Children’s Care and Justice Bill - consultation on policy proposals

Children and young people living in or on the edge of care often need to be securely transported between care settings, taken to school, hospital or court hearings. Local authorities regularly hire private secure transportation providers to carry out these journeys.

This transportation has to be done safely and compassionately. Unfortunately, we know that some providers do not treat children with the respect and dignity that they deserve, often using restraint to deal with challenging behaviour. Shockingly, many children find that they are automatically put in handcuffs by their transportation provider. A child does not need to be considered “high risk” to be put in handcuffs: a child who displays even the slightest sign of distress risks being subject to handcuffs or other forms of restraint.

To be clear, we are referring to children in the UK’s care system being handcuffed by private organisations whilst being securely transported. Not children who have been involved or are suspected of being involved in criminal activity being handcuffed by police.

Serenity Welfare is a provider of secure transportation and welfare services for children living in or on the edge of care. We provide our services to children aged between 10 and 17 across the UK, including in Scotland.

Having seen children as young as 11-years-old with red marks on their wrists from being handcuffed by other transport providers, our Founder Emily Aklan felt compelled to launch the Hope instead of Handcuffs campaign to raise awareness of this often-over-looked issue and ultimately end this brutal practice.

Too often, vulnerable and at-risk children are treated as criminals rather than victims who require consistent, timely, high-quality interventions to rebuild their lives. Positive behaviour support and other alternatives to de-escalate challenging behaviour should always be the preferred approach, including during transportation.

In addition to the use of unnecessary restraint, a number of other issues associated with transportation providers have been raised by various stakeholders, including around the suitability of vehicles and the individuals tasked with transporting and accompanying children, and the length of journeys. These factors should all be taken into account in making provision for secure transport.

The Hope instead of Handcuffs campaign was launched after discovering that there is a lack of regulations or indeed oversight governing the restraint practices of secure transportation providers in Scotland.

Neither the Scottish Government nor the Care Inspectorate Scotland currently require transportation providers to report any instances of the use of handcuffs or other methods of restraint to the appropriate authority. The Chief Inspector confirmed to us that there is an expectation for providers to report any instances of restraint, however this is not mandatory. This lack of a proper accountability mechanism puts vulnerable children at risk of both physical and mental harm.

We also know that through legislation, the Care Inspectorate does not have the power to inspect the restraint practices of providers. This contrasts with children’s homes, where the Care Inspectorate has the power to inspect the restraint practices of care home providers. We believe that the Government should expand the Care Inspectorate’s remit to require inspectors to inspect the restraint practices of secure transportation providers as part of wider inspections of local authorities.

Data should be collected as part of these inspections and should be regularly reviewed to ensure that any restraint during secure transportation is only used as a last resort after all other, less harmful approaches have been exhausted (such as positive behaviour support and de-escalation techniques).

In addition to the relevant standards and guidance, we firmly believe that there is a need for clear legislation underpinning the use of restraint to address current data gaps and ensure that children’s rights are protected in all care settings, not just children’s homes. This should be expanded to include secure transportation.

Ensuring that all incidents of child restraint are recorded, monitored and evaluated by the state is a key recommendation of the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Rights of the Child. According to the Committee, children should never be restrained to secure compliance. Restraint should only ever be used if the child poses an imminent danger to themselves or others, under the direct supervision of a medical professional and only after all other measures have been exhausted.

According to a 2020 joint report by the Children’s Commissioners of the UK, in Scotland, restraint is sometimes used as an inappropriate response to distressed children’s behaviour and local authority policies and practices are inconsistent, failing to recognise children’s rights. Our experience has demonstrated that guidance does not go far enough to safeguard children. This is particularly true in the area of secure transportation.

Children and young people who are in or on the edge of care often need to be transported between care homes or other care settings. These arrangements are generally made by local authorities who hire private transportation organisations. However, there is a deeply worrying prevalence of organisations handcuffing or restraining innocent children in transit.

The Office of the Children’s Commissioner in Scotland, civil servants in England and Ofsted have all confirmed to us that they are aware of the issue. Worryingly, we do not know the scale of the problem as the practice remains unregulated and unmonitored (see response to Question 24 for more information on this).

Our recommendation is for the Scottish government to use the Children’s Care and Justice Bill to mandate that all organisations involved in the transportation of children be legally obliged to report any instances of restraint to the relevant authority. We also want the Scottish government to appoint an appropriate body to collect, monitor and review data provided by these private secure transport providers so as to increase transparency and accountability.

The current data gap that exists within this area of children’s social care puts children at risk and prevents relevant authorities tasked with safeguarding children from having a precise understanding of how widespread the practice is. By implementing these recommendations, we can increase transparency and accountability, encourage consistency in reporting and scrutiny of providers across local authorities, and ultimately strive towards reducing the unnecessary use of restrictive practices against children.