Chamber and committees

Simon Fuller, do you want to come in on that?

10:30

We rely on other organisations to give us the information; otherwise, Kaukab Stewart and I would be spending our time, 24/7, visiting organisations personally. We cannot do that.

Let me first say that this Parliament has a strong tradition, on a cross-party basis, of tackling domestic abuse and taking the most serious action on it. Right from the get-go, from when the Parliament was established in 1999, tackling domestic abuse and tackling violence against women and girls has been of the utmost priority on a cross-party basis. A lot of work has been done, including through legislation, and that continues. There are important pieces of legislation that protect victims of domestic abuse, and that is really important. It is good that that has been taken forward on a cross-party basis.

Regarding funding for violence against women and girls, we have a long tradition of providing funding to front-line organisations to protect women and girls, and that funding is continuing, including as part of the fairer funding pilot, I think—but I will double-check that.

First, as I said earlier, cases of domestic abuse and sexual crimes are rising not because of the money that the Government gives or does not give to an organisation. They are rising across most countries in the world because of the rise in misogyny; we can see an exponential growth in that.

In addition, our law enforcement and our prosecutors have got better at ensuring that these cases come forward and go through the courts. That, in turn, encourages more women to come forward. As I described, that was not the case back in the day, but now more women are coming forward and we are seeing—thankfully—more successful prosecutions.

With regard to support to Glasgow and Clyde Rape Crisis, we would expect the funding that we provide to Rape Crisis Scotland to be distributed through that organisation. We will have a look at the amount that goes to Glasgow and Clyde Rape Crisis as a proportion of the overall funding.

However, I make this point. Every single pound that goes to rape crisis or women’s aid services, or to other services on the front line, that comes from the increased funding that we provide—we are providing not less, but more funding in this area—can get to those organisations only if the budget is passed and members support it. I will leave that thought there: if members do not vote for a budget that provides additional funding for tackling violence against women, that puts at risk the funding for all those organisations.

We will look at what the proportion of funding is. I do not know whether Kaukab Stewart is aware of the distribution of the Rape Crisis Scotland funding.

I am not unsympathetic to the point that you are making. We have discussions with just about every sector, and my Cabinet colleagues have the same discussions. I take your point about the value of the uplift compared with the overall budget, but you could have those discussions hundreds of times over with the various organisations that work in our communities, particularly our third sector partners.

We have tried to bring as much stability and certainty as we can to those organisations. I recognise the point that you make about how some organisations in the third sector have moved towards working together to share resources and to make the economies of scale and efficiencies that need to be made. However, the bottom line is that we can only provide what we can provide.

We will continue to have those discussions with those organisations, and we will take away a commitment to monitor the position with regard to organisations’ ability to deliver within the financial envelope that they have.

The description of “exceptional” does not mean that we are saying that all the delivery and the outcomes are exceptional but that the budget line is exceptionally important because of its disproportionate impact on and benefit for the priority groups that will be most affected by it. It means that the funding line not being there would have a major impact on those affected. There is a whole debate around societal pressures and issues that impact on the safety of women and girls—from misogyny to social media. The funding in the budget lines will not in itself be able to tackle all those societal challenges. However, the impact of not having those budget lines would be disproportionately negative on those priority groups in particular. For that line of funding, the priority groups are women and girls; for another, the priority group could be those who benefit from employability services. The term is used not to describe the outcomes as exceptional but to describe the importance of the budget line for those groups.

We do not personally go out and do safeguarding checks; that would be impossible for ministers to do.

I do not think that it is fair to ask us during a committee session to review an organisation and potentially withdraw funding from it, so I am not going to commit to that at all.

If any concerns have been flagged through Inspiring Scotland, they would come to us. That is the proper process around any organisation’s funding and service delivery. If we provide funding for a particular service—not for the organisation and all the work that it does—and if there are concerns about that service and the way in which it is provided, or any concerns about young people or anybody else getting the service, that would of course be flagged to ministers.

We have to be fair to organisations. You are referring to an article in a newspaper. Sometimes articles in newspapers do not always tell the whole story about an organisation and the particular services that it provides. If there are concerns about a service that we fund, we would of course take the necessary action.

10:45

If there are any concerns from anybody about an organisation, we would expect those concerns to be listened to. I am sure that that can be picked up through intermediaries. What you have described is a very vague thing about parents in East Dunbartonshire. Beyond that, I do not know what that refers to—whether they are concerned about a particular service that we fund, or whether it is just a general concern about an organisation.

To reiterate, the funding that we provide is for specific services. Kaukab Stewart mentioned services that are saving the lives of young people who are suicidal. If the parents have a concern about that particular service that we fund for vulnerable young people who are potentially facing suicide, we would of course want to know what those concerns are—as opposed to hearing about a general, unspecified concern about an organisation. Let us hear what it is. If you want to write to us, I am sure that the minister and, potentially, intermediaries could follow up on those concerns. In the absence of knowing what any of that is, we would need to know the specifics.

Thank you.

We recognise that multiyear funding of support to tackle violence against women and girls is really important.

Violence against women and girls is a global scourge that is affecting women and girls all over the world because of misogyny, because of social media and because of the power imbalance. All of those things are huge enablers of misogyny, which every Government is trying to tackle. We, as a Government, are absolutely trying to tackle it.

The exponential rise in the number of cases that are coming through the criminal courts, particularly for sexual offences, suggests that our prosecutors and our police force are active in that space to ensure, for the victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence, that there is more chance that the perpetrators will face the consequences that they should face. Courts are absolutely full of cases because, quite rightly, action is been taken to send an important message. I can tell you that the Lord Advocate is very active in that space.

Are we sitting on our laurels saying that we are complacent and that everything is fine? Absolutely not. As a mother of a daughter, I can tell you that the level of misogyny in our country and beyond our borders absolutely terrifies me. It is pervasive. Our Government takes that very seriously. We are absolutely not complacent.