police by the consent of communities and we have to be mindful of the fact that us offering an input in relation to what that number should be and it is a number is not particularly helpful. What would be helpful is for us to be able to articulate and explain how we respond. So how do we respond when a young person and a very young child in the context of under 12 offends and if we are going to change the language as the bill requires and say causes harm. So we get away from that whole notion of a criminal justice system. A lot of what we've already done in Scotland over the last 10 years has been to move in that direction. I know you've heard about the whole system approach which we have been one of the primary agencies involved in its development because we readily see and our officers readily see that responding to the needs of a child is very much more in keeping with the description Kate provided which is about a child's needs and I often describe this as it's the easiest thing for us to do. It's our training, it's our background to say A plus B so C do D because what we're in the business of is collating evidence and we submit that evidence to the Crown Office for consideration of prosecution. That's our job, that's our job by adults. Why did C do it? Isn't really a feature within that? That's for others to decide not with children. With children we're much more focused now on why, what sits behind it, what's in their lives, what's their wellbeing needs and the whole system approach has very much directed us towards that approach. An early and effective intervention you've probably heard of as well, that's merely about moving away from the world when Leslie and I started in the police, every single child offence got reported to the children's reporter. What we should be looking at is protection guidance treatment and control and if we don't have that test there's no need to refer. So we refer through partners, we engage the support of those who are there to respond to the needs of the child within the community. It's much more effective, much more simple system of approach and much more child centred and what we are constantly evolving and changing and retraining our officers around is to move away from that simple evidential assessment which is important but it's part of the story with a child. The more important story is about their needs, what's the resilience, what's their support, what's lacking within that support and not about a punitive approach, it's not a punitive approach, it's a needs-based approach because it's about behaviour change. What we want to see is children's behaviour change for their benefit, the family's benefit and community's benefit. So the age is something that I think others are better placed to comment on. Our job is to respond to the needs that that demonstrates and we respond much differently now that we did 10, 15, 20 years ago and this is part of that process, that's why we see and readily understand why 12 gives you a demonstration of that change of approach, an approach we can adopt and deliver, it's very in keeping with where we are at the moment, how that evolves and changes in the future I think is for others to decide. Okay. Yes, I think, what are you, I think Mary was going to follow on from that, are you moving on to a new area? Well it was sort of to round off my line of question. So it was just to pick up on that point that James had made on that and located and made it earlier as well just in terms of the, because what we all want to know is what the impact of this bill will be and we heard last week that perhaps the, the moving it to 12 doesn't actually incorporate a lot of children who are committing offences just now but and I probably should have declared it an interest at the start, convener, I apologise for that, I'm a registered social worker with the triple SC so I've personally sat as an old cable, I've had in children's panels before with children who are on offence grounds so can I just ask the panel briefly what they think the impact will be for children who go to the children's hearings or get offences or on offence grounds up to the age of 12 and do they think it will have any impact on the older age group at beyond 12 even if the law is not increased further, the age is not increased further, sorry. Lizzie, are you happy for me? I suppose and I think the impact for children over the age of 12 are probably much the same as it is now. Okay, I don't foresee any significant change as such although there is a whole load of orders here that actually my starting point as an experienced social worker professional is where you have formal orders and the child is aware of a formal order and whilst that the act in itself doesn't suggest that you serve the order the act does suggest that you give the child a copy of the order and that brings a whole different starting point to children so we need to be clear about the impact of legal orders on children and how they are perceived but we are more worried about the children under the age of 12 and some of the construction of the act or the bill it's not an act yet of the bill particularly the introduction of an order a child interview order in essence it's for the police to go and get that order in consultation with the local authority but I do use the word in consultation normally when we come to actually investigate and I and inverted commas our starting point as social workers would be to investigate the welfare or and the harm caused to the children police of responsibility to investigate a crime this bill isn't clear about what is the starting point for children under the age of 12 as far as I'm concerned actually it almost reads like a quasi judicial system for under 12 so we have got the intent to actually make sure that we support children in the right way and it's that's kind of admirable that we want to make sure that these children gets the resources but involving other people in that whole interview process sheriffs normally when we plan an interview we do it through IRDs initial referral discussions and we would move to GIII with an interview plan that would be agreed between police social work and probably sometimes health and education dependent on who knows that child best whereas the sheriff is going to have sight of that interview plan we're going to have to advise the child of that interview plan we're going to have to give them a copy of an order I do worry if we're going to actually shut down children by just actually and we're not going to get to the knob of what has happened to them and that would be my starting point as a social worker we will still have to establish and police will still have a responsibility to establish is that child the actual suspect perpetrator of this alleged offence so they will have to establish that and how do we blend that to make sure that it doesn't impact the other issue that we kind of are worried about is introduction of advocacy and supporters within that process we're trying to move sorry I think we're going to come on to that and a bit it's okay if I move things along it's such an important subject and I know we've got lots to get through so I'm I'm going to try and move colleagues on a bit Mary you were going to come in on thank you convener and my initial question follows on from the line of questioning that film McGregor had opened up in relation to the age moving age to 12 would put us in a cluster of four countries within the EU that have an age of 12 and we would still sit at the floor of what the UNCRC would recommend are the panel supportive then of a clause being added into the bill so that after a particular period of time the age would be reviewed with a view to incrementally increasing the age and if you did support a clause given in the bill to incrementally increase the age what age do you think you should stop at Juliet do you want to come on on that that's a really interesting question and I think if it was possible to put in a clause that would ensure that the bill was incrementally increased then that would definitely be a positive development because I think that's very much in line with what Police Scotland and Social Work Scotland have been saying about this as a starting point and we need to be looking beyond as to where next I think we need to make sure that there are safeguards in place to ensure that it is increased and that it's not to review the age of criminal responsibility it is to increase the age of criminal responsibility and I think it would be important as well that there are processes in place to really monitor and evaluate what the impact has been on increasing it to 12 throughout the first three years or so of the enactment of this bill and make sure that there are the safeguards in place to ensure that the bill does achieve its policy intentions because as it stands at the moment I do think the bill can be strengthened in terms of children and young people's rights I do think that there are some amendments that are needed particularly to get the voice of the child into the bill at all stages particularly around police powers there are a number of areas where there's a duty where there needs to be a duty rather to explain to the child what's going on in accordance with the child's age and maturity there are safeguards