EdLaw
National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021 — updated 2023
The Scottish Government's national child protection guidance, published in September 2021 and updated on 31 August 2023. In its own words: "This non-statutory national Guidance describes responsibilities and expectations for all involved in protecting children in Scotland" (Introduction). It is Scotland's counterpart to England's KCSIE, which does not apply in Scotland. Curated here: the four sections that reach schools and the services they use.
Applicability to EdTech
- Who at the school receives a concern. Independent schools must have "at least one appropriately trained Child Protection Co-Ordinator" and a deputy, under the Registration of Independent Schools (Scotland) Regulations 2006 as the guidance reports them (EDUCATION-RESPONSIBILITIES.md#para-2-62); staff who meet youth-produced sexual imagery "report to the designated child protection lead" (ONLINE-SAFETY.md#para-4-243). Local authority and grant-aided schools are covered in the same document (EDUCATION-RESPONSIBILITIES.md).
- Sharing information about a concern. Relevant information "should be shared with police or social work without delay, provided it is necessary, proportionate and lawful to do so", and the lawful basis "should be identified and recorded" (INFORMATION-SHARING.md#para-1-129); consent is "unlikely to be an appropriate lawful basis" (INFORMATION-SHARING.md#para-1-133). For special category data the guidance points to Schedule 1 paragraph 18 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (INFORMATION-SHARING.md; the condition itself is at DPA 2018 SPECIAL-CATEGORIES-CONDITIONS.md#schedule-1-paragraph-18).
- Online harms. The digital-environment section defines online child abuse and sets the staff response to youth-produced sexual imagery and harmful online challenges (ONLINE-SAFETY.md).
Contents
| Document | Covers |
|---|---|
| INFORMATION-SHARING.md | Part 1, paras 1.128–1.153 — inter-agency information sharing, records management, lawful bases, special category data |
| EDUCATION-RESPONSIBILITIES.md | Part 2A, paras 2.48–2.64 — local authority education services, early learning and childcare, grant-aided special schools, independent schools |
| RESPONDING-TO-CONCERNS.md | Part 3, paras 3.1–3.5 — how to respond to and report a child protection concern |
| ONLINE-SAFETY.md | Part 4, paras 4.234–4.251 — child protection in the digital environment/online safety |
Scope note: the rest of the guidance (roles of other agencies, inter-agency referral discussions, child protection planning, other specific concerns) matters to schools' partner agencies rather than to vendors and is not extracted. The Registration of Independent Schools (Scotland) Regulations 2006, which the guidance cites for the Child Protection Co-ordinator duty, are in independent-schools-registration.
Licence
The corpus reproduces sections of the guidance from gov.scot. The gov.scot footer (read 2026-10-06 on the publication's pages) says: "All content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except for graphic assets and where otherwise stated" and "© Crown Copyright". The text is Crown copyright, which is not an exclusion from copyright, so the label is open-licence.
The Open Government Licence v3.0 (read 2026-10-06) says: "You are free to: copy, publish, distribute and transmit the Information; adapt the Information; exploit the Information commercially and non-commercially". Its conditions: "acknowledge the source of the Information in your product or application by including or linking to any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider(s) and, where possible, provide a link to this licence", and, where no statement is specified, "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0."; and, under Non-endorsement, the licence "does not grant you any right to use the Information in a way that suggests any official status or that the Information Provider and/or Licensor endorse you or your use of the Information."
Conditions, and how this corpus meets them:
- Acknowledge the source: each section carries a
{.meta}provenance line naming gov.scot, the page and the publication date, and Sources links the publication. Attribution statement: "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0." (licence). - Non-endorsement: the corpus does not claim official status or endorsement by the Scottish Government.
- Changes: the OGL does not require changes to be marked; the selection, layout, dropped link targets and added anchors are described in each document's Meta.
- Exemptions: no graphic assets, personal data, logos or crests are reproduced.
Related
- GIRFEC Practice Guidance 4: Information sharing — the Scottish Government's wider information-sharing guidance, which restates this guidance for child protection concerns
- Registration of Independent Schools (Scotland) Regulations 2006 — the child protection co-ordinator duty paragraph 2.62 reports
- England — KCSIE — England's statutory safeguarding guidance; does not apply in Scotland
- Data Protection Act 2018 — Schedule 1 paragraph 18, the safeguarding condition the guidance cites
- UK GDPR — the lawful bases the guidance summarises