Scottish Government revises good practice guidance to support social workers and others involved in age assessments
The Scottish Government last week released revised Age Assessment Practice Guidance for Scotland, aimed at supporting social workers, managers, and professionals involved in assessing the age of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people.
You can download the 72-page guidance here.
It is the third revision of the guidance, following on from 2018's revision of the original 2012 Age Assessment Practice Guidance: An Age Assessment Pathway for Social Workers in Scotland. The guidance was updated in response to a growing number of spontaneous arrivals of young asylum seekers in Scotland, and it seeks to reflect changes in practice, case law, and inter-agency responsibilities.
Key revisions in the 2025 update include a complete rewrite of the section on initial presentation, updates on the National Age Assessment Board (NAAB), and changes to sections covering responsible adults, documentation, and an update of the helpful list of relevant case law in Appendix 7.
The guidance reaffirms that, in line with Scottish law, a child is defined as anyone under the age of 18, referencing Section 40 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015. While the guidance is not statutory and not a substitute for legal advice, it outlines best practices in an area described as "complex and controversial," especially given the significant legal and welfare implications that stem from whether a person is considered a child or an adult.
Age assessments, the guidance stresses, cannot conclusively determine a person's age but can only offer a professional judgment, as there is no scientifically accurate or reliable method to establish age with certainty. Assessments cannot be made solely on the basis of appearance. Instead, they must be holistic, "Merton compliant" assessments (referring to standards set by the 2003 case B, R v Merton) that consider a young person's demeanour, background, and interactions, supported by multi-agency collaboration and legally sound procedures that meet the requirements of existing case law.
The guidance acknowledges the ethical and practical limitations of medical age assessments, cautioning that physiological indicators often come with wide margins of error. It states:
"Medical information may play an important part in contributing to age assessments but physiological assessments have wide margins of error and so there are caveats around what weight medical evidence should have in an overall assessment. Coupled with this there are ethical considerations which will have a bearing upon how and when medical experts, such as paediatricians, may become involved. A medical assessment is only likely to be available where this was required to meet a young person's health needs. Medical information, where available, is best used by being taken into account as one part of a 'Merton' (Appendix 6) compliant social work age assessment. It is important to note that a medical report is different from general information / opinion which may be provided by a health professional as a contribution to an age assessment. Where a medical practitioner has had involvement with the young person and may be able to contribute, irrespective of whether any relevant medical assessment has been undertaken, it may be reasonable to seek their views regarding their observations of the young person relevant to the age assessment task."