needed to make sure that this bill works for children with disabilities and additional support needs so that they know what's going on so I think if you have all those safeguards in place then that would really support a duty to incrementally increase the age of criminal responsibility at a later date and take an evidence-based approach to doing that to ensure that we have communities on-site and it's something that there's public support for. What do you think should be the ceiling? I don't think there should be a ceiling I think it's something that we need to keep on looking at and increasing as the evidence presents itself to us. I know the Enoch the European network of ombudsmen of children I might not have quite got that right the children's commissioners of Europe are recommending 18 and they do have quite a strong evidence base behind that call for 18 and so I'd say we should look to that but use the evidence to increase it as is seen necessary. A slightly different focus outcomes let's review the legislation with a view to see if it's improving the outcomes for children first and foremost if we're going to be genuinely child centred we need to see if it's made a difference and it gives you an opportunity at least to review the children who pass through a different system they don't carry the label of criminality that's the biggest significant change this will deliver us to stop that label being applied to very young children so what impact does that have does it have a positive impact I know you heard some evidence about the experience we then marked changing their age down and then back up so what's the experience of Scotland what's Scotland's experience what's community's experience of it do we have the tolerant society that recognises the needs of children do we support those children that's the measure for me about whether or not what all of us do you know this is our world this is what we focus on that's my purpose in police scotland is to further rights of children and ensure that we support and protect them correctly and that can sometimes be about responding to the harm the cause but doing that effectively do we make it better that's the measure of success for us legislation and to go down the route that you're suggesting would that review would you include the support services that supported the children that are involved the children that have been accused or responsible for committing some level of wrongdoing and the victims one of the things we've learned a lot and I know you've heard about it from the care experienced young people of scotland we've learned a lot from listening to the voices of children and you know it's critical it's been at the heart of a lot of what we've done in recent years and Juliet explained that really eloquently that it's the voice of that child will influence you more than anything what was their experience their experiences will all be different the more you put a process around a system the less you listen to the voice of that child the more you will apply something that is feel structured and feels like something we force them through and it will feel like that to us as well as the people who are charged with protecting them so yeah I would involve all of those communities as a whole absolutely children who are subject to it children more widely within society do they do they aware of it do they see the change do they feel that change in society a change in attitude towards them there are almost like it's about 1 million under 18s in scotland do we hear their voice that's my job is to make sure that we hear their voice inside police scotland we're absolutely passionate about making sure that we do they deserve a service from us the same as every other secretary society does okay or Leslie do you have a view no I mean I just agree with what Jim said I do take the point that Kate mentioned earlier in terms of the bill as it stands just now I think presents some challenges challenges for us to operationalise it it seems like the bill is being constructed around children who have no or won't have any criminal responsibility but the bill is an even greater criminal justice process than actually we see for children and adults at present time and the part about where where does this start this has always been my issue with the bill is that the bill starts from I think the point where we know it's that child actually at the very initial stages of when something is reported especially when it's something really serious and we are talking about serious sexual crime or serious violent crime there's no black and white it's all shades of gray and varying shades of gray it's that building block stage and the bit for me is how do we easily without further traumatising causing further anxiety to a child who's going to be anxious how do we find out actually if it is that child because at times it isn't they may have been falsely implicated in a in a serious crime and we want to establish that we have we are dealing with the right child initially so that that child gets the right help right support and has the best outcomes and I think in terms of parts that Kate was mentioning around quite a very bureaucratic criminal justice system that's not how we get to the truth of the matter quickly okay thank you I'm going to bring in Gail now because your line of questioning was around the investigation for the future thanks convener good morning panel my questions actually lead quite nicely on from what you were just saying Leslie it's about the powers to be able to take forensic evidence from children under 12 and the advisory group that was set up acknowledged that there still could be some circumstances where you're going to have to to do that so I just wondered are you content that the powers to take samples from children strike an appropriate balance between the need to fully investigate incidents of a serious nature and then also the override in ethos of what we're trying to do here of not labelling children as criminals and on the back of that what you just said there just now I think was really important about steps to to not further traumatise children and to try and reassure them that you know they're not going to be labelled as as criminals as well how do we strike that balance on the vast vast majority of children who may present with harmful behaviour there will be no requirement whatsoever to take any friends examples or biometric samples that that's the position now in terms of all children so unless there is a real necessity to take biometric or friends examples we wouldn't take it but in that situation where you did have to yes in the the small number of occasions where it would be necessary relevant to do so I think it's absolutely appropriate that we apply for approval to obtain the necessary friends examples unless there is a real critical need to do so quickly that could then be backed up by authorisation I think the part that is is difficult is what seems to be quite a complex process of getting it I'm not quite clear in terms of the sheriff having to be in chambers or you know within the court setting so in actual fact sometimes things don't happen Monday to Friday 8 to 4 the bit about the the war or the the order you know there could be an appeal against it so in actual fact if we're talking about serious crime and we want to be able to investigate it timeously as we would at the moment in time do we have to wait until there is then an appeal process and that's concluded because if it is then if it's very sensitive friends examples that were taken we have lost that so so there is a bit about the process involved is rather complex can be elongated however when we're talking about serious violence or serious sexual crime there will be a senior investigating officer to a point which would be a detective inspector no less there would be a detective inspector who would be allocated that for investigation they have to absolutely policy up why they're doing things and for what reason and the rationale for doing it and I would have to say on another you know from my experience if there was a requirement for forensic medical examination to take place of a very young child in actual fact that it would absolutely have to be necessary and there is still a bit about consent and I have got absolutely clear that no forensic medical examiner would forensically examine a very young child or in actual fact anybody you know when there was when it was going to be so traumatic for that person they just wouldn't do it and can you just explain what the current policy is on the retention of the data that you collect from children forensically? There's forensic data that's recovered from lots of people at the point of investigation at the point at which the investigations concluded for example in the context the younger children so under 12s can't be prosecuted when we are notified by the children's reporter of what action they're taking then samples are destroyed we can retain samples the criminal justice and licensing act allows us to retain samples for accepted established cases but there's subject to periodic review so after three years there is a review to see whether or not it's necessary and proportionate to continue to retain it and then it's rolling to yearly reviews thereafter