Victim Notification Scheme (VNS): independent review

Section 22: Secure Care

The Scottish Government Secure Care team have responsibility for the management of children sentenced to be detained in secure care. At present, 'children' for these purposes are legally defined as under 16 or 16/17 years old on compulsory supervision. The team deals only with children convicted on indictment.

Whilst there have been no requests for victims to register for the VNS in respect of young people in Secure Care, there is no process yet in place. It had been assumed that SPS would deal with these requests, but they have indicated that they cannot, as they do not hold information about young people who are not in the SPS system. The numbers of young offenders in custody or secure care are very small (as of 03/03/23, there were 8 young people in HM YOI Polmont [seven of whom were on remand] and 2 young offenders in Secure Care serving a custodial sentence) and there were no victims registered for the VNS in respect of these offenders).

Recommendation 9. Young offenders. Section 22.

A process should be devised to extend the VNS to include young offenders in secure care, as well as young mentally disordered offenders.