A charity has called for an urgent review of the youth justice system as it published a report warning of major problems with the way Scotland deals with troubled young people.

Action For Children Scotland and Scotland’s Children and Y oung People’s Commissioner appointed an expert panel to look at the legacy of Lord Kilbrandon, the Scottish judge whose 1964 report paved the way for the country’s unique system of youth justice.

However the panel’s report, Kilbrandon Again, says there are major problems with the children’s hearing system and calls for a new system of justice for 16-21s. It warns of a lack of places in secure accommodation for young people, leading some to be placed in adult jails. And while MSPs are currently debating raising the age of criminal responsibility in Scotland from eight, the youngest in Europe, to 12, Kilbrandon Again claims it should be raised higher still, to 16.

The independent panel included former race equality chief Kaliani Lyle, journalist and broadcaster Ruth Wishart and was chaired by author and former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway. The University of Edinburgh’s Professor Lesley McAra was an advisor to the panel.

The report welcomes a drop in the number of young people ending up at children’s hearings, but warns that Scotland’s unique system of youth justice is failing many of those who are referred.

Too many young people are not present at their own hearings, and too many cases are successfully appealed, it said. Meanwhile panel members don’t know whether what they do is effective and are often unrepresentative of the communities the young people come from.

Paul Carberry, director of Action for Children in Scotland, welcomed the findings. He said “Despite welcoming the fall in the numbers of young people brought to Hearings and Courts, we were concerned that young people with the highest and most complex needs seemed to be most vulnerable to being involved in the adult criminal justice system.

“The panel have come up with a piece of work that gets to the heart of the matter. 50 years on from the Social Work Scotland Act, the message is that we haven’t go there yet and our systems require an urgent review,” he said.

The report draws attention to the recent suicide in Polmont YOI of 16 year-old William Lindsay, and says it is “a dramatic examples of the dangerous incoherencies in the systems we have created to respond to the complex needs of Scotland’s most neglected children.”

The lack of secure accommodation and other failings in his case led directly to his suicide 48 hours after being remanded to Polmont, it claims.

The report also criticises the length of time a criminal record follows the child or young person into adult life.

Richard Holloway, who chaired the panel, said: “An overhaul of the children’s hearing system is long overdue. Scotland needs an intelligent system that learns from outcomes and knows about the children who are brought into hearings -their circumstance and their views – and ensures Panels’ decisions record and take account of the views of children and their parents.

“We have a system envied around the world through taking a progressive, welfare-based approach towards children at risk or in trouble with a strong focus on prevention and early intervention.

“However, the criminalising of 8-11-year olds has always been inconsistent with this approach. While we welcome the proposal to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12, we do believe we can be more radical and increase the age of criminal responsibility in Scotland to 16.”