about the retention of those samples what's happened in the recent past is obviously there's been the independent advisory group on biometric data which has made further recommendations watch we are encompassing on some of the work we're doing at the moment around the age of criminal responsibility so we're drawing some of that work together around under 18s and the recommendations that were made there so it's our team that are starting to look at that now to consider how do we best to give effect to that and part of the challenge with that touches on what Juliet said earlier how do you communicate this to children so a really really important part for us is making sure the child understands what we've done why we've done it what happens next and what their rights are that sounds easy in the context to this forum it's not it's very difficult to do to children of different levels of learning as Leslie said you've got the challenge as well of when do you impart that type of information to a child when are they ready to listen and when do they understand and they might say to you yeah yeah understand but not understand who's the right person to communicate that information to them and that's where more and more and Kate's touched on it already we work collaboratively because it's the best way to work what we recognise is we are the police so it comes with a label and it comes with a certain expectation particularly for children so sometimes it's about recognising when we are the right people that they involve sometimes when we're not and recognising the skills and the ability of others within a child's life and it's about being very much centred on who is the right person for that child that might be a social worker it might be a teacher it might be mum or dad it might be someone different do we identify who's best place to communicate information to children so we are in a process of change around biometric data and the review has identified the need for that to take place there's consultation going on at the moment around that work and we are keen to be directly involved in it we recognise the need for it and we welcome the opportunity to ensure that the process we put in place is fair first and foremost fairness. Alec Cole-Hamilton. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning to the panel. I'd just like to start by reminding members of my register of interests that I was formerly convener of together the Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights given that the government has stated an intent to at least incorporate the principles if not the articles of the UNCRC. Can the panel tell us whether they think this bill is fully compatible with the UNCRC and specifically directed at Juliette but other people might want to come in? The provisions around place of safety suggest that in an emergency that could be a police station can we just check whether that's compatible with article 37 which is of course the principle about not holding child suspects in the same place that adults are held? Yes certainly we welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to incorporate the principles of the UNCRC and we're really pleased to hear that they don't mean the general principles that they do mean the intent of all the articles of the UNCRC and this bill is a key way of taking forward one of the concluding observations of the UN committee around raising the age of criminal responsibility although as I've said before it may not go far enough. There are definitely ways that this bill can be improved in terms of ensuring compatibility with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and I'd say actually quite a lot of them are around introducing additional duties to seek the views of the child and also to make sure that we're communicating with the child in a way that the child understands and feels informed and feels empowered and really reflecting back on what was just said about forensic sampling that I think it's really important that there is actually a duty that's included there around informing the child about what's going on and communicating with the child about why the sample's necessary. In terms of the place of safety then we do recognise the need to be able to take a child to a place of safety and certainly that would be compatible in terms of article 37 and what we are concerned about is that there's a presumption that it shouldn't be a police station but we'd actually like to see that to be a measure of last resort in terms of police station and certainly if a child is taken back to a police station then it needs to not be in a cell it needs to be clear that it's in a child friendly environment and it's also really important that we listen to the views of the child because when we're taking a child to a place of safety then we need to talk to the child about what that place of safety might be so I know that they've looked at the Children's Hearing Act to see what the place of safety could be and it may include say a community home it might include a residential establishment but it might also include a friends house a parents house and it's really important that there is that emphasis on ensuring that that place of safety is something that's emerged from the conversation with the child where the child says they feel safe they feel secure they feel that they're in an environment where they can actually talk about what's happened to them so that that would be a key way of ensuring that it's more compatible with article 37. Well perhaps my next question will allow the other panellists to come in on that. I think Juliet you make very clear that the reference to the Children's Hearings Act and indeed in that act other places of safety are defined. My concern I think is that the only place of safety defined on the face of this bill is the police station and although it suggests it intimates that that's only in an emergency oftentimes you know in the midst of time that might just become the default and that's my anxiety certainly a police station on a Friday Saturday night is not the safest place in the world and perhaps I'd like to bring in our colleagues from law enforcement here and what your view is to how often you think that would be the place of last resort where your guys on the beat who are intervening in a disturbance might think to take people as a matter of practice right now. Well yeah I think we'll probably share it I think I think you're absolutely right. A police station is not the best place for a child and especially not in circumstances when there is trauma and there's anxiety. I think the difficulty is and and we have reached out to our 13 local policing divisions the issue is where else is there across Scotland where else is there locally to take the child and you know I think there there is a bit where there there may always be a time where there you know it's the absolute necessity that you have to take a child to a police station because of the situation and what is happening you can't you know there will be circumstances that that will happen I would absolutely agree with you that that has to be the last resort however until we get to that there has to be resources there has to be suitable premises for a child to be taken to that allows that child to be safe to feel safe and if necessary and if it is part of you know that initial investigation side of it that um if required the any process and I hate using that process but anything that is required at that point of time can be done discreetly sensitively and in a in a premises that is child friendly and child centred. I know that there has been talk about barnhouse I think people had referred to that. I think there is a bit about actually we definitely wouldn't want or I definitely don't think it would be appropriate to take children who may be displaying the most serious harmful behaviour to be taken to the same accommodation with children who are at risk of harm themselves but I think that the barnhouse principles in terms of where a place of safety should be and what it should look like is absolutely right. Our experience is that just as you described you know at the point of crisis which is when we respond and as Leslie says it's very often not between eight and four it's out with those hours it's times where you have to have access to facilities that are suitable and Lindsay mentioned the work she's been doing in western Bartonshire about having that 24 seven access that's the type of thing we would like to see is suitable resources touches on Kate's point from earlier they do have to be the right resources available across the country we do accept that it's not always possible to achieve that sometimes it's not the right environment because the child may be so anxious so an occasions violent that is difficult to be able to control and make sure that we can keep them safe that's rare as vast majority of occasions you're going to be looking for something that's much more suitable to meet that child's needs we want something that meets their needs fundamentally I've got one final question on this and I think your answers there kind of draw out to me that the desire to ask government when the ministers come to speak to us about the financial memorandum in respect of place of safety and the fact that there