The Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019 Learning Event – 30 January 2024 Report on Key Findings

Section 2: Summary of table discussions throughout the day

The key themes from the first learning event were reflected through the table discussions at the second event.

A summary of the key points raised during the table discussions follows:

Communication, collaboration, and partnership working

Observations from the table discussions highlighted a strong consensus on the positive impact of improved communication, collaboration, and partnership working, particularly between Police Scotland and Social Work.

Discussion took place on the need to communicate effectively with the public on different roles and responsibilities of partners/agencies when a child displays harmful behaviour. Information on how to support the public/communities when partners respond to any incidents involving children under the ACR for both low level but high-volume incidents and signficant incidents would assist with building overall community confidence levels.

There has been intensive engagement on the impact on victims of Scotland’s current approach, and how to support victims better in future, in relation to the Children (Care and Justice) Act. As this has developed and the ACR review period continues, there is a need to consider the implications for victims where the child who caused the harm is under any new age of criminal responsibility.

As other policies develop, it is important to improve synergies across policy and practice to ensure all partners are aware of any changes thereby creating a continuous holistic approach.

Interactions and communications are key when responding to children and young people, victims and families when dealing with an incident involving harmful behaviour. It was highlighted that the interactions between those children and agencies need to be strengthened.

Training and Resources

Since the Act commenced and the changes to the legislation came into effect, there has been a low number of ACR incidents which has made testing the system more challenging, and it is therefore difficult to know if front line staff feel fully confident with these changes.

The risks of front-line staff being trained early and then having no opportunity to utilise skills in practice were highlighted. There would be a need for continuous refresh of training/learning over successive years. In addition, changes in personnel/staff will require an ongoing training comittment.

It was suggested that there has to be consistency of available resources across Scotland as a whole, and across the spectrum of need and risk. Having a national point of contact for ACR would be useful – akin to the joint investigative interview team considering local authorities across Scotland will face different challenges.

It was highlighted that more resource is required for all agencies to fully support children and their families when a child is involved in incidents when harmful behaviour has occurred.

Observations relating to the learning from the investigative interviews showed it would be useful to have written learning from each interview and for this to be distributed to practitioners.

It was suggested that a multi-agency training programme should be developed for Police and Social Work around investigative interviews so that there is readiness for practice.

It was suggested that there could be a refresh of the animation and the possibility of an app/social media awareness campaign on ACR.

Definitions, Language and Roles

The critical importance of making sure the language used is clear and accessible for young people, all partners and the public was highlighted. Discussions also took place on including the age of criminal responsibility as part of the curriculum in schools and raising awareness of the processes involved i.e. Early and Effective Intervention and the Children’s Hearings’ System.

It was noted that there has been a positive shift in understanding services after having more experience of ACR. Other influences such as The Promise and UNCRC have helped to better understand the roles, responsibilities, and processes when a child under 12 has caused harm.

There were several discussions on the importance of using consistent non-stigmatising language. Within this discussion, it was noted that in other countries there are challenges navigating a range of sensitivities and needs regarding language of children who have caused harm. Societal attitudes are significant in respect of young people and public views of “bad” children and not knowing right from wrong. Although the system has improved, the public’s perceptions remain unchanged.

It was noted that there are still some uncertainties over the role of Child Interview Rights Practitioner (ChIRP) with potential conflict between lawyer and ChIRP role. It was noted that the more use made of the ChIRPs, the more experience and understanding others will have.

The links between other exisitng policies and legislations and how these interact was mentioned, particularly around current legislation going through Parliament that may have an impact on the age of criminal responsibility or child care and justice policies more generally. More awareness and information on these areas would be useful to distribute.

Use of the powers within the Act

The low number of incidents requiring use of the powers within the Act means that the learning is limited, meaning that parts of the system/process are still not tested. Many practitioners find it challenging to maintain readiness when numbers are low. However, the learning to date has been crucial with continued work being taken forward within various subgroups of the Advisory Group to capture the learning from local authorities across Scotland.

