Legislation designed to protect young people from sexual offences is "clearly not working", the Scottish Conservatives have said.

The party is calling for reform after statistics revealed offences against young children have doubled in the past year.

Just 14 Risk of Sexual Harm Orders (RSHOs) have been issued since they were introduced in 2005. And in five cases these orders have been breached.

The Protection of Children and the Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005 brought in the orders to protect children from those who display inappropriate behaviour towards them.

The orders are applied to those who are deemed a risk to children through behaviour which falls short of criminal activity.

The legislation also introduced a number of other offences, such as grooming, to protect children from sexual harm - but the SNP has revealed that only 24 people have been convicted under the Act since 2005, with just seven convicted in 2011.

The figures came to light in response to written Parliamentary Questions from Margaret Mitchell.

Scottish Government figures released earlier in June showed there were 1933 sexual offences recorded against children in 2011-12., an increase of 987 on the previous year.

Scottish Conservative MSP Margaret Mitchell said: "This Act was set up to protect Scotland's children from sexual offences, but it's clearly not working.

"Yesterday's crime statistics show that sexual offences against children have more than doubled in just a year, which is simply staggering.

"The growth of the internet has made all our children more vulnerable to being targeted for grooming from sexual predators and the SNP can no longer ignore this problem.

"It is now imperative that the Scottish Government looks urgently to see whether the Act needs amending or whether further legislation is needed to protect our children from the kind of vile individuals preying on our young people."