Today, Thursday 18 June, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI) will begin hearing closing submissions in relation to Phase 10 of its investigations. Phase 10 has been running since December last year and hearings will be completed by the end of this week.
The focus of the case study has been the provision of residential care for children and young people in establishments run by local authorities and establishments run by voluntary providers used by local authorities and others to place children in care.
Over the course of 46 days, evidence was heard relating to more than 200 witnesses and covered around 20 establishments. This included the evidence of 167 applicants.
Today, the Inquiry Chair, Lady Smith, will set out SCAI’s next phase.
Phase 11 relates to ‘Protecting children in care in Scotland from abuse: present and future’. It will begin in the latter part of this year and will focus in particular on paragraphs 6 and 7 of SCAI’s Terms of Reference. The Inquiry’s investigations will:
- consider the extent to which failures by state or non-state institutions to protect children in care in Scotland from abuse has been addressed by changes to practice, policy, or legislation; and
- consider whether any further changes in practice, policy, or legislation are necessary in order to protect children in care in Scotland from abuse in future.
Lady Smith said: ‘In responding to our Terms of Reference, we have ingathered a substantial body of evidence in relation to a wide range of residential care settings and I have made many findings as published in 16 separate volumes thus far.
‘My 17th volume of findings will be published later this year and further volumes are in preparation.
‘During Phase 11 there will be a focus on paragraphs 6 and 7 of our Terms of Reference which require us to investigate the failures of state and non-state institutions to protect children in care from abuse, whether those failures have been addressed, and whether further changes in practice, policy, or legislation are necessary.
‘The structure of Phase 11 hearings will also allow for some specific themes to be explored. For example, later this year we will consider ‘Why children abuse other children? ’.
‘We have already heard and presented much evidence about the abuse of children in care by other children in our case studies, and I have made numerous findings about it. I now want to explore the important question of why it happens.
‘Also, I recently made an announcement in relation to our work regarding the exploitation of children in care and we plan to include it in our presentation of Phase 11.
‘By exploitation, I mean a type of abuse in which a single person or groups of people persuade or force a child to engage in sexual or other activity. When groups of people do this, they may be referred to as ‘grooming gangs’.
‘So long as the exploited child was in care, we can investigate the abuse even if the grooming or the exploitation took place outside the placement or foster home.
‘We can investigate allegations of abuse which happened before the end of December 2014 and, to be clear, we can investigate abuse which began before and continued after that date.
‘We plan to focus on the exploitation of children in care in our Phase 11 hearings in the early part of 2027.
‘Other hearings in relation to specific topics will follow and details of them will be announced in due course.’