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In the Guardian yesterday:
Children’s care homes rely on committed people – While there are good private children’s homes (I’ve worked with some), they are defined by personal and family commitment, not profit. The same relationships are required whoever runs a children’s home, whether a charitable organisation or local authority. Without the personal, unflinching commitment of councillors, managers, social workers and, crucially, the grownups who work in the home, it can’t be a loving home.
We have been led to believe that regulation and inspection ensure good care. Do they? No. A reliance on such “quality” standards and monitoring has in part led us to this absurd situation.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/sep/17/childrens-care-homes-rely-on-committed-people
That’s surely wrong. Regulation and inspection has been notably absent or weak in England. That’s a major reason for their horrific mass abuse of children over decades.
The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) in England provides a point-in-time check. It catches prior convictions/barring but not unreported behaviour, grooming without records, or post-check offending. The Update Service is not fully real-time or automatic, unlike Scotland’s PVG scheme. Recent cases have highlighted delays in reflecting arrests/police information.
What is Scotland’s PVG?
The Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme helps ensure people who are unsuitable to work with children and protected adults cannot do regulated roles. It’s a five-year membership scheme. Disclosure Scotland continuously checks members’ criminal history information. It also keeps lists of people barred from regulated roles.3
There have been no equivalent recent example of publicized large-scale nursery staff abuse scandals in Scotland matching the English cases appearing in media reporting. We’d know about it, if there was the slightest whiff of one.
When was the Scottish PVG scheme launched and by whom?
The Scottish PVG (Protecting Vulnerable Groups) scheme was launched by the Scottish Government on 28 February 2011. It was established under the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007, which received Royal Assent in 2007 and came into effect in stages, with the full membership scheme going live in 2011.
The scheme was Scotland’s response to the Bichard Inquiry, following the 2002 Soham murders in England. The inquiry recommended a registration scheme with continuous updating for people working with children and protected adults. The 2007 Act was passed by the Scottish Parliament during the first SNP minority government led by First Minister Alex Salmond.
This should be big news in Scotland because if it was the other way round we’d never hear the end of it.
Sources:
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c862jy76y21o
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c621zwn21xyohttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c621zwn21xyo
- https://www.mygov.scot/apply-to-pvg-scheme
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12,000 children in care in Scotland. 6,000 still in their own home. Kinship payments keep children within the family. Often cared for by grandparents. Children in foster and residential care are financed, they can stay until 21. They receive grants and support for education. Affordable housing and pay no council tax.
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BBC website top article today on both the Scotland main page and on the Scottish Politics page (written by James Cook).
“The deadly new drugs making Scotland’s fight against addiction even harder”
(Cook adds in his article that: “While control of illicit drugs is reserved to Westminster under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, responsibility for public health, policing and prosecutions is devolved to the Scottish government and its agencies”).
That is the crux of his article, as in to state who he thinks is to blame, as it is always a blame game when it comes to Scotland.
The article also added that :
“Annual figures to be released on Wednesday are expected to show a rise in the number of drug-related deaths in Scotland, which already has an unenviable record as the drugs death capital of Europe“.
This is in reference to what he writes is ” an explosion in the supply of new synthetic cannabinoids and opioids”.
However is this apparent “explosion” just in Scotland ?
Well no it is not.
In May 2025 The UK government’s website had an article:
“New local guidance to tackle synthetic opioid threat”
Policing Minister (in UK Govt.)Dame Diana Johnson said:
“Synthetic drugs have no place on Britain’s streets”
Michael Kill, CEO of the Night Time Industries Association, said:
“Communities across England are increasingly facing the threat of dangerous synthetic drugs”.
In November 2023 the BBC website had an article on their London page (local English news) :
“Synthetic opioids: Largest ever UK seizure made by police”
“The largest ever UK seizure of synthetic opioids has been made by police and border officials”
“A series of raids in Waltham Forest and Enfield, north London, culminated in 11 people being charged with conspiracy to supply class A and B drugs”.
This, as an article involving England, was not on the UK main Politics page.
As it seems that for the BBC, topics like this are never politicised when it falls under the governance of UK/English politics , as that repeated tactic used by the BBC is only always reserved for Scotland and it’s devolved politics.
King’s college London wrote an article dated 8 February 2026:
“UK’s growing synthetic opioid problem: Nitazene deaths could be underestimated by a third”
“The presence of nitazenes on the unregulated drug market has risen steeply in the last seven years – prompting UK and international bodies to issue public health warnings about their use”
“While the National Crime Agency (NCA) reported 333 fatalities linked to nitazenes in 2024, researchers believe that the number of deaths has been underreported as concerns have been raised by toxicologists regarding their stability in postmortem blood samples”
“This means they are likely being missed by postmortem toxicology tests”.
In James Cook’s article today he writes that:
“In 2024, nitazenes were implicated in 76 drug-related deaths in Scotland”
So then these deaths in Scotland involving nitazenes were easier to detect ?
Which then is in contrast to what King’s College in London stated was a problem with nitazenes in that:
“The number of deaths (by nitazenes) has been underreported as concerns have been raised by toxicologists regarding their stability in postmortem blood samples. This means they are likely being missed by postmortem toxicology tests”.
Just wait until Wednesday when the latest annual figures are released on drug deaths within Scotland, the media and political opponents will yet again have a feeding frenzy on #SNPBAD irrespective of what the figures show.
Meanwhile elsewhere within the UK (namely England) , when it comes to drug deaths, there are always global factors, mitigating factors and extenuating circumstances to then apportion blame upon others, so then the BBC never points in the direction of any of the politics or reserved policies of any former or current UK governments.
Scotland, where even public health issues are always politicised , yet in England we hear and read that others must carry the can on behalf of the various UK governments (thanks to organisations like the BBC).
Liz S
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