are models like the barnhouse which will require additional investment to see capacity brought in but I just wonder if you couldn't again to our friends from the police if you can give us an idea of exactly what happens right now when a police officer decides that the place of safety they need to take them to is a police station because we're very concerned that Lindsay Hanbridge who gave us the evidence last time you know she was taken to a place of safety but that was a sell how do you use the how do your officers use the the estate around the police station are they held in an office or how does that work typically when they're taken to that as a place last resort place of safety we'll try and find somewhere that's suitable for the child it's different across the country the estate's very different across the country I don't think it would be wrong to miss the change that's coming through the criminal justice act the criminal justice act made a significant change in relation to the manner in which we assess and we've given really robust guidance to our officers about the necessary and proportionate test massively reinforced by the criminal justice act is it absolutely necessary to bring this child into custody we ask that question first and foremost is it necessary why is it necessary is it in the interest because we think that the risks that child poses wider society what's the best alternative available for that child we're working with social work colleagues at the moment to look at the guidance that we provide our officers around that to try and improve at the custody setting the manner in which it might be the right thing at the point of crisis how quickly can we transition away from that we are the first to acknowledge our cell complex is not the right setting for children sometimes it is absolutely necessary sometimes a child does pose a risk and we're talking about children in the context of those under 18 and the law is different for different age groups so 16 and 17 year olds are in a different space in terms of criminal procedure sorry clarify then right now police officers in scotland will use the cell complex as a place of safety it depends it's different across the country but it does happen i can only draw a mone personal experience mone personal experience would be that we would look to have the child constantly supervised by another officer we will try and find a setting that's suitable for them that's within the police office as least intrusive as possible as least impactive as possible i can't say with an absolute certainty that that would happen on every occasion it is about resources and what's available at any given time the dynamics of the circumstances they're working in at that time but by and large what we endeavour to do is to be as child centered as we possibly can the last thing we want to do is to traumatise any child any more than has already been done our officers will do everything possible to ensure that they are in a suitable setting to minimise the impact on them minimise the impact of being in a police office to be as friendly and as supportive as we can be we never lose sight of the fact that they're children first but our estate is where it is it's not designed to meet that type of need so it is about finding something i'll have heard recently about one example where they've tried to change some of the estate to make it more child focused but these are isolated examples as i said it's an evolution and a change over a long period of time we've come a long way criminal justice act has further informed that this debate further informs it but yeah they're right you know that's from a point of view do we want children and a police set any longer than necessary absolutely not. Annie Wells you're going to come in on search powers. As the bill will obviously change some of the search powers as well that police Scotland currently have i've just got a couple of really quick questions because i know we're probably running quite short on time so it's how often are the police required to search children under young children and under which circumstances would searches be carried out and how are they currently informed of their rights? This was introduced about a year six months ago seven months ago there was a six months review of the code of practice which was a significant change in the manner in which your policies delivered i don't have figures to hand in relation to volume but i can certainly ask and provide that in writing for the committee if that would be helpful the code of practice significantly influenced the manner in which we deliver it's not on a consent based process any longer it's based on statutory powers and we can provide further background and detail on that if that would be helpful that's very much been a sea change in relation to the manner in which stopping search is used but nonetheless it is a legitimate policing tactic and is used in the context to keeping people and community safe and it is very much with a focus on safety for children. Excellent and the only last one is are you content that the powers of search afforded to the police in the bill are sufficiently clear and proportionate? Yes from a policing perspective it is very much it's about the whole picture the legislation is only one small part of that it's the code of practice it's the training for our officers it's the guidance we provide them is absolutely essential you know the evolution of policing as we move more towards a responded the needs of society than the criminality within society is well documented that requires an evolution in the manner in which we police that evolution is on going stopping search was a significant part of that we got significant support from external partners and that's been one of the really significant learnings for us is about knowing where to turn to for the right advice is that world in that society around us particularly in the context of children changes where do we learn from and we are absolutely willing to constantly learn evolve our practice to be much more in keeping with the needs of particularly children the code of practice is one example of that it will have a 12 month review as well there are checks being built into that process quite rightly so because we welcome and recognise the need for that scrutiny it's absolutely got to be there and we've got to be open to that and willing to learn constantly thank you yep okay thank you Kate rocks helpfully outlined some of the current principles around child protection and the joint investigative interviews it's obviously going to be really important that children that are subject to interviews can give their best evidence are witnesses content that this is going to be possible given the provisions of the bills I suppose when Police Scotland and Social Work Scotland embarked on reviewing the recommendations of Lady Dorian the starting point was children as victims or witnesses the starting point of the bill that I outlined probably at too much great detail is a different starting point the starting point is almost to establish facts as opposed to from a police perspective and for us because we would be jointly involved the starting point for child protection is about what has happened to that child and where does the risk currently lie okay a byproduct of that might be around that child who is a victim and getting access to justice through the adult justice system but that is as a victim my our worry is the starting point feels quite different for that child and even though that the the review of the GII training and how we we intend to progress nationally well the starting point will be trauma informed and that is our aspiration and it will feel much differently to children the act doesn't give us the level of flexibility that the current child protection processes have by means of that their formal orders that will be put in place for these children my worry is that a child will have access to other adults in a system that actually that we've spent a lot of time debating around child protection to reduce the number of adults that may well be part of that formal interview and our aspiration is to have one adult with that child whereas if you look at the constructor of the bill you could have up to four adults in a room and in the main none of these adults apart for one who is the supporter of the child and we have to define what that means because we don't know about the culpability of that supporter and the reason why the child has been there but three of them won't be known to that child so it isn't the best conditions for children to give any kind of information our evidence though we're not supposed to be gathering evidence we're supposed to be trying to find out what's happened to that child so that is really our position. Juliet, do you have anything you want to add? We think that it could be strengthened in terms of a rights-based approach at the moment there is a duty to inform the child that questioning has been authorised and that the child has the right not to answer the questions but this actually does force short of a provision for requiring the police officer to explain to the child what's happening in line with the child's capacity and maturity and we think that's the number one priority is