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Right. Are you satisfied with the pace of progress?

Okay. Thank you very much.

I have a question for Stuart Allardyce. There are a number of asks of the committee in your written submission. One of those is

“The development of a Scotland-wide strategy to tackle online child sexual abuse.”

There is no such strategy in Scotland, but there is one in England and Wales. How long has your organisation been asking for that? Do you know what stage we are at progress-wise?

May I ask another question, convener?

To understand the stats, will the remaining 20 per cent be part of that funding as well?

Great. Thank you.

That makes sense. Thank you very much.

There was a case in 2014 in which a child died in West Lothian: baby J. I have raised the case on a few occasions. Social workers and a nurse attempted to put the child on the child protection register and others decided that he should not be. What went wrong and why that happened is still not clear, but I suppose that it illustrates the point that you are making, which is that this can happen with or without registration.

Absolutely. This question is probably for Martin MacLean.

Last year, your Police Scotland colleague Bex Smith told the committee about significant legislative gaps in relation to child sexual abuse and exploitation, and she gave a couple of examples. She said:

“there is no Scottish legislation that is specific to prohibited images”

and

“The current criteria for an application for a risk of sexual harm order does not cover online offences.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 18 May 2022; c 37.]

A year has now passed since then. The former Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans, Keith Brown, told the committee that the Scottish Government had indeed engaged with the Crown Office on the particular concerns that your colleague raised. He said to us in writing that the Scottish Government is assessing the Crown’s feedback and will meet Police Scotland in due course to discuss a response to the issues that it has raised.

A year down the line, we would like to know whether you have had that meeting and that feedback yet. Do you know what the Crown’s position is in response to the requests that your colleague raised? Was its position put in writing? If so, could we see that? Where are we at?

There is quite a lot in there. I am sorry.

Those two elements seem to have been dealt with. However, in Police Scotland’s written submission for this particular session, four serious issues that relate to indecent images of children are identified. They include

“Extreme Pornographic Material/Prohibited Images (CGI, cartoons etc.)”,

“Child-like Sex-Dolls”

and

“Preparatory Acts & Collection of Relevant Information”—

I am not entirely sure what that means. There are still legislative gaps there.

That will be policing, but is there additional training for health boards and social work?