Chamber and committees

I welcome the debate and the committee’s interest in this important issue. All members in the chamber will be committed to ensuring the online safety and wellbeing of our young people.

Throughout the past two decades, technology has expanded at an unprecedented pace, and it is in our homes and in our hands. In 2000, less than 7 per cent of the world was online; today, more than half the world’s population has access to the internet. The same pattern can be seen in use of mobile phones. At the start of the century, there were just under 740 million mobile phone subscriptions in the world; now, the number is more than 8 billion. We have more mobile phones than people.

There is no doubt that the change in internet and mobile technologies has positively transformed our lives and brought vast opportunities. Just imagine the pandemic and lockdowns, for example, without technology to keep us connected. However, with all that comes risk, especially for our young people. Keeping children safe from online abuse and exploitation is a key priority for the Scottish Government. Child sexual abuse, irrespective of how it occurs or how it is facilitated, is an abhorrent crime that can have a profound and long-lasting impact on its victims and their families. The number of images that are being found online showing children being sexually abused rises year after year.

Establishing the true prevalence of those crimes is extremely challenging, due to the crimes’ hidden and underreported nature. However, recorded crime statistics provide us with some context. The latest statistics show that there were 765 offences of taking, distributing and possessing indecent images of children in Scotland, which is an increase of 16 per cent since 2021-22, and the highest total since comparable records began in 2009. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that we ensure that our young people benefit from the online world in safe and secure ways.

Our approach to achieving that is multifaceted. It involves equipping children with the tools and skills that they need to stay safe online, and supporting parents and carers to ensure that they have the information and skills to guide children and recognise when a child is at risk. Professionals must be equipped with the knowledge and skills to build children’s resilience, to recognise abuse and exploitation and to respond with high-quality support. That must be accompanied by work to detect, disrupt and prosecute perpetrators and to reduce reoffending.

In our schools, teachers deliver the “technologies: experiences and outcomes” area of the curriculum to provide learning on internet safety and cyber resilience. Those things help teachers to support children in learning about safe and responsible use of technologies, including the internet and social media, as part of their broad general education under our curriculum for excellence. We are also committed to ensuring that all children and young people receive high-quality relationships and sexual health education to help them to build safe and positive relationships as they grow older.

Public messaging is key in preventing online abuse. In March 2023, we reran our successful public awareness campaign, which supported parents and carers to keep children safe online, and emphasised the importance of talking regularly to children about online safety, setting safety measures and agreeing boundaries. The campaign had a strong impact on behaviour. Nine in 10 of those who saw the campaign reported taking action as a result. That is the highest rate of any Parent Club campaign that we have seen.

I have also alluded to the importance of having such conversations in the home, which is important from an early age. However, that suggestion is certainly something that could be looked at.

I recognise the crucial role that Police Scotland officers play. We have recently provided an additional £80 million of funding to the police budget this year, which I think addresses the member’s point.

The Scottish Government is a member of the Police Scotland multi-agency group on preventing online child sexual abuse. Through the group, the child protection leads from a number of agencies consider advancements in tackling the problem, emerging trends, including in artificial intelligence and virtual reality environments, and new projects and support for victims.

I intend to visit the Scottish crime campus to discuss the police response to this important issue and whether the Scottish Government or national partners can take other actions to provide support. The Scottish Government has issued national child protection guidance to support local areas to develop effective evidence-based responses to child sexual abuse and exploitation, and we published an updated version of the guidance at the beginning of this month.

Providing support to victims and their families is vital, which is why we provide funding to a number of third sector organisations that are involved in safeguarding support. This year, that includes £570,000 for Barnardo’s Scotland to support children who are at risk of, or affected by, child sexual abuse and exploitation. We have also provided funding to NSPCC’s Childline to provide resources, support and counselling to children, and to the Moira Anderson Foundation to provide therapy and counselling for child survivors.

The bairns hoose model gives Scotland the opportunity to provide a genuinely child-centred approach to delivering justice, care and recovery for children who have experienced trauma. This year, we are investing £6 million to establish pathfinder partnerships for our bairns hoose project.

We also need to ensure that the online industry plays a major role in increasing internet safety for children and young people. Although internet regulation is reserved, we have engaged with the UK Government during development of the Online Safety Bill, and we have successfully pushed for stronger protections for children online in the final bill. The bill will require tech firms to remove illegal content quickly from their services, or to prevent it from appearing in the first place. It will also mitigate the risk of platforms being used to commit or facilitate child sexual abuse and exploitation offences.