Discussions took place on the importance of learning from the decisions at Inter-agency Referral Discussion (IRD) level. It would be very useful to establish if the powers within the Act were considered but not used, and, if not used, what route was taken and why. It was agreed that it would be helpful to share information between local authorities on the decision-making process and IRD to allow staff to make informed decisions.

There were discussions on how we can gain experience and confidence on the Act with partners, and how to gain more public confidence and awareness around the intentions of the Act.

There was discussion on ensuring that the rights of victims are balanced, ensuring any changes meet the needs of victims as well as the child who’s caused harm. There needs to be clear guidance on what information can be provided to victims and their families.

Implications of any change to ACR

Below is a summary of the key points raised during discussions on the implications of any future change to the age of criminal responsibility.

Resources

One of the main implications discussed during the event was around resourcing implications across the country, particularly for Police and Social Work ensuring services have the confidence and capacity to respond.

It was noted that it is critical to develop consistent approaches and processes across Scotland with skilful multi agency assistance for risk/need/predictive factors for every child who has any kind of worrying behaviour.

A certain level of training will be required to ensure workforces are supported and skilled to respond to children with behaviours that place them at risk, and at risk of causing harm, and for those around them at varying factors. There would be an increased number of children engaging with all services which would require proper funding solutions.

It was also discussed that there should be joint training for police and social work on investigative interviews and early and effective intervention.

Concerns were raised around the shortage of recruitment and retention for social workers across Scotland and around the accessibility to, and availability of, places of safety in general, particularly in rural areas.

Any increase of the ACR

It was noted that the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019 which changed the age from 8 to 12 had been a cultural shift for Scotland. If there was to be any future increase, there was appetite for this to be an incremental increase which would allow the systems to be fully tested before implementing a final age.

The UNCRC Article 40 “I have the right to be treated as a child if I break the law” suggests that the minimum age of criminal responsibility in any jurisdiction should be minimum 14 years of age.

It is inevitable that as the applicable age increases, the number, complexity and gravity of incidents would also increase and that supportive systems, resources and training would be required for any change to the age of criminal responsibility. There was also discussion about potential increased exposure to Child Criminal Exploitation as has been seen elsewhere in Europe, thus exposing children to harmful behaviours, particularly violence.

Victims

There were discussions on the full implications for victims and what the journey for them looks like to ensure their rights are upheld and that they have confidence in the process. The observations concluded that there needs to be an improvement in the support for victims and their families to mitigate any unintended negative consequences. This includes improved information and treatment of victims.

Community Confidence

There is a real need to ensure that community confidence is increased and that communities and the public have a better understanding of the age of criminal responsibility and also the systems that are in place i.e. Children’s Hearings System. There requires to be a cultural shift, particularly around lower level but higher volume of harmful behaviour, including anti-social behaviour.

It is crucial that there is work taken forward to help the public understand how all national children’s policies that have an impact on ACR are joined up and are working together to create positive futures for the children of Scotland and that when harmful behaviour happens, it is actioned in the most appropriate way. There is action taken to tackle any harmful behaviour.

Early and Effective Intervention

Early and Effective Intervention (EEI) was a main focus of the discussions particularly around how this works to support children and young people who display harmful behaviours. There needs to be more awareness of how a child is signposted to EEI and what the screening and responses are when a child is referred. There was discussions around whether there was sufficient support and safeguarding when dealing with online harm and harmful sexual behaviours.

System response

There was indepth discussion around the system response to children who have caused harm and the differences between the child protection procedures and ACR procedure when responding to children who have caused harm.

It was noted that there are implications for disclosure, place of safety for 24 hours and finding secure placements especially out of hours. There were also discussions around the cross-border issues and how the system responds to those issues. There was discussions around the framework that Police Scotland work to. The framework includes the Lord Advocate guidelines on joint reporting of higher, more significant incidents.

Next Steps

The contents of this report will be submitted to the Advisory Group to help inform advice to Scottish Ministers on any future age of criminal responsibility. The Advisory Group will meet in June 2024 and September 2024. A report will be submitted to Scottish Ministers on findings to support the review of the Act by 16 December 2024.

The feedback from stakeholders is that these types of events should happen on a yearly basis to collaboratively work together with agencies to improve continuous learning for ACR.