the child must know what's happening why it's happening and we must make sure that the child doesn't feel like he or she is being interviewed as a suspect in the questioning. The other area where it could be strengthened is around the child-friendly environment I know it mentions this in the policy memoranda but we'd actually like to see that on the face of the bill so that way then the interviewing actually takes place in an area where the child feels safe the child feels informed knows what's going on and empowered to take an active role in the proceedings that are going on. I totally agree with what Kate has mentioned. I think that our frustration a bit is the fact that we specifically around the interview and we have framed the model on how we interview a child on the very model that we want to avoid which is a really criminal justice type model. The part from that we apply for an order specifically for serious harmful behaviour an order has to be granted there can be appeals against the order we have to explain to the child about the order explain about the child's plan provide a child's plan and in addition to that have a number of people present explain that there is basically a right to silence which is in a criminal justice process and a process that that child will never be in so it seems to have been constructed to an even greater extent than adults will have going through that process and I think Jim's been really clear in all the discussions that he's had during this it's a bit about actually we should be doing this with a consent if we have a consent based model where parents and children or carers are involved in it why do we need to have these very difficult protracted processes that in actual fact and I think Kate and and our experience is a we will never get to establish if it is that child which is really important and b will we get to the if we can't establish that will we get to the point of establishing actually why and what support and what measures and protection and have to be taken to support that child in the future I think what nobody wants is actually the wrong child getting intensive support and there is another child or somebody who can actually be held responsible evading that because in actual fact by the time that we get to the point of interview everything is calming so I think that that's and I suppose that goes for quite a bit of the bill it seems that we have put a very criminal justice process round a child and we're trying to take them out of the criminal justice system okay well I'd like to unfortunately we've we've run out of time if there's anything that you didn't get the opportunity to say please do and feel free to write to the committee and thank you all for your for your evidence this morning it'll be very helpful in our our deliberations and we'll suspend briefly while we change panels okay welcome back everybody we now move on to our second panel of witnesses today I'd like to welcome Andrew Alexander head of policy at the law society of Scotland Shabene Began director of the Scottish independent advocacy alliance and Nicola Fraser operations manager at Victim Support Scotland you're all very welcome I suppose we kick off just by asking if you're supportive of raising the age of criminal responsibility yes an organisation has the largest charity supporting victims we do support the increase in age of criminal responsibility we're quite aware at the moment raising it to 12 de facto it's not going to make a massive difference given the numbers involved what we're interested in is the implications on the victims aspect and levels of communication and information provided for them Shabene we have some questions really about the the raising of of the age of criminal responsibility only to 12 we think that well actually we support the evidence given by together earlier on in terms of questioning why only 12 and we would like to see it much higher actually okay thank you Andrew thank you very much we are at law society supportive of the increasing of the age of minimum criminal responsibility to 12 we noted that the UN committee had suggested that this should be minimum and that potentially kind of standards could be raised at a later stage but we think that 12 is an appropriate age and also coincides with other legally significant steps at the age of 12 such as the ability to raise a court action to make a financial claim or to instruct a solicitor for those purposes okay thank you I'm bringing colleagues now nobody's looking at me I'll call Hamilton I'd like to because particularly because we've got Shabene here I'd like to address the advocacy provisions within the bill Shabene and I work together on the amendment for one to two in the children's hearings act it's nice to work with you again on this Shabene just first and foremost I'd like to ask about capacity because one of the problems with actually making one to two reality in the children's hearings it took a while to just kind of get all that on stream are you confident that we have capacity in the independent advocacy network to meet the needs of this this provision well we're still discussing one two two and so reality is that children who are going through the children's hearing process at the moment don't universally have access to independent advocacy I know that the Scottish government is working on developing a model for the the kind of rolling it out right across the country at the moment the way that things stand capacity is a huge issue for advocacy organisations especially in the context of children and young people and my organisation produces research on in terms of the advocacy map every two years and children and young people who have a legal right to access independent advocacy under different bits of legislation primarily the mental health act are still desperately in need of independent advocacy and the provision isn't there and the the the main reason for the lack of provision is the lack of funding from local authorities and NHS boards so if the provision was there would be provision I think our members are keen to work with children and young people and try to work with children and young people as much as possible but it's a it's a universal problem of funding really if it's a problem of funding if we're not to set ourselves up to fail with this provision should we amend the financial memorandum to ensure there are resources to bring independent advocates on stream I would like to see quite a bit of amendment around the bill particularly in regard to independent advocacy I think that there needs to be clarity about what the bill means by an independent advocate when I first saw this I wasn't clear about what it would be really useful to have a clear definition of independent advocacy in the bill I would like to see something that that resembles the definition of independent advocacy in the mental health act I am confused and I imagine that other people are probably confused about the the requirement for independent advocates to be legally qualified I if I was a young person going through this process I would be really confused about the role of my solicitor or lawyer and the role of my independent advocate if they're both legally qualified do you know what what are they doing there are parallels in the mental health system where people have a legal right to access an independent advocate and they also have a legal right to legal representation and those two roles have worked collaboratively in in terms of supporting the the person who's going through the mental health system and have been able to to work to the benefit of that person so I think that there's parallels that we can draw from but I would like to see clarification in this bill around what an independent advocate should be doing what their role is the recognition that they might have a more qualitative role and relationship with the young person ideally when I've worked as an independent advocate I've had the opportunity to build up a relationship with people and seen them much more often than they might do other professionals for example their their lawyer and been able to help them think through what their rights are and to also to make sure that they fully understand what their rights are somebody in the panel earlier on talked about how a young person might say that oh yes I understand and give you all the indications that they understand because that's what's expected of them but not really have a full understanding and appreciation of the situation that they're in or the consequences of that situation if I may add just one final question on this section it follows on very nicely from what you've just said and so specifically for you should be in better I'm sure the other panel members will have a view we heard from the last panel concerns and anxieties from both social work and even the police that this section around interview orders actually sort of goes against the principles of policing by consent in this country there are no suggestion for example this is far more regimented than anything around adult interviews interviews of adult suspects and there's no no reference to a right to silence for example which is almost as important as a right to be heard and do you think that this section goes too far and impinges on that