The SNP U-turn on holding an inquiry into grooming gangs should be followed by accepting that a wider public investigation into child safeguarding is also needed, writes Herald columnist John McLellan

My 1998 Chambers Dictionary definition of  the definition of ‘groom’ is all about horses, weddings and being trained for high office or stardom, but as evidence of how quickly vocabulary evolves in the digital age there is no mention of the preparation of vulnerable young people for sexual exploitation.

Its definition of ‘gang’ starts with “a band of roughs or criminals; a number of people or animals associating together…” and although the language may sound antiquated, the gist is the same today.

Put the two together and most people who have not been living in a cave for the past few years understand that a grooming gang is a group of men preying on teenagers for their sexual gratification and that of their friends and associates. Notoriously, in some grim post-industrial towns in the North of England it involved mostly Muslim men abusing mainly white girls, and suspicions were ignored in case there were accusations of racism.

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Now the Scottish Government has been forced to launch a public inquiry into the prevalence of organised child sexual abuse and exploitation here, what defines ‘grooming’ and ‘gang’ will be key to agreeing the investigation’s remit and scope. To be led by child sexual abuse expert Prof Alexis Jay, it will not go over the same ground as the ongoing Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, which has focussed on schools and institutions, but there is no shortage of concerns that the SCAI is leaving plenty of stones unturned.

The remit matters because in the same week as Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth was announcing an inquiry which not so long ago Justice Secretary Angela Constance said wasn’t necessary, the Scottish Government was still insisting that a different inquiry, into concerns about the alleged mishandling of child safeguarding enquiries by public bodies, wasn’t necessary.

It is now over three years since the campaign for child safeguarding inquiry and the establishment of an independent national whistleblowing officer, first approached the Scottish Parliament’s Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee to win its support for government intervention, and on Wednesday the MSPs agreed that as the issue was still very much live the petition should be carried over to the new committee after the May election. Its importance is such that it’s one of only about half a dozen from over 120 live petitions to survive into the next parliament.

The campaign arose from the fallout of the Sean Bell scandal − the Edinburgh senior social worker who was a serial sex abuser and able to offend for years largely because whistleblowers weren’t believed − and other abuses of children in Edinburgh’s secure homes which were uncovered by a separate report, again after years of the authorities turning a blind eye to what was going on.

A recently published book titled I Thought You Cared by an Edinburgh care home abuse survivor Holly Alex, goes into harrowing detail about cars waiting outside homes, driven by criminals to take young people away for exploitation, and her evidence alone should be enough to ensure that what happened in her home and others like it is covered by Prof Jay’s inquiry.

The Scottish Government hasn’t explained why it has changed its mind about a grooming inquiry, but what’s alleged to have happened at Edinburgh care homes indicates gang-like organisation, and having heard from other whistleblowers, the petitioners strongly believe abuses are still going on.

Yet according to the Scottish Government, everything in the regulatory garden is rosy, with the Petitions Committee this week hearing an official statement which listed official bodies with which complaints could be raised, including the Care Inspectorate and the Public Services Ombudsman, the latter described by committee member Fergus Ewing MSP as ‘useless’ and a ‘toothless tiger,’ to which taking complaints was a waste of time. And national child protection guidance was, the petitioner group including former Edinburgh councillors Alison Dickie and Bill Cook pointed out, only advisory.

If Prof Jay hasn’t seen it already, the 2022 report into Edinburgh’s secure care homes should be a must read, particularly as the SNP-Labour administration at the time failed to ensure it was properly debated in public, what seemed to me and others to be part of a pattern of behaviour which prioritised what passed for the council’s reputation unless there was no alternative.

There is also a chance that a national whistleblowing officer could be one of Prof Jay’s resulting recommendations, but if the SCAI is anything to go by, then conclusions could be years away when the protection for whistleblowers and vulnerable young people is a matter of urgency.

Edinburgh Tories squeeze Labour into Scotland’s lowest council tax rise

You read it here first last week. Edinburgh’s Conservative group managed to force a Council Tax settlement lower than five per cent on Thursday as the Labour minority administration clung on, if not to power then at least to office.

Originally aiming for a 2.5 per cent rise, Tory leader Iain Whyte settled for four per cent, the lowest Council tax rise in Scotland, and also a freeze on parking charges. Motorists might not notice, but they certainly would have felt being charged well over £9 an hour to park in George Street or nearly £5 in places like Bruntsfield.

Grumpy officers advised that savings would need to be found next year to pay for it all, but that’s sort of the point, that the belief that tax can go on rising by chunky amounts means there is never any real incentive to improve efficiencies.

Having achieved four per cent, there is a not unreasonable view that Labour is so desperate they would have settled for less, and maybe with inflation at 2.5 per cent the Conservatives might have held out for three, but any forced limitation nis still a feather in their caps . 

It did lead to the bizarre situation where hard-left Labour councillor Katria Faccenda  attacked the Tories for “folding”  before her customary flounce to avoid voting for her own side, but as the voters of Gorton & Denton ably demonstrated, these are very strange times for the Labour Party.

John McLellan is a former Edinburgh Evening News and Scotsman editor, now director of the Scottish news publishing trade association, Newsbrands Scotland. Brought up in Glasgow, McLellan has lived and worked in Edinburgh for over 30 years, and was a City of Edinburgh councillor for the Scottish Conservatives from 2017-22.

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