Deaths of care leavers under Children and Young People Act: FOI release

Information requested

 

• The total number of deaths of care leavers in Scotland reported by local authorities under part 10, section 66 (Aftercare) of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 since the Act’s duties took effect in April 2015
• A breakdown of that total number by year and local authority since 2015

You requested that the data include both those young people in receipt of Aftercare and all those potentially eligible for Aftercare; that is, any care leaver who ceases to be looked after on or after their sixteenth birthday who is less than twenty-six years of age and for whom local authorities have a legal obligation to provide Aftercare support (between the ages of sixteen and nineteen), and those for whom local authorities have a duty to assess for eligible needs (between nineteen and twenty-six).

 

Response

 

Notifying Scottish Ministers and the Care Inspectorate of the death of a looked after child is a statutory duty of local authorities in accordance with the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. Legislative changes introduced by the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 build on existing duties to report the death of a looked after child and mean that the death of a young person who is in receipt of Aftercare or Continuing Care services should be notified to the Scottish Ministers and the Care Inspectorate.

Section 29(10) of the 1995 Act (as inserted by section 66(2) of the Children and Young People (Scotland) 2014 Act) places a duty on local authorities to notify the Scottish Ministers and the Care Inspectorate of the death of a care leaver being provided with advice, guidance or assistance by them. Notification of the death of a person in Continuing Care to the Scottish Ministers and the Care Inspectorate is a statutory duty of local authorities in accordance with section 26A(10) of the 1995 Act as inserted by section 67 of the 2014 Act.

The duty to notify does not, therefore, extend to young people who are potentially eligible, but who are not in receipt of Aftercare or Continuing Care provision.

The following table presents the total number of notifications, received by the Scottish Government from the Care Inspectorate, of the deaths of young people in receipt of Aftercare and Continuing Care from Scottish local authorities from April 2015 to the present:

Deaths of care leavers in receipt of Aftercare and Continuing Care services, April 2015 - present

Year	Local Authority	Total
2015	West Lothian Council	1
	Highland Council	1
2016	Fife Council	1
	Moray Council	1
	Falkirk Council	1
	Highland Council	1
	North Lanarkshire Council	1
2017	Fife Council	1
	Perth and Kinross Council	1
	Dumfries and Galloway Council	1
2018	Edinburgh City Council	1
	Total	11

Please note that the above data which is held by the Scottish Government may not be compatible with the Care Inspectorate information, which is the definitive source of the number of such child/young person deaths.

While both Scottish Ministers and the Care Inspectorate are notified of the death of a looked after child/young person and of care leavers, the Care Inspectorate, as explained in the Annex to this letter, collate more detailed data on deaths of looked after children and young people.

You may therefore wish to direct your enquiry to the Care Inspectorate’s Information Governance Team
at:
Care Inspectorate
Compass House
11 Riverside Drive
Dundee
DD1 4NY
Or by e-mail on: infogovernance@careinspectorate.com

 

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

The Scottish Government does not have the information

The Scottish Government does not have all of the information you have asked for because the Care Inspectorate has legal responsibility for collating the information you require. 

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.  

 

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.