principle of policing by consent and the rights of people who are being interviewed I think that there needs to be much more flexibility built in if we're going to have something specifically for children then we need to have flexibility and it needs to be child centred there needs to be a much stronger human rights based approach within the legislation I'm not that familiar with the criminal justice system but from what I could see from the bill it seems to resemble quite strongly the criminal justice system and I don't think that's the intention of of this piece of legislation we wouldn't be we think that there needs to be further work done on this to make it more child friendly and child centred and taking into consideration traumatic experiences that children might have come from and experienced and the fact that this should be about the wellbeing of that young person can I bring in the law society particularly on the issue of whether this it flies in the face of the principles of policing by consent and things like right to silence I think that when it comes to this type of interview process it is important that the rights of the child are respected that there are safeguards in place but also that there is you know sort of as you mean has said you know sort of a collaborative approach with the various parties that are involved and that the mental health system is I think a very useful parallel to think about we you know sort of believe that the you know sort of can be you know sort of effective roles for lawyers and for you know sort of others involved in the process and although we would want to avoid a situation where proceedings felt particularly criminal we think that that there are you know sort of important safeguards to be in place particularly around you know sort of reminding the child that they don't need to answer questions if they don't want to and so it we think that there is the opportunity for guidance you know sort of under section 46 which might bring some more of these details forward although equally kind of it may be that some provisions could be brought onto the face of the bill and does the victim support how do you the problem is that what we're talking about here is not victims my situation is entirely different what i'm looking for is the victims right in this whole process i totally understand that we're looking for child centred and i as an organisation we totally understand that we also understand that it's a consent system but we have to ensure that for each offence that victim also has rights towards communication information and support so although i don't argue anything that's being said i just need to reiterate that at the other side of the table there's a victim who also requires that specifically on that there is provision in the bill for information to be provided to the victim as to what's happened in the feedback as to how that's been dealt with does that go far enough or would you like to see some restorative justice included in this or restorative justice is certainly a further step forward where we are currently in the system with using the children's hearing process we still to this day don't have enough information for victims i think because things like scraw are so limited in relation to section 53 of the criminals justice scotland act that they can only give out a limited amount of information now that impacts on victims because what i need to say that to a lot of people is yes we have a child who is supposedly or being alleged to have committed an offence an awful lot of these offences are also against children and what we lose sight of is that that child this one goes straight into a system this one doesn't and there isn't that level of support currently the system is letting them down before we move to this we have to ensure that the information and the understanding of how the system works is put out to communities can i bring in annie wales thanks very much mines is probably around the first sort of a questions alex brought in regards to the age and i think quite a lot of people who says 12 kind of doesn't go far enough and why we're starting at 12 mary fear is the point at a previous committee meeting stating that in a room of 20 young people each and every one of them develop differently and dr mcdermott highlighted that some academics have suggested there could be a criminal responsibility test is this something that would go further than just understanding right and wrong is this something that we should be looking at and we should be reviewing and just also on the same sort of a line staggered ages of criminal responsibility different crimes relate to different ages within 12 to 18 is this something that we should be looking into if we're starting the ballot 12 that's what the starting point's going to be i'd like to come in on that either yes yeah well i i i i think that we need to build in a system where things like disability and additional support needs and maturity i i totally agree that the different children and different people mature at different stages and and i think that that those are the the the nuances that the the legislation isn't very good any legislation isn't very good at picking up i i i don't know enough about having different levels of criminal responsibility for different ages but i think that that there needs to be further work done on the fact that 12 has been chosen i think that looking at what other countries do and looking at 18 potentially would be would be much more useful for children and young people but also for our society i think about a criminal responsibility test of understanding i don't know enough about it but um i think it's worth pursuing and finding out more about it and seeing what value and impact that might bring to the system and certainly kind of as i'd mentioned um you know sort of uh the un committee had suggested that 12 should be a minimum level and that potentially there should be adjustments at a later stage um uh up from that um there is a you know sort of a degree of kind of consideration of capacity for instance when it comes to children at age 12 of um capacity when it comes to instructing a solicitor which is around kind of whether they have a general understanding of what it means to do so in that instruction um the concern might be that potentially if you were to have a series of different kind of categories dependent on age or offence then that might proliferate that different types of responses required by the police or by other agencies and it may be that kind of bearing in mind that the recommendation of the you know sort of UN committee was that incremental steps might be taken at a later stage that you know sort of either kind of uh as part of the kind of post implementation scrutiny of a bill like this or potentially even you know sort of by amendment to include you know the likes of statutory instruments you could look to vary the age at at a later stage if not kind of develop a more nuanced measure around capacity on the face of the bill as it stands at the moment. Thank you. Mary Fee. Thank you, convener. Just to follow on the line of questioning around qualifications and advocacy. The Government has said that it wants to ensure that advocates have suitable qualifications and training to do the role and it has stated that in their view an advocate should be legally trained and it tends to consult and I'd be interested in the panel's views and perhaps I could start with Andrew on whether or not advocates should be legally trained. Because we heard on an earlier panel that the bill puts a criminal justice slant on the approach to young people where what we need is a needs based and a supportive approach to young people. So should it be a lawyer that provides advocacy? Once we've suggested that you know sort of that it should not be you know sort of simply a legal qualification but actually it was around kind of experience of dealing with children and young people and and obviously kind of with solicitors they're dealing with children and young people in a variety of different contexts not simply criminal justice but also through the children's hearing system and the like and it is that ability to deal with I think children and young people in these situations that is particularly important. There may be in you know sort of if you have for instance a solicitor involved and also a legally qualified advocate then there may be some confusion or you know perception issues around what the roles of those are. There are successful examples in other contexts where you know so that has worked well and also there is the opportunity for guidance to be able to flesh out the differences between these types of roles. So I think that could be successful. Okay, Shabin. We don't support the idea that these independent advocates should be legally qualified as I said earlier on I think it creates so much confusion. There's potential for confusion between those two individuals but also more importantly there's the confusion for the young person and I would go back and ask what is the purpose of the independent advocate because if it's legal advice that we're looking for then the lawyer is ably qualified to provide that. My understanding of this situation is that independent advocacy would bring something