But last week's figures on the number of children referred to the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration (SCRA), which manages the hearings system, made for grim reading.
In the year to April 2004 there was a 12.6 per cent rise in the number of referrals to children's reporters to almost 46,000, an all-time high.
Of these, two-thirds were on non-offence grounds, such as concerns over parenting or truancy.
Charities in Scotland hope that the ongoing review of the hearings system will provide the resources to deal with this upsurge in referrals, much of which has been attributed to the problem of drug misuse in Scottish society.
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