In response to concerns that were raised by the First Minister in May, the UK Government announced additional measures to protect children online from abuse and bullying, by placing reference to “primary priority content” and “priority content” that are “harmful to children” in the bill, thereby raising the profile of those harms. We will continue to work with the UK Government and Ofcom as the bill is implemented to make sure that it does all that it can to protect children online.

I want all children and young people to be able to enjoy the online world and the benefits that it has to offer, but to do so in a protected, safe and supported way. Let us work together to make sure that, while children and young people are online, they are kept safe.

High-quality early learning and childcare has a positive impact on all children’s outcomes, and evidence shows that it has a greater positive impact on children living in poverty. It can also support parents to work, train or study—as the committee has heard during evidence—and it can have a direct impact on the drivers of child poverty through supporting household incomes.

In relation to our current and previous offer, modelling published by the Institute for Public Policy Research Scotland estimated that, at 600 hours, funded ELC lifted more than 10,000 adults and children out of poverty. It also notes that the expansion to 1,140 hours will have an even bigger impact. As Mr O’Kane referred to, our programme for government sets out how we will go even further.

If families paid for the existing 1,140 offer themselves, it would cost them around £5,000 per child per year, which is a huge amount of money. Independent research shows that 97 per cent of parents are satisfied with the quality of funded ELC. A range of on-going work is focused on delivering a robust and accurate evidence base and evaluation of the impact of 1,140 hours, including an economic evaluation of the expansion.

The baseline phases of the Scottish study of ELC were published in 2019-20. The fourth phase is on track to begin data collection in October. That will give us a clearer idea of the impact that our current offer is having, which will be further looked at as the programme is expanded.

I will refer to my official for that kind of in-depth answer.

I am very switched on to the challenges. I know that the committee has heard evidence on the issue, which has been raised with me in various meetings that I have held with key stakeholders and organisations. In the programme for government, as the member will be aware, the Scottish Government is committing to increasing pay to £12 an hour for early learning and childcare professionals working in the private, voluntary and independent sector who are delivering funded provision in early learning. That is a really important step. We will also expand the existing recruitment and retention pilots for childminders to grow that part of the workforce by 1,000 by 2026-27. Those two actions, coupled together, are critical steps towards addressing some of the issues around recruitment and retention.

I am also involved in further work. I will work closely with our partners, particularly the Care Inspectorate and the Scottish Social Services Council, to consider a robust regulatory and qualifications framework for school-age childcare. The pilot areas have already been mentioned. The work in the pilot areas recognises that the school-age childcare sector needs a varied workforce to meet the differing needs of children and families.

We have work going on with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on the findings of the joint Scottish Government-COSLA review of sustainable rates, which has also been raised with me in various meetings. I am sure that the member is switched on to that. Those findings will be published later in the year, and we will determine what actions are taken as a result.

Those are important first steps, but there is further work under way.

Yes.

Thank you for the question. I do not have to tell the member about the difficult public spending environment that we find ourselves in.

I completely appreciate the member’s concerns. We are currently investing more than £1 billion in delivering childcare in 2023-24. As we have discussed this morning, we are announcing plans for further expansion, and it is vital for funding to continue. On investment in childcare, the member will be aware that budgets are set through the budget process, and I would not be able to foresee or comment on that at the moment.

I thank Rona Mackay for lodging her important motion and all members for their contributions. I welcome the opportunity to respond to the debate on behalf of the Scottish Government.

I begin by sharing our support for the motion and our recognition of the significance of the milestone of the opening of the facility in north Strathclyde, which I know is the culmination of many years of hard work by a range of partners. I congratulate them on that fantastic achievement. Through the service, children in north Strathclyde who are the victims or witnesses of abuse or violence will be able to access protection, care and recovery services under one roof.

I am aware that the Scottish Government’s funding for engagement work with children and young people with lived experience of the child protection and justice systems—the changemakers—has played a central role in the design of the facility. As Ms Mackay has described, in her motion and in her speech, that has led to the creation of a child-friendly nurturing environment. I thank Ms Mackay for her comments. I think that the quote from Jasmin that she shared emphasises that that is definitely the right approach for children and young people in Scotland. I put on record my thanks to all the children and young people who have been involved, and I look forward to visiting the site in the coming weeks to see the fruits of their commitment.

