Scotland’s first missing persons framework has been launched as part of a push to help tackle thousands of missing persons cases.

The National Missing Persons Framework for Scotland, launched at a conference on ‘Returned missing people’, brings together Police Scotland, local authorities and the third sector to deal with incidents of people going missing.

It will introduce preventative measures to reduce the number of episodes of people going missing.

The national strategy will also provide the best possible support to missing people and their families, and protect vulnerable people to reduce the risk of harm.

‘Every year over 30,000 people are reported missing to Police Scotland and around two thirds of these are children and young people, who are especially vulnerable to harm and exploitation,’ said the minister for community safety, Annabelle Ewing.

‘We must be able to understand and deal with the issues that lie behind individual cases and, while Scotland already has the right set of policies in place as well as a wealth of good practice, we need a consistent and coherent, multi-agency response .’