Four new beds for young people in secure accommodation confirmed

The children’s minister has announced that four new beds will be made available for young people in secure accommodation amid pressure on capacity.

Natalie Don-Innes said contingency plans will be backed by £2m in funding this year, while £8.4m will fund services for sentenced and remanded children over two years.

Charity Rossie will provide the four beds, expected to be operational in the next month.

The minister said there are 78 beds across Scotland’s secure accommodation estate which should be “sufficient” to meet the nation’s needs.

But capacity has been strained in recent months following a pause on admissions at St Mary’s Kenmure in Bishopbriggs near Glasgow, which was forced to limit capacity from 24 beds to 12, reducing overall capacity across the secure estate by nearly 20%.

That came after the Care Inspectorate raised “serious and significant concerns” about the facility and warned taking in more young people could create a “serious risk to the life” for its residents.

A pledge by the Scottish Government to “keep The Promise”, Nicola Sturgeon’s flagship plan to help children in care, committed to ending the placement of under-18s in custody.

Speaking at Holyrood on Wednesday, Don-Innes said secure accommodation demand is “complex and volatile” with only one place available in Scotland as of Wednesday.

She said she is committed to building a “more resilient and responsive system” for secure care in Scotland, with the Government’s long-term vision on the matter to be published ahead of the summer recess.

She told MSPs: “I am pleased to announce today the establishment of a new four-bed national contingency resource with support from the Scottish Government.

“Part of Rossie’s specialised residential estate will be repurposed and specially staffed to offer a new four-bed secure care provision.

“That will directly alleviate some of the pressure on secure care accommodation.

“This fully-funded resource is expected to be operational in the next month, subject to Care Inspectorate registration.”

Conservative MSP Roz McCall told the minister the Government should have done more to ensure capacity was maintained.

She said: “The strain on Scotland’s secure accommodation provision and the complex factors involved might not have been foreseeable but they were certainly possible, and I raised those concerns at the time.

“The fact that the minister and the Scottish Government were told time and time again during the passage of the Children (Care and Justice) Act that the situation we find ourselves in now was entirely possible.

“It’s a shameful dereliction of duty that nothing was done in anticipation.

“I welcome the commitment to building contingencies within the system moving forward.

“However, the Scottish Government had a long lead time to prepare, and a lack of urgency has resulted in vulnerable children being denied the support and protection they require. It is not good enough.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Willie Rennie said Don-Innes had “presided over cobbled together provision for people in desperate need of secure accommodation”, which he described as “utterly shameful”.