else to the situation and that it would be about reinforcing a person-centred, a child-centred approach to all of this and making sure that the child or young person was able to fully participate in this situation as much as possible and advocacy facilitates all of that. So if you think about the panel principles of a human rights-based approach participation is the first aspect of it and then accountability advocacy helps people to ask questions and make sure that the child or young person understands why decisions have been made, why particular actions have been taken and non-discrimination I think is central to any kind of advocacy approach in terms of making sure that not that everybody's treated in exactly the same way which is a kind of old-fashioned way of looking at non-discrimination but that actually people's needs are taken into consideration so my point earlier on about children with disabilities or additional support needs or whatever that advocacy would be about addressing that imbalance of power and helping that young person to be able to participate and take part in the whole process appropriately and then empowerment is the next aspect of the panel principles. Advocacy is all about providing support and being on the side of the person, the young person and empowering them to ask questions themselves and advocate for themself and to be able to take as much control of the situation as they possibly can and then of course legal so that everything that's happening is legal and is within the appropriate legislation. Just before I bring Nicola Ann, so I just want to be clear that you think the advocate should be someone that does more of the emotional support for the young person? Well it's not just emotional support there is to go back to your question about qualification there is an advocacy qualification that's been developed by one of our members called the advocacy project in Glasgow that's being rolled out across Scotland so we're not talking about people who don't have the experience and knowledge to support people appropriately and also an independent advocate it's really important that the independent advocate has a clear understanding of the legislation and the context that they're operating in and the rights of the person. I think that the advocates do provide emotional support but they also provide a whole range of other support which is about cutting back on so we some of us might have experience of being involved in a situation where people are using language that is unfamiliar to us where the situation is intimidating where there's a massive power imbalance between us and the people who are doing things to us for want to a better phrase and advocacy addresses those sorts of things and those sorts of imbalances of power so it it is emotional support but so much more too. Totally centred on what the child needs. Very difficult for me I'm coming from a completely different side what I'm nervous about is I'm hearing all the support and I totally agree with all that support but what about your six or seven year old victim what support are they getting when samples are taken when when they're being spoken to by police I have an anxiety that we're building in a huge imbalance again we're very much going down that criminal justice route the needs of the child but that's the person that's actually being blamed for this where is the needs and the rights of the child that's actually had this done to them and I get it's having to find that happy medium because if you want to expand the age of criminal responsibility further you're going to need society to back you up and unfortunately if that support for victims isn't there your society won't back you because they won't see an 18 year old as somebody who doesn't have responsibility I'm sorry if you're sitting with a child who's had something done to them that's how you're going to feel so I totally get the advocacy bit but I do feel that we need more support on the victim side can I just come in I would say that we would support advocacy support for victims as well with you know I completely understand your point about the imbalance of power I think that you know it's about looking at this in a wider context it isn't about creating more imbalances so we would support advocacy support for children who are victims children and young people who are victims of crime as well because I mean obviously the implications of this legislation it stretches quite far and wide so it would need to ensure that in all the organisations that do all the supporting stuff for victims that appropriate measures are put in place to ensure that they don't lose out absolutely yes but also to recognise that victims can be perpetrators as well but you know it's it's not always black and white there's a huge grey area and I mean we are very aware of that we help a lot of people that have been victims themselves and then go on to commit so I get that the child centre aspect of all of this and providing support to prevent further offending is vitally important as long as we don't lose sight of the impact on victims and communities I think that the last conversation there raised a lot of good points and for me probably brought into focus what I think that this bill is all about it's about setting down a marker of where we are as a country and how we treat our children and young people and that if our children's criminal where they're criminal responsible will say more about what's happened in their in their background in upbringing but I think there's definitely a big conversation to have there I wanted to look at a specific aspect we've talked in all the various panels at points I've talked about the children's hearing process which is a very integral part of this system and I wanted to ask about advocacy and that specifically and not just in the hearing system as a whole because I know that there'll be social workers and teachers and others in there that should be doing that but specifically around when a child sits in the hearing and is given a fence grounds and we talked about in the first panel that last two weeks ago sorry that when that happens a lot of the times if it's child particularly if they're quite young 12 13 14 maybe even younger than 12 they have got a tendency to say let's get us over with and so do the parents how important is advocacy in those situations and how can advocacy work to make sure that that child knows exactly the consequences of accepting a fence grounds in my experience advocacy quite often slows down processes because advocates are there to make sure that the young person fully understands the situation the independent advocate is independent of all the different parties and is is there solely for the child and young person and I know from talking to some of our members who work in the context of children's hearings that the child and young or young person and the parents or carers everybody wants the situation to be over as soon as possible and put it behind them and move on but the advocate is quite often the person who's there making sure that the child and young person fully understands what's going on part of the the role of the independent advocate is to make sure that they talk through the consequences of any particular action so quite often when when advocates work with people my in my experience of having worked with adults who've been involved in the criminal justice system for a long long time they've people haven't been able to to develop decision making skills and also to develop the skills to think through the consequences of any particular decision that they make and so a a big skill that advocates bring to the situation is making sure that somebody fully understands even when they're saying oh yes yes I understand and wanting to move on that the advocate has to reassure themselves that that person does fully understand the the the whole situation and the consequences of that situation so I think that advocacy wouldn't necessarily speed up the process it would slow it down and that would be a positive thing I think. I agree with that as well and obviously you know so there is often in these situations the involvement of a solicitor it is important you know so for proceedings to take place without delay but the consequences you know sort of can be significant and have seen for instance you know sort of around disclosure which the the bill deals with that the consequences of having kind of particular items disclosed at later stage can severely impact your kind of outcomes as a young person. In terms of practical example of that you know you could be looking at a 12 year old facing offence grounds him and his parents and everybody else around wanted to be dealt with quickly and you can understand that they don't want the stress of that environment anymore and that 12 year old isn't thinking about 10 years time a disclosure and I think it's a really tough nut to crack to be honest but it really is because you do have the right of the child and family at that point as well wanting the process to be dealt with speedily against what you think might be the right in 10 years time and I think it's certainly one personally I've I've always struggled with them so glad it's something that's come through in this particular debate for this bill