The Scottish Executive willlook at what steps are required to give greater responsibilities to communitycouncils.

With regard to any statutorydevolution of budgets and decision-making powers to community councils, the Executive intends to seek the views of Parliament and relevant stakeholders inorder to identify any consensus for going forward.

Specific resources madeavailable by the Executive to local authorities to safeguard young runawaysare:

a guidance pack which issuedto Child Protection Committees in July 2003 on vulnerable children and youngpeople which makes recommendations about the care of young runaways,

funding of £838,661 between2002 and 2008 from the Youth Crime Prevention Fund in support of Aberlour ChildCare Trust’s pilot project, Running Other Choices (ROC), which provides ashort-term refuge for young people aged 12 to 15, and

strengthened ChildProtection Committees as an outcome of the recently-concluded three-year ChildProtection Reform Programme which is improving multi-agency service provisionfor this (and other) vulnerable groups of children and young people.

More generally, localauthorities use their GAE provision to support local services as they see fit,and this includes the flexibility to commission or directly provide servicesfor young runaways on the basis of local need.

The Working Group on YoungRunaways has not met yet. The first meeting is scheduled for 25 June 2007.

Invitations have recentlyissued to the following organisations for membership of a proposed nationalworking group on young runaways:

Aberlour Child Care Trust

Association of Chief PoliceOfficers Scotland (ACPOS)

Association of Directors ofSocial Work (ADSW)

Association of Directors ofEducation in Scotland (ADES)

Barnardos

Convention of Scottish LocalAuthorities (Cosla)

The Scottish Coalition forYoung Runaways (Edinburgh, Lothian and Borders Child Protection Office (ELBCPO)is the Coalition’s nominee)

Scottish Children’s ReporterAdministration (SCRA)

Scottish Institute forResidential Child Care (SIRCC)

YouthLink Scotland.

A representativeorganisation for the Child Protection Committees is being identified, as is arepresentative for Parenting Across Scotland. Those representatives will beinvited shortly.

Yes.

ChildLine can currentlyrespond to about 60% of the calls it receives. Recent additional ScottishExecutive funding will allow ChildLine to expand its current services andincrease the response rate to around 80% for this financial year and beyond.

The Scottish Executive’sguidance pack on Vulnerable Children and Young People, which was published inJuly 2003, contains specific recommendations on young runaways. Localauthorities are expected to have developed local protocols which give effect tothe guidance in ways which best suit their own circumstances.

In response to therecommendations of this report, the Executive has:

provided substantialadditional support to ChildLine and ParentLine;

funded, on a pilot projectbasis, the Running Other Choices (ROC) project run by Aberlour Child CareTrust, and

provided a guidance pack toChild Protection Committees on Vulnerable Children and Young People (July2003), with the expectation that local authority areas will develop their ownprotocols to support the guidance, as suits their local circumstances.

Some of the recommendationsin this report were overtaken by the implementation of the three-year ChildProtection Reform Programme (2003 to 2006-07) which provided a strengthenednational framework, and mechanisms, for local agencies to work together toidentify the needs of all children in their area and make appropriate provisionto meet these.

The Scottish Executive hasrecently provided additional funding of £536,300 (over 2007-09) to expand thecapacity of Glasgow and Aberdeen Centres and to set up a new base in Edinburgh.

The Executive has alsorecently invested in a freephone national telephone and information gatewayservice which directs the general public to local child protection serviceswhen they call to report concerns about a child or young person. This nationalgateway phone service is intended to complement existing phone-based childprotection counselling services.

The Executive continues tosupport ChildLine’s Anti-Bullying helpline and the enquire helpline (whichprovides advice and information on additional support for learning).

The Know the Score helplineand two other health-related helplines are run on behalf of the Executive bythe Department of Health. The Know the Score campaign, which includes thehelpline, provides drugs information and advice to young people.

The Executive does not havespecific plans at present to issue guidance to local authorities on thismatter, nor does it hold information centrally about steps taken by localauthorities to provide short-term refuge. To address the issue of short-termrefuge at a national level, the Executive is funding the Glasgow-based AberlourRunning Other Choices (ROC) project which provides short-term refuge for youngpeople aged 12 to 15 who run away from home or care. This funding support (2002-08)is on a pilot project basis.

The Executive’s guidancepack on Vulnerable Children and Young People, which was published in July 2003,contains specific recommendations on young runaways. Local authorities areexpected to have developed local protocols which give effect to the guidance inways which best suit their own circumstances.

Since its designation as anational service in 1992, the Queen Elizabeth National Spinal Injuries Unit hasbeen able to admit children aged 12 years or over. This may be related to themove from primary to secondary education. It may also avoid any difficultieswhich might otherwise arise later if there were a need to make a transitionfrom paediatric to adult services.