To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that grooming gangs are targeting children living in residential care homes in Scotland. (S6T-02850)

Sexual abuse and exploitation of children are abhorrent crimes with devastating impacts on victims and their families. The first part of the independent national review that I announced last month will focus on rigorous, detailed scrutiny of local authorities’ assessments of the threat and risk of group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation.

The review, which will be undertaken by the four independent inspectorates, will assess local areas’ understanding of and response to known risk factors, including children who regularly go missing from home or care. If any harm or risk is identified during the review, it will be escalated immediately through the appropriate channels, including to Police Scotland as required, and will be acted on. I intend to update Parliament more fully on that work in February.

The sinister revelation that grooming gangs are putting mobile phones into residential care homes exposes once again how much remains unknown and how sophisticated these vile predators actually are. Whereas a full inquiry would shine a light on all the dark corners of this nefarious, vicious practice, this Government contents itself with an ill-defined review. In the light of the latest revelations, surely the Cabinet secretary now concedes that what is needed is not a review but the full inquiry that everyone is demanding.

I thank Mr Kerr for his question and his on-going interest in and pursuit of these matters. I was very pleased that he attended the cross-party meeting that I held last week with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, in which we heard an update from Professor Alexis Jay, Police Scotland and the four independent inspectorates that will be leading the work.

I want to be clear again today that the Government is not ruling out further inquiries. I made that substantive point in my statement to Parliament in December. However, there is a need for an evidence base, and that is exactly why the inspectorates are taking the work forward appropriately. To that end, as I intimated in my first answer, I will update Parliament further in February.

I think that the Cabinet secretary’s response will disappoint so many.

She listed, and places great reliance on, those in the field. Last September’s initial report of a national child sexual abuse and exploitation sub-group

“found little evidence that training in Scotland adequately equips professionals with the skills needed to respond ... current practice often relies on children verbally disclosing their abuse before decisive protective action is taken”.

What meaningful, substantive action has the Government taken to protect Scotland’s children in the months since its own experts gave it that warning? If something was done, why has it not worked?

I thank Mr Kerr for raising that substantively important matter. I am also mindful that, every time we discuss these topics, victims of child sexual abuse might be listening, and it is important that we discuss the issues in a sympathetic and appropriate manner that is reflective of victims’ trauma. I am mindful of that, particularly in my own role.

Children disclose or report allegations in relation to child sexual abuse in a range of ways. Given my experience as a teacher, I know how that works in a school. However, four different independent inspectorates will be looking in clearer detail at the ways in which that works within their relevant responsibilities.

I want to come back to Parliament with a fuller update on the substantive point that the member raises, which is hugely important. I have been clear throughout my time in Government, in responding on the Government’s approach to this issue, that we need to hear from victims of child sexual abuse in order to ensure that we can learn from their experiences, improve our response and eradicate that type of behaviour in our society.

Given the importance of the issue, it is important that we work on it on a cross-party basis, and that is exactly the approach that I will continue to take. At the meeting that we had last week, which included Mr Kerr, I suggested that we have a fuller update for MSPs in March that will allow for a consistent flow of information to members on the Government’s work on the topic. I will be able to share more with members on that in my statement in February, and then again in March, before Parliament dissolves.

All sexual abuse and exploitation of children is horrific, and it is important that we treat the issue sensitively when we discuss it.

Can the Cabinet secretary set out more detail of what the national review will involve? What more can she say about the evidence and information that it will collate and what will happen when it is received?

I want to be absolutely clear that the four inspectorates that are leading the national review are independent of Government. They will show no fear or favour in the work that they have been instructed to undertake urgently and at pace, and, crucially, they have powers to compel public authorities to provide the information that they request. Those powers will be critical to the success of the review. Public agencies will not be able to refuse to co-operate, and the inspectorates will help to obtain the evidence that is needed to inform future decisions and investigations.

Once the independent national review is complete, the national child sexual abuse and exploitation strategic group, which is independently chaired by Professor Alexis Jay, will consider the findings and provide expert advice to ministers regarding our next steps.

As I set out previously, if any harm or risk is identified during that process, that matter will be escalated, including to Police Scotland, as appropriate.

There is a lot of interest in this sensitive issue. I believe that Scotland had not up till now addressed the need to interrogate the data to assess the scale of the problem. Given that it could take months or years to do such an assessment and we have not—I think—been given a timescale for it, and given that we already know that children in the care system are at the highest risk, I ask the Cabinet secretary to elaborate on the immediate actions that the Government will take to identify and protect the children who are most at risk. If there is any validity to the reports that Liam Kerr refers to, there is a need for urgency, and we cannot wait to protect children.

It would be inappropriate for me to comment on those reports themselves. Of course, I have read the press article in question, and those points have been put to my officials. However, any criminal activity would be a matter for Police Scotland to investigate.

In relation to timescales, I set out in my previous answer that I will come back to Parliament in the coming weeks, in February, to give a fuller update. At the meeting that Ms McNeill and other MSPs attended last week, a range of different agencies set out some of their work on next steps in relation to their responsibilities, and I have committed to provide a further update for MSPs in March. There is a range of different points in relation to the timescales that we are currently working on, but I hope to say more on the detail on next steps in the statement to Parliament in the coming weeks.

The serious organised crime task force has acknowledged that the scale of child sexual abuse and exploitation is hidden and underreported and that national monitoring is weak. Given that the Government admits that it does not know the true scale of the abuse, what specific evidential threshold from the national review does the Cabinet secretary need to establish a full national inquiry into grooming gangs in Scotland?

I note that we have only been able to engage with Ms Dowey’s audio. We will certainly look into that issue, but I would be grateful if the Cabinet secretary could respond to the question.

The first part of Ms Dowey’s question related to the way that we record and report the crimes that we have discussed today. We should also reflect on the power imbalance that often exists in relation to child sexual exploitation, which is also a causal factor in underreporting. I do not want to prejudge the outcome of the review, but as I have set out today, I will give Ms Dowey and MSPs a fuller update in February, when I have received an update from the agencies on their progress in relation to their statutory responsibilities and the review that I announced in December.

That concludes topical questions.