because I think it's a really difficult area but advocacy is crucial for it. I think it's really crucial that you've got an independent advocate who's familiar with the situation and you know as an independent former independent advocate I would know the the the system and be able to because quite often you're dealing with people who haven't had it previous experience of this sort of thing and so don't really understand and won't be thinking about in 10 years time that this is going to appear on somebody's disclosure that an independent advocate says well you know if you do a do you know that the potential consequences of this in 10 15 years time are x y and z but that's quite a revelation for quite a lot of people again it's the other side of the coin I understand that somebody wants the process to go quickly I think if you look at it from the point of view of a victim I don't disagree with that they definitely want it to be resolved quickly the biggest issue that you've got is that actually unless they opt in to a system of being given information by scraw they actually don't find out anything the first time a victim might have contact from anybody will be when scraw actually get the referral from the police and they send a letter to the victim to advise them that they've got this and do they want to opt in to get more information it's also very very highly aware of the fact that we're getting so many calls through our national support centre and our helpline and we're dealing with a variety of very intense cases at the moment that they don't receive information so if there are no further actions done on that child that victim doesn't know that they just get told there's no further action they don't know if social work have been involved they don't know anything of what is happening we have a huge gap here we have a huge gap we're supporting and we're providing absolutely the support for all these people but the victims sitting with absolutely nothing and we have to address this we have to address it thank you I think that the points you're making are well made in the clifru zone I think probably in particularly in relation to bringing our communities with us and taking this approach I know that Gail Ross wanted to ask some more questions about victims specific yeah thanks convener hi panel I was struck by a lot of things that you've been telling us nicola and I think that obviously with the bill the way it is there is a focus on the perpetrator rather than the victim just in general can you explain how this and I know that you've gone into it briefly but can you explain what support is currently available for victims child victims of crime normally what we would hope for is that when a crime is reported to the police that a referral would be received whether that be a child or an adult that doesn't always happen so sometimes victims will not be referred on to support services that is part of the victim and witnesses act that they should be but we're working closely with police Scotland in relation to that because there's always complications to getting referrals the anxiety we have is that you have a massive process surrounding children offending so by the time the decisions are made the police do the report you go it goes to crown office and scrawl it's made a decision whether it goes to the actual child hearing there's not an awful lot happening for that victim now there should be a risk plan etc being put in place but we find that sometimes the victim is way down the communication line so say that does go to a children's hearing and the victim then gets the letter from scrawl now what victim support Scotland have done is along with Scottish Government and scrawl is we now have a service level agreement we've now designed leaflets that go with that initial letter from scrawl so that victims immediately on receiving that have access to support services and that's why we're noting that we're getting an awful lot more through our national support centre and helpline because the biggest issue is that lack of information I've had a lot of meetings with scrawl and discussed round what they can disclose and what they can disclose and I understand that it's for the benefit of the child you don't want to put that child in a difficult situation but we have to remember that the victim doesn't know what's happened and I think off table we're looking we're working currently on some case studies for you that I think would be really beneficial to show you where the actual blockages are and I mean currently we're looking at three cases that we're supporting these are sexual cases victims range between four and nine they have received no information and what I need to explain to you is these victims are the ones that have had to move school because the perpetrator is innocent till proven guilty but goes to the same school yeah so that's the child the victims the one that's having to move they're going to have to move house it's a small community we need you to see the impact that that has on victims and the fact that they don't receive the same level of support and although we're working very hard with scrawl and other organisations there are still gaps in communication and information currently as the bill stands do you think that there is a balance between protecting the victims giving them in the information but also protecting the child perpetrator of whatever incident that's happened balance right and I feel that to make this work as I say raising it to the age of 12 is an easy sell because actually de facto it's not going to make any difference but if you want to raise it you know in scotland which we absolutely do then we need to bring society with us and if you've got victims out there that receive absolutely no information or no support that's going to be a difficult thing okay and just to wrap up were you content that the provision of information going to victims by the principal reporter will only occur in serious cases if they want information they have to opt in and then they will receive information it's difficult to explain how it works if an individual goes to a children's hearing or the the reporter decides not to continue to a hearing then that's all they'll be told there's no further action if there's a few charges but you only appear on one of those charges and they decide on joining together and putting out an order if you're not on the actual charge of that orders on you get told no further action so you're not actually aware that there's anything being done and there's probably huge support going on for that person but unfortunately victim doesn't know that and if you look at a victim's journey they need closure are these appropriate provisions to be put in this bill or are these changes that need to be made elsewhere in the system I understand the importance of not disclosing information about a child who has committed an offence I totally understand that I think I mean having been you know looking at what the advisory group recommendations they've said that there has to be appropriate and effective support available to victims so we need to work closely to make sure that these victims on the first point of contact with say the police or whatever are getting that support that's the important bit and we also need to ensure that the information and the communication that we provide covers everything we need people don't understand how the children's reporting system works in society it's bad enough with the criminal justice system but people don't know how the children's reporting system works and I think we need if we're raising the age we need to make that clearer okay thanks if he had a supplementary on that it follows on from the line of question and that gail Ross has been asking you about nicola because when you say that you're working on case studies that you could bring to us that would help to make completely clear where where the gaps are and a note from the submission that victim support you've said that with appropriate safeguards this would better protect the interests of victims now while it's useful to see where the gaps are will you also or will you be able to show us where the bill could be improved so that we can plug those gaps or if you can make the links to other pieces of perhaps legislation where subsequent changes could be made because that would be really helpful for the committee absolutely we will I mean the one of some of the cases that we're looking at it involves a lot of gaps within the whole system and because we've worked from day one the only reason I don't want to bring it to that is not correct for this forum it's very sensitive but I do think that the content and where the issues have risen we can show you that and it will interpret to the bill maybe where we need to tighten up communication and that's inter sort of different organisations both third sector and public sector and how we tie that up that would be very helpful thank you okay or any other colleagues wishing to come in again no in which cases there anything that we haven't asked you that you would have liked to have answered is everyone content okay well thank you very much for your evidence this morning in a closed session we're now moving into private session so if I can ask the gallery to clear and close