Children's And Young People's Services in Scotland

That the Parliament commends the recent reports into children’s services of the Child Protection Audit and Review, It’s everyone’s job to make sure I’m alright, Audit Scotland, Dealing with offending by young people and the Scottish Committee of the Council on Tribunals, Special Report on the Children’s Hearings System; notes in particular the references to the need to address urgently the crisis in the recruitment and retention of social workers; urges the Scottish Executive to give serious consideration to this matter and to the other recommendations in the reports and to act upon them; agrees that, when implemented, the recommendations would offer substantial improvements to the services for our most vulnerable children and young people; recommends bringing forward legislation to provide a statutory basis for child protection committees thereby ensuring increased status and resources and uniformly high quality services across the country, and recognises the need for the Scottish Executive to tackle once and for all the underlying social problems which disfigure our nation by limiting the chances of Scottish children, too many of whom continue to live in poverty.