Dunlop presses government to publish the premature death rates of all care-experienced young people

Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP for the South of Scotland Duncan Dunlop has written to the SNP government and urged them to commit to publishing the premature death rates of all care-experienced young people.

As a former youth worker and Chief Executive of Who Cares? Scotland, Duncan used his maiden speech in the Scottish Parliament to tell the stories of young people who the state has failed and focus on the rights of care-experienced young people.

In 2020, Nicola Sturgeon launched The Promise- a pledge to improve the lives of care-experienced young people by 2030. A five-year review by Audit Scotland, however, found that it is significantly off track due to “systemic barriers”.

In his letter, Mr Dunlop has now urged the Scottish Government to commit to publishing the premature death rates of all care-experienced young people, ensuring a mechanism to monitor progress.

Mr Dunlop’s letter is as follows:

Dear Cabinet Secretary,

Firstly, please allow me to congratulate you on your appointment as Cabinet Secretary for Education, Culture and Gaelic. I wish you well in this new role, and I am writing to you today about an important area of your new portfolio.

I got into politics largely because I want to improve the lives and outcomes of Scotland’s care-experienced young people.

As you will know, these are approximately 13,000 children and young people in Scotland who spend time in our foster care system, residential care, kinship care, secure care, who are looked after at home or who have been adopted. There have been entrusted to the care of the state; they are the responsibility of the state.

Ten years ago, Nicola Sturgeon committed to major reform of the care system. She commissioned a Care Review which subsequently led to the Promise. That promise, however, has not been fulfilled, nor is it on track to be.

In my speech, I named just some of those many care-experienced young people who have died. Very few of them reached their 25th birthday.

I have seen first-hand the trauma experienced by the young people in our care system. The tragic reality is that people who have been in the care system disproportionately struggle in life.

Transforming the care system is at the root of reducing the prison population, tackling homelessness and ending the drug deaths emergency. Indeed, it is impossible to fix any of these problems without also fixing the care system.

That is why I am writing to you today to ask that you commit to publishing the premature death rates of all care-experienced young people.

This is the kind of important information that would provide us with a baseline to know if progress is being made and identify gaps in action.

It is devastating that those experiences have become endemic and normalised, which is exactly why things need to change.

I would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you to discuss how this can be achieved and to reaffirm my commitment to work constructively with you to make tangible progress on transforming the care system over this parliamentary term.

Yours sincerely,

Duncan Dunlop