Perth and Kinross Council will monitor and evaluate a latest legislation change elevating the age of legal accountability.
The Age of Legal Accountability (Scotland) Act 2019 got here into pressure on December 17, 2021.
The Act raised the age of legal accountability in Scotland from eight to 12.
The Act was launched progressively over two years. Whereas the legislation didn't change till December 2021, underneath 12s stopped being charged for crimes through the Youngsters’s Listening to on November 29, 2019.
At a Perth and Kinross Council committee assembly final week, councillors and schooling representatives from Perth and Kinross have been advised of the impression the change in laws would have on the native authority.
A report was put earlier than a digital assembly of PKC ’s lifelong studying committee on Wednesday, March 30.
The committee was advised the Act locations further obligations on social employees when responding to youngsters underneath 12 who've “been concerned in dangerous behaviours”. Social employees will want specialist coaching as a way to reply to incidents in an acceptable and well timed method.
A baby-centred method shall be on the coronary heart of the response. Councillors have been advised youngsters who perform dangerous behaviour in the direction of others have typically suffered trauma and abuse. They have been advised the Act goals to make sure youngsters and their households get the help wanted.
In a press release issued previous to the assembly PKC ’s head of service for kids, younger folks and households Hazel Robertson defined: “Youthful youngsters changing into concerned in dangerous behaviours is usually an indication of different underlying points of their lives.
“These conditions are clearly a matter of concern in our communities, and want acceptable intervention to handle any underlying points and to guard all concerned.
“The Act has a transparent concentrate on youngsters’s wellbeing by defending them from early criminalisation and, consistent with different nationwide initiatives like The Promise, searching for to help them and their households as wanted to make sure they will attain their life potential.”
Shifting the report at Wednesday’s assembly convener Caroline Shiers stated a child-centred method was “actually necessary”.
She added: “The context inside which a baby lives can have fairly a serious impression on their actions and behaviours but additionally in the way in which we assist households to nurture their youngsters and transfer them ahead.”
Seconding, Conservative councillor John Duff - a former police superintendent - stated: “It will shield youngsters concerned from early criminalisation whereas offering help to victims.”
SNP councillor John Rebbeck stated a child-centred method was “completely the way in which to go” and applauded the change in laws.
Lib Dem councillor Lewis Simpson welcomed the change in laws however famous the extra workload for council workers and requested “enough assets stay out there to make the easiest of this laws”.