Barnardo’s Scotland Responds To Children’s Report

Responding to the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration’s annual report, Hugh Mackintosh, Director, Scotland – Barnardo’s, said: “On the basis of a quick look at the figures they certainly present a stark picture in terms of the national increase of care and protection based referrals and this has to be of concern to all agencies working with children and young people.

“I am also struck by the differences in local authority referral rates and there are some local authority areas where the care and protection referrals are lower than the offence based referrals.

“I accept that this can be for a number of reasons, but the three areas where this is most evident are covered by Barnardo’s Tayside Domestic Abuse Initiative where we work closely with Tayside Police and Social Work in the three local authority areas covered by the police constabulary – Angus, Dundee and Perth and Kinross.

“I believe this makes a difference because it allows for a combination of early intervention for families affected by domestic abuse through the co-operation of all agencies and this gives sufficient confidence to avoid the need to refer on to the Reporter in most cases of domestic abuse because of the effectiveness of the service. This model may provide valuable information as to how to tackle some of the very serious issues thrown up by the report and with appropriate resources, can be replicated in other areas.”