A recent Freedom of Information response from Police Scotland has left me asking a simple question:

How can Scotland fully understand the scale of child sexual exploitation if the police cannot easily identify all of the cases recorded in their own systems?

A FOI response was issued after a request for information about child sexual exploitation (CSE) and child criminal exploitation (CCE) across Scotland.

At first glance, the response appears to be little more than a collection of statistics and technical explanations. But buried within the document are some significant admissions about how exploitation-related information has been recorded, tagged and retrieved by Police Scotland.

With a Scottish public inquiry into group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation on the horizon, those admissions deserve much greater scrutiny.

What Was Asked?

The original FOI request was straightforward.

The requester wanted information about child sexual exploitation and criminal exploitation involving children over the last five years, including:

• The number of incidents and reports.
• Intelligence logs.
• Age breakdowns.
• Criminal investigations.
• Charges and convictions.
• Referrals to social work and child protection processes.

They also wanted information broken down by Govanhill, Glasgow and Scotland as a whole.

What followed was a response that repeatedly stated Police Scotland could not provide much of the requested information because of the way records are held.

“We Can’t Easily Find It”

One of the most striking parts of the response is Police Scotland’s explanation that the information requested is not readily available.

The force states that Child Sexual Exploitation reports, concerns, investigations and cases are recorded in a variety of different systems.

It goes on to explain that there is:

“nothing specific to CSE within our incident recording system”

meaning that when incidents are initially reported, they are not automatically recorded as child sexual exploitation cases.

Police Scotland also states that:

“not all legacy crime recording systems had a CSE marker or equivalent prior to the national roll out of UNIFI in 2024.”

Perhaps the most significant statement in the entire document is this:

“Police Scotland does not have any method of identifying all CSE crime reports other than individually reviewing all sexual offences.”

Think about that for a moment.

After decades of awareness of child sexual exploitation, Police Scotland is effectively saying that if someone wanted to identify every historical CSE crime, officers would need to manually review huge numbers of sexual offence records one by one.

That doesn’t mean the crimes weren’t recorded.

It doesn’t mean officers weren’t investigating them.

But it does mean there was no simple, consistent way of identifying all CSE-related crimes across historical systems.

The £600 Problem

Throughout the response, Police Scotland repeatedly refuses parts of the request because it would cost more than £600 to answer.

This isn’t because the information definitely doesn’t exist.

Rather, it is because the force estimates it would take too much time and work to retrieve it.

Again and again, the response explains that staff would have to manually examine records to determine whether they were relevant.

In other words, the information is often buried within systems rather than readily accessible.

For something as serious as child exploitation, that should concern everyone.

The Numbers We Do Have

Although Police Scotland says it cannot provide many historical figures, it was able to provide statistics for crimes specifically tagged with a Child Sexual Exploitation marker following the rollout of newer systems.

For recorded crimes flagged with a CSE marker, Police Scotland recorded:

• 908 crimes in 2024
• 868 crimes in 2025
• 226 crimes in the first three months of 2026

Among the offences recorded were:

• Rape
• Attempted rape
• Sexual assault
• Communicating indecently
• Causing children to view sexual activity or images
• Indecent photographs of children
• Threats and extortion

The largest category was sexual assault, with 417 offences recorded in 2024 and 342 in 2025.

There were also 66 recorded rapes in 2024 and 84 in 2025 that were flagged with a CSE marker.

These are not small numbers.

These are hundreds of serious offences involving vulnerable children.

Intelligence Logs

The response also reveals that Police Scotland identified:

1,168 intelligence logs flagged with a Child Sexual Exploitation marker between April 2021 and April 2026.

However, Police Scotland refused to provide a yearly breakdown.

The reason given is particularly interesting.

The force argues that releasing more detailed information could potentially reveal patterns in intelligence gathering and could place intelligence sources at risk.

That may be a legitimate concern.

However, it also means the public cannot see whether intelligence reports have increased, decreased or remained stable over time.

Children Identified as Being at Risk

One of the most important sections of the FOI concerns vulnerable children who were marked as being at risk of exploitation.

Police Scotland explained that before April 2022, its vulnerable persons system attached CSE markers to incidents rather than individuals.

As a result, determining exactly how many children were involved would require manual examination of records.

Following changes to the system, markers began being applied directly to individuals.

Using those records, Police Scotland provided figures showing the number of people carrying a Child Sexual Exploitation risk marker.

For children aged 0-17, the figures were:

• 781 in 2022
• 1,084 in 2023
• 994 in 2024
• 973 in 2025
• 271 in the first part of 2026

Those figures suggest that every year nearly one thousand children are being identified as potentially at risk of sexual exploitation.

That should be a national safeguarding priority.

Child Criminal Exploitation

The FOI didn’t just look at sexual exploitation.

It also examined Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE), which can involve children being used by gangs or organised criminals for activities such as drug distribution, violence or other criminal activity.

Once again, Police Scotland stated there was no specific Child Criminal Exploitation category within its incident recording system.

The force also said:

“there is no marker within the intelligence database for CCE.”

That statement is noteworthy because it suggests that criminal exploitation has historically been even harder to track than sexual exploitation.

Despite this, Police Scotland was able to identify crimes carrying a CCE marker after 2024.

It recorded:

• 54 crimes in 2024
• 28 crimes in 2025
• 2 crimes in early 2026

The vulnerable persons database also showed increasing numbers of children carrying a Child Criminal Exploitation risk marker:

• 206 in 2022
• 381 in 2023
• 499 in 2024
• 668 in 2025

Again, these are not insignificant figures.

Convictions? Police Scotland Doesn’t Hold Them

The requester also asked how many cases resulted in charges and convictions.

Police Scotland responded that it does not hold conviction data and suggested contacting the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service or the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service.

That means the public must piece together information from multiple organisations if they want to understand the full journey from exploitation report to conviction.

The Public Inquiry Question

All of this becomes particularly relevant because Scotland is preparing for a public inquiry into group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation.

Recently, I received a response from the Scottish Government which stated:

“All of this work is being complemented by wider activity, including a national review led by inspection bodies and ongoing work by Police Scotland, to ensure that lessons are identified and acted upon as early as possible.”

That sounds reassuring.

But the FOI response immediately raises another question:

What lessons are being identified?

Because the document appears to reveal a number of historical weaknesses in how exploitation-related information was recorded and retrieved.

The obvious question is whether those weaknesses affected Scotland’s ability to understand the true scale of exploitation.

If identifying historical CSE cases requires manual review of sexual offence records, how easily can investigators establish long-term patterns?

How easily can they identify repeat offenders?

How easily can they identify organised networks operating across different local authority areas?

How easily can they identify missed opportunities?

These are exactly the kinds of questions a public inquiry should be asking.

This Is About More Than Statistics

It is important to be fair.

This FOI response does not show that Police Scotland ignored child sexual exploitation.

It does not show that officers failed to investigate reports.

Nor does it show that exploitation was not being recorded.

What it does show is something different.

It suggests that historical recording systems were not designed in a way that allows all exploitation-related records to be easily identified, analysed and retrieved many years later.

For crimes as serious and devastating as child sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation, that should concern everyone.

Data matters.

Patterns matter.

Intelligence matters.

The ability to look back and understand what happened matters.

As Scotland prepares for a major inquiry into group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation, the public deserves answers to a simple question:

If we cannot easily identify all historical exploitation cases, how can we be certain we fully understand the scale of the problem we are trying to investigate?