A consultation on working together for people who go missing in Scotland

Police Scotland
Tayside Division Police Headquarters
West Bell Street, Dundee

The purpose is concise and covers the key point of harm reduction.

Tayside Division fully support an aim of harm reduction related to people going missing. We also welcome the purpose including a clear message of working together towards this goal.

We would not change anything with regards this.

We would support the adoption of a national definition of missing.

We feel it is essential that all agencies work together to reduce harm related to people going missing. Having a national definition of 'missing' is an important pre-requisite around this.

It is important that partner agencies proportionately contact Police when someone is not where they are expected.

In Tayside the majority of missing person incidents are reported by a public sector body and not a person's family member or friend.

Through working with our partner agencies throughout Tayside, there is currently a good understanding of what circumstances would meet the current Police Scotland definition of a missing person.

It is felt that having this definition becoming a nationally agreed definition would further enhance multi-agency understanding around missing persons.

It would also assist understanding when an agency wishes to make a missing person report to Police, where the definition is not met.

With regards the content of the definition: Tayside Division have used this definition for almost 2 years and have had very few issues. No definition can ever encapsulate every scenario and therefore the precise circumstances combined with professional judgement must be applied where there is dubiety.

We therefore would have no issues with the content of this definition.

The purpose of having a framework for agencies to work together to improve outcomes is needed.

This framework around 4 Objectives works well.

For the last 3-4 months, Tayside Division has adopted these objectives when holding multi-agency meetings around repeat and vulnerable missing persons. These objectives provide focus in multi-agency work and are good at ensuring all possible threads around missing person incidents are examined.

The identification of the vital role that third sector organisations play is also welcome. Shelter Scotland have recently expanded their Safe and Sound project to include all of Tayside and their ability to conduct return interviews is of great use. We also work closely with Barnardo's around CSE which we are glad the strategy links to missing.

We are happy that the strategy provides the framework in aims too.

It will be important that all agencies appreciate the importance of providing a multi-agency response reducing the harm around people who go missing. The issue is simply to vast and complex to be tackled by any one agency in isolation.

We have been encouraged by the appetite of agencies across Tayside in working together with this in mind.

However there is still work to do in prioritising missing for some partner agencies.

Throughout Tayside we are encouraged by the partnership working already in place around frequent missing person's and vulnerable missing person's.

The exchange of information between agencies is increasing with closer ties between Police and local authority social work. Relationships with Young Person Unit's have also been strengthened which has assisted the exchanged of information. However there is still work to be done with regards the exchange of information. It is felt that further improvements would assist us, particularly when responding to a missing person report.

We feel that the other commitment's have or are in the process of being implemented at present.

The challenge will be for all agencies dealing with continuing budget cuts and a national trend showing a slight increase in the number of missing persons reported each year.

The strategy rightly highlights the important role of the third sector. We are keen to further increase our referrals to third sector but realise that their capacity to assist will be based on funding.

The implementation of a CSE coordinator working with the Police missing person coordinator would for instance be of great benefit. We appreciate the funding obstacles around this.

Police Scotland will continue to respond to missing person reports inline with its values of Integrity, Fairness and Respect.

We have not identified any equality considerations.

The strategy aims to reduce the harm around people who go missing. Children, particularly those in looked after care and accommodation represent a disproportionately high percent.

We believe that improved multi-agency partnership work around missing will improve the wellbeing of children who are reported missing.

By looking to make improvements around the 4 objectives, children will be safer and less likely to go missing.

None that we have identified.

In general, the four objectives cover the full spectrum of possible intervention / response work around missing people.

Having 4 objectives is useful for focusing multi-agency work.

We are not sure that objective 4 is correctly named given the underlying commitments. Commitment 7 and 8 do not align with Protect, in the same manner as the other objectives and commitments. We are not sure what would be a more fitting name and Protect may well be the most fitting.

We would agree with all 8 commitments have would have nothing further to add. We feel that these act as desired: as a framework for multi-agency work.

We feel that the Objectives of Prevent and Support are particularly crucial with regards multi-agency work. As previously mentioned, the issue here will be capacity and budget and not appetite.

It is acknowledged that the return home interview, currently often conducted by Police is largely a poor source of information. Police generally do not have the best skill set to conduct this. We welcome the idea that the third sector or local authority would be better placed to conduct this vital interview.

This has been largely covered in other sections.

We have or are currently implementing all of the Police supporting actions.

The actions provide a good summary of the required direction of travel for all agencies.

The response plans around Looked after Children, NHS Patients and Elderly missing persons, are a welcome addition.