Recent figures released by the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) have shown that for the fourth year running there has been a fall in the number of children and young people being referred to the Reporter.
In 2009/10 there were 42,532 referrals. This figure fell by 7.8% to 39,217 in 2010/11. However, SCRA points out that despite the drop, this figure still amounts to 4.3% of the child population in Scotland.
The majority of children were referred to the Reporter because of concerns about their welfare. As before, the most common grounds for referral were because the child was a 'victim of a Schedule 1 offence' and lack of parental care.
There was a slight increase in the number of children with Child Protection Orders – from 665 in 2009/10 to 678 in 2010/11.
