TAYSIDE POLICE is the only force in the country meeting national standards for referring young, offenders to Children’s Reporters.

A new report by Audit Scotland looking at the inconsistencies in the ways that young offenders are treated across Scotland also shows that at least 500 children are not getting the support Children’s Panels have said they need in order to stop them re-offending.

The services involved in the supervision of children include social work and specialist support programmes provided by statutory and voluntary organisations.

The report, compiled by Audit Scotland for the Accounts Commission and the Auditor General, has found that 28 councils in Scotland are failing in their duty to ensure that all children under supervision have a care plan stating the needs of the child and the support that they should receive.

It says that children in smaller council areas are more likely to receive the support they need, although the report does point out that a handful of larger councils—including Dundee City Council and Fife Council—had also managed to achieve this.

Perth and Kinross Council was one of only seven local authorities in Scotland to provide evidence showing that every child on supervision was receiving the prescribed service.

For Dundee City Council and Angus Council around 95% of children received the prescribed service but in Fife only 90% did so.

In seven councils, however, more than half the files showed that children were not getting the service the Children’s Panel said they needed.

Although there are no national standards for how often a social worker should see a child on supervision or adults on probation, they must be seen once a week for the first month, fortnightly for the next two months and a least monthly after that.

The files examined by Audit Scotland show that at least 20% of children on referral in Scotland are seen more than twice a month but half of all cases show an average of less than one contact a month.

Tayside Assistant Chief Constable Willie Bald said it was one of their main priorities to ensure that young offenders were reported to Children’s Reporters as soon as possible.

“In terms of children, there’s no shortage of evidence to prove that the earlier someone enters the system then the more effective any intervention will be,” he said.

“Dundee City Council, Perth and Kinross Council and Angus Council all appear quite favourable in the report and that’s because we are all working together.

“If any part of the system doesn’t work then it all falls down.

“The quicker we get a report to the Children’s Reporter then they can decide if the offender needs a police warning, some other form of intervention or put into care,” he added.

Dundee City Council’s social work convener Helen Wright said, “Dundee’s performance in the report reflects the importance that the council places on providing comprehensive social work services.

“We place great emphasis on our work with young people because it is vital that we deal with the problem of young offenders in a positive way that will help crime in our communities.

“Dundee is involved in pioneering initiatives which aim to bring a new focus on tackling issues such as youth crime and we will continue to look for ways to further improve and refine our services.”

Alastair MacNish, the chairman of the Accounts Commission, said it was vital that action was taken to help young criminals from re- offending. “It is imperative that councils, the police and the Scottish Executive act now to prevent further problems with children who offend,” he said.

“We are pleased that most councils are giving children the help they need but our report shows that up to 500 children are not being properly supported.

“If they don’t get that help there is clearly a higher risk that they will offend again.”

Another concern raised by the report is that the number of vacancies for qualified social workers in children’s services had risen to 247 posts in 2002.

Although it says that the shortage of social workers led to problems in many areas, the report noted that some local authorities, like Angus Council, were maintaining reasonable levels of services despite the shortfall in numbers.