Bringing the barnahus model to Scotland has been a long-standing cross-cutting policy ambition for a number of years, and one that Children 1st has long championed. As has been mentioned, several years ago, it organised a study visit to see the barnahus in Iceland. Among those who took part in the visit was my predecessor and colleague Michael Matheson, the then Cabinet Secretary for Justice. Since then, through engagement with partners across agencies and the Scottish Government, it has built a compelling case for the need for a bairns’ hoose in Scotland. Children 1st has been a key partner in the development of national bairns’ hoose standards, and it sits on the national bairns’ hoose governance group.

Our vision for bairns’ hoose is that all children in Scotland who have been victims or witnesses of abuse or violence, as well as children under the age of criminal responsibility whose behaviour has caused significant harm or abuse, will have access to trauma-informed recovery, support and justice. When we look at other European countries that have already adopted the model, we can see that that scope of access is ambitious. I assure members that a key consideration in the development of bairns’ hoose that will be taken into account as the policy is developed will be balancing the rights of victims and those of children whose behaviour has caused harm.

The bairns’ hoose model will build on the momentum of the new Scottish child interview model for joint investigative interviews that is being introduced nationally from 2021 to 2024, which will be seen as the justice room of the bairns’ hoose. A key aim of the Scottish child interview model, which has been supported by more than £2 million of funding from the Scottish Government, is to protect children and reduce stress when recounting their experiences. I note John Swinney’s comments on the difference that that will make to the lives of children, and I thank Roz McCall for her moving contribution, which, while being extremely difficult to listen to, served to remind us why settings such as the bairns’ hoose are so important and to highlight the difference that the steps that we take now will make to the lives of victims of harm.

Growing evidence is already showing the benefits of the new model in practice. For example, interviewers in the north-east Scotland partnership were able to use their specialist training to support a non-verbal child with complex needs to share details of their abusive experience for the first time. The new model for joint investigative interviews allows for partners to create bespoke plans for children’s individual needs, resulting in improved experiences. There are many similar examples emerging of that momentous change in practice across Scotland.

I know that Katy Clarke wanted an update on progress, and I will give that now. I am also happy to keep the member and Parliament updated as matters progress. We have introduced a three-phased approach for the development of bairns’ hoose, which builds in the necessary stages for learning and evaluation to enable the achievement of our ambition. The first phase—the pathfinder phase—commences this year and will lead into a pilot phase ahead of national roll-out. The pathfinders will show us how the recently published national bairns’ hoose standards work in practice, enabling us to better understand and address the complexity of the necessary systemic change. Through the pathfinders, we will start to improve the experience of children, young people and their families in the justice, care and recovery services.

In our programme for government, which was announced last week, we committed to launching bairns’ hoose pathfinders in autumn 2023, which is a key action in our keeping the Promise implementation plan and our tackling child poverty delivery plan, enabling a whole-system approach for child victims and witnesses of abuse and harm.

It is through that phased approach to implementation that we seek to capitalise on the enthusiasm to deliver that transformation for children who have experienced trauma. Our commitment to the agenda is clear in our investment of £6 million in 2023-24 to establish those pathfinder partnerships, and we expect a similar level of investment to support pathfinders next year.

I maybe cannot address the point directly, but I was about to come on to some of the concerns that Liam McArthur raised in his speech.

The assessment of applications to become pathfinder partnerships is under way, and I look forward to our announcement of those successful pathfinders next month. I emphasise that we want bairns’ hoose to be adopted across Scotland. We will also engage with areas that are not pathfinders so that they can share in the learning and build towards making bairns’ hoose services available nationally.

In relation to Liam McArthur’s comments, how that will work in rural areas will be considered. We will trial bairns’ hoose standards in a range of contexts, so those aspects will be assessed through the pathfinder phase.

Bragi Guðbrandsson, who is a member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and the founder of the barnahus model, said of barnahus that

“There is no other viable way to deal with child abuse”,

but that we need to “be patient”. That means that we need to be considered and get it right. Children and young people deserve that, and I think that our phased approach does exactly that.

I close by reiterating the Scottish Government’s whole-hearted support for the motion, and I thank the partners who have worked so hard to get to this point. I again thank Rona Mackay for lodging the motion, and I look forward to the parliamentary event on the topic in November, when we will continue our constructive dialogue.

Bairns’ hoose represents a significant step forward in improving our response for children who have experienced trauma, and we look forward to the next phase, when we will work together to build on that momentum for them.