Police Scotland Response

Similar to the Casey Audit, a timeline from 2013 was mapped which provided a comprehensive description of CSE responses in Scotland, including Police Scotland investigations and its participation in various multi-Agency partnership groups leading to the publication of action plans, their delivery, changes in policy, practice, and training.

Following the publication of the Casey Audit, a review was undertaken to establish any current large scale CSE investigations involving networks as described by Baroness Casey.

Further review has also been undertaken into previous large scale CSE investigations undertaken by Police Scotland

Notwithstanding the above, there is ongoing engagement with the NCA who are leading on the implementation of the recommendations for Policing. This engagement is specific to ensuring data from Police Scotland investigations can contribute to the wider UK picture.

Police Scotland is a learning organisation and seeks good practice across the UK and has engaged with NPCC and NCA Hydrant Programme with a view to utilising Force Child Sexual Exploitation Self-Assessments. Up until this time, Police Scotland, as a single body, has not undertaken Self-Assessment in relation to CSE or contributed to the wider Complex and Organised Child Abuse Dataset. Discussions around Self-Assessment and data, are wider than the recommendations outlined in the Casey Audit, but the intention is to provide Police Scotland a foundation to move forward in terms of the identification for areas for improvement and enable a data capture exercise to identify previous group based CSE investigations for review.

The proposed self-assessment tool has 7 thematic areas which includes Victims and Survivors, Data and Analysis, Investigations, Training and Development, Partnerships, Disruptions, and Investigative Resources. This will provide valuable insight to our current responses and assist in benchmarking any improvement required.

Currently there is no mandatory requirement to collect ethnicity data or nationality data for suspects in CSE cases in Scotland. Indeed, there is no consistent approach in terms of the recording of ethnicity across various Police Scotland systems. Work is ongoing, led by ACC Paton of Policing Together, to improve Data Standards to ensure a consistent and accurate data capture can be achieved.

iVPD does record the ethnicity of victims along with their gender. In 2015, a CSE marker was added to allow data extraction relating to concern reports where CSE was a factor. In 2022, this process was amended on iVPD to attribute CSE markers to the person to whom the concern report related to improve focus on specific risk.

Police Scotland is the co-chair of the National Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Strategic Group, which has been in existence since September 2024. Its purpose is to increase cross-sector coordination and capability to address the risks and harms of CSAE in Scotland through the scrutiny of existing and emerging evidence and practice to inform, prioritise and agree actions.

The group have discussed Baroness Casey’s Audit and its wider partnership recommendations, with partners committed to assess the current landscape of CSE in Scotland and furthermore, identify areas for improvement within our muti-agency approach to CSE.

Police Scotland will continue to develop and evolve our practice in relation to CSE to ensure the recommendations applicable to Policing within the Baroness Casey Audit are adopted and integrated into practice.