Chamber and committees

Protecting children and young people from all forms of abuse is a priority for the Scottish Government, as set out in current national policy and legislation. We are committed to working with partners nationally, locally and with support services.

Internet safety is largely a reserved matter, any decisions on the regulation of the internet is currently a matter for the UK Government. However, Scottish Ministers do have significant scope to develop and implement policy relating to child internet safety as a direct result of their devolved responsibility for education, policing and child protection.

In April 2017, we published a National Action Plan on Internet Safety for Children and Young People to help protect children and young people online. This includes actions to help children and young people develop the necessary skills to stay safe while using the internet, and to support parents and carers to be more aware of the potential risks. The Action Plan sets out our commitment to continue to work with digital and social media providers to ensure children are not exposed to harm.

We are working with partners to encourage safe, responsible use of the internet including endorsing the 5Rights coalition which promotes the rights of children and young people online and in digital technologies.

We are also taking action to tackle child sexual exploitation and child trafficking. In March 2016 we published an update of the National Action Plan to Prevent and Tackle Child Sexual Exploitation and a recent progress report, published in April this year, can be found online at http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2018/04/6944 , demonstrating the range of work taken forward over the last year, across government and locally to progress the actions within the plan .

In addition, have established an expert group for preventing sexual offending involving children and young people, including online crime. It brings together professional and academic expertise from across justice, education, child protection, health and the third sector to identify actions to better prevent sexual crime involving children and young people and mitigate the harm it causes. It will build on existing good work across Government and through partners.

We recognise the importance of early identification and intervention to prevent online abuse and further online abuse. We are funding Stop it Now! Scotland to develop a prevention toolkit to help identify risk and prevent abuse before it occurs.

The Scottish Government is committed to a review of Personal and Social Education to examine, among other things, how the issue of sexual consent is taught within relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education at all stages. The review is expected to conclude in 2018.

Parents and carers play a crucial role in empowering and supporting children to use technology responsibly, respectfully, critically and creatively - by ensuring an open dialogue with their children, educating them, and acting as digital role models. Education Scotland refreshed the Technologies curriculum in 2017, which included the addition of cyber resilience and internet safety.

The Scottish Government provided £34,244 to Young Scot’s Digi, Aye? campaign. Working collaboratively with young people and using the social media channels most relevant to them, this targeted campaign aimed to help increase cyber awareness among young people in Scotland, and we hope that the Digi, Aye? website will continue to provide an excellent online resource.

There are a range of protective orders that can be used to protect both child and adult victims and the public from those seeking to exploit and abuse others. These include Trafficking and Exploitation Prevention Orders (TEPOs) and Trafficking and Exploitation Risk Orders (TEROs) which are provided for in the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015 and Sexual Offence Prevention Orders (SOPOs) under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and Risk of Sexual Harm Orders (RSHOs) under the Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005.

The Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 will, when commenced, introduce new preventative orders in Scotland, namely Sexual Harm Prevention Orders and Sexual Risk Orders. These orders simplify and rationalise the existing system of civil orders available to protect communities from those who may commit sex offences:

• Sexual Harm Prevention Orders - a post-conviction order which replaces the Sexual Offences Prevention Order and Foreign Travel Order under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and can apply to those convicted of a relevant sexual offence; and
• Sexual Risk Orders - a non-conviction order which replaces the Risk of Sexual Harm Order under the Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005, and can apply to any individual who poses a risk of sexual harm.

These changes address the concerns of professionals, including the police, that the use and effectiveness of the existing orders could be improved to better protect the public from sexual harm.

Section 1 of the Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005 provides for an offence of 'meeting a child following certain preliminary contact' for the purpose of unlawful sexual activity. This is commonly referred to as a 'grooming' offence.

Information on people convicted of this offence is contained in the following table:

Section 1 of the Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005 provides for an offence of 'meeting a child following certain preliminary contact'. This is commonly referred to as a 'grooming' offence.

There is no specific criminal offence concerning the 'grooming' of adults. However, there a number of criminal offences that may be used to prosecute a person who 'grooms' an adult for the purpose of abusing or exploiting them. Depending on the facts and circumstances of the case, these may include the offence of improper use of a public electronic communications network at section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, offences concerning indecent communication and causing persons to see sexual images in the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009, offences concerning human trafficking and slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour in the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015, and common law fraud.

The Scottish Government has no plans to introduce further specific legislation concerning 'grooming' at this time. However, the Scottish Government monitors the effectiveness of legislation on an on-going basis in conjunction with justice system partners. We will carefully consider any evidence that suggests there is any gap in the laws in place to deal with exploitation and abuse of either children or adults.

We are committed to working with stakeholders to develop and oversee national policy to protect children and young people. The National Action Plan to Prevent and Tackle Child Sexual Exploitation and National Action Plan on Internet Safety for Children and Young People were developed in consultation with our stakeholders. Oversight of the implementation of these plans will continue to be overseen by multi-agency groups.

Barnardo’s Scotland are in receipt of core funding from the Scottish Government Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities Fund. This enables them to continue the reach of their frontline child sexual exploitation services, to ensure that children and young people at risk of or affected by sexual exploitation are identified early and receive appropriate support. £300,000 has been awarded to Barnardo’s Scotland per year since April 2016 through the fund.

NSPCC are in receipt of £198,000 per year since April 2016 through this fund, to support Childline in Scotland. Childline in Scotland also receive an additional £115,200 per year through the Scottish Government Learning Directorate.

Funding has also been awarded to StopItNow! Scotland to the value of £39,000 and to the Moira Anderson Foundation to the value of £25,000 for 2018-19.

In terms of work to prevent the exploitation and abuse of adults, the Scottish Government has funded the Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance (TARA) to visit Romania along with officers from Police Scotland

• To meet local NGOs and understand more about the context of pre trafficking vulnerabilities which make women at risk to help TARA and Scottish Government understanding of need,
• To strengthen links with Romanian authorities to better facilitate safe return of trafficking victims, and
• To explore with Romanian authorities what awareness raising and upstream preventative work they have in train and what more can be done to prevent women being transported from Romania to Scotland for sexual exploitation.

The Scottish Government published the latest information about Ministerial engagements, overseas travel, car journeys, domestic travel and gifts received on 20 June 2018 at https://beta.gov.scot/publications/?term=Ministerialtravel&publicationTypes=transparency_data

The Scottish Government has not commissioned any research regarding air pollution from distilleries.

The Scottish Government does not offer specific advice to people whose homes are affected by air pollution from distilleries. General advice to the public regarding air quality is available on the Scottish air quality website: scottishairquality.co.uk

All local authorities in Scotland are required to regularly review air quality in their areas against objectives for several pollutants of concern for human health. If this work indicates that any objectives are not being achieved, the authority concerned must declare an Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) and produce an action plan to tackle the issues identified.

To date, no exceedences of any of the objectives have been identified in Scotland relating to air pollution from distilleries.

The UK Official Receiver is still in the process of liquidating Carillion and so the final impact on the public purse is not yet available.

Local authorities can already run their own services in some limited circumstances, as some do. The Transport Bill, which has just been introduced to parliament, extends these powers.

The provision of local services is a matter for operators and local authorities. The Scottish Government itself does not have the power to intervene directly in commercial or supported bus services in Scotland but will continue to encourage operators and local authorities to engage and work together to provide a suitable and sustainable level of service which is appropriate for local needs.

The recently published Transport Bill provides local authorities with a range of options to meet local needs and circumstances, including partnership working with operators, local franchising, or running their own buses in certain circumstances.