Chamber and committees

I think that Jamie Greene has made those suggestions before, and I do not want to dismiss them out of hand. I am happy to consider them and to look in detail at Jamie Greene’s victims bill when it is introduced.

I think that we have to increase the level of notifications and make sure that notification is being consistently applied. I am happy to concede that point, and we are doing things now that will address that. It is also true in relation to other aspects that Jamie Greene has raised in the past, such as notifications of Parole Board for Scotland hearings. I am happy to take on board those points and to continue those discussions. Notification is taking place, but we should make sure that it is being done more comprehensively. I am happy to have that discussion.

That is the direct responsibility of Police Scotland, although, as I am sure that Willie Rennie would say, it is the Government’s responsibility to help to fund such things.

Police Scotland works with a range of local and national service providers to provide care and assistance to those in distress. We fund a wide range of mental health services that can be accessed by first responders.

I mentioned the £2.1 million fund to expand the NHS 24 mental health hub, which will be available to the public 24/7, and the funding of £1 million to roll out the distress brief intervention programme on a national basis. It is also worth saying that there are additional supports for officers, which can take on further assistance—I mentioned EAP and the TRiM process.

Beyond that, it is always open to officers to speak to those who are designated within the force in their area about issues that they have. Those can include not just issues with mental and physical health and wellbeing, but all sorts of other issues that might cause stress, such as those related to money or traumatic incidents that officers have had to endure. We will continue to fund those services for police officers. At the same time, of course, we have more police officers than virtually anywhere else in the United Kingdom and those officers are paid substantially more than anywhere else in the UK.

SARCS is a dedicated service provided by the national health service that can offer healthcare and support in the days after rape or sexual assault if a person is not ready to report that to the police or is unsure whether to do so. That is known as self-referral. Through the chief medical officer’s rape and sexual assault task force, we have invested £11.7 million in the four years up to 2022 to support implementation of the Forensic Medical Services (Victims of Sexual Offences) (Scotland) Act 2021 and to either enhance or create SARCS across Scotland.

We know from listening to survivors that access to self-referral is an important way of giving control back to people. It is also a fundamental aspect of the forensic medical examination facilities that we are looking to roll out. Those services may have a positive influence on a person’s decision to report a crime to police, while ensuring that they are also able to access health services following an incident.

We continue to work closely with Police Scotland and other cyber Scotland partners, including the National Cyber Security Centre, to protect the public and organisations from cyber threats.

In addition to the on-going activity that I highlighted to the chamber on 26 January, given the current heightened cyber risk, the Scottish Government is working with the National Cyber Security Centre to deliver a national cyber aware campaign that will seek to educate the public on the following two actions that everyone should take to keep themselves secure online.

First, the campaign will underline the point that someone’s email is where they keep their most personal information, including financial information, and everyone should ensure that they have a strong and separate password for their email address. The recommendation is that three random words should be used that cannot easily be guessed.

The second action is to enable two-step verification on people’s accounts so that criminals cannot access them, even if they have people’s passwords.

Further information on those measures and other relevant information is available on the cyberscotland.com portal. Victims of any crimes should phone Police Scotland on 101.

Our victim-centred approach fund is providing £48 million to 23 organisations across Scotland over the period 2022 to 2025. That will fund specialist services for people who are bereaved by crime. It will extend support and assistance to victims of human trafficking. It also includes £18.5 million for specialist advocacy support for survivors of gender-based violence.

We are also providing £38 million to more than 120 projects through delivery of the equally safe fund to tackle violence against women and girls and to support front-line services that maximise their safety and wellbeing.

I think that that underlines our commitment to victims and survivors, which is a key priority in our recently published strategy for Scotland’s justice sector.

Criminals can be jailed when a judge deems it appropriate. In addition to attacking the independent Lord Advocate, the independent Parole Board for Scotland and the independent police service, the Tories are now attacking the Scottish Sentencing Council. It is quite clear that there is a broad-based attack on the justice system as a whole in Scotland, perhaps prompted by the headlines that we have seen down south, which say that the justice system in the rest of the United Kingdom is in complete free-fall. That might be the motivation, but if Russell Findlay looks at the figures, he will see that community disposals are far more effective in reducing reoffending.

Surely all of us, including victims, want to see a reduction in crime, and the most effective way to achieve that is to use community-based disposals where we can, and we will continue to do that.

Action 15 of the mental health strategy commits to fund 800 additional mental health workers in key settings. As at 1 January 2022, we have achieved 95 per cent of that target. That includes more than 26 whole-time equivalent posts to support those held in police station custody suites.

Police officers and staff can access mental health support, including a 24/7 employee assistance programme—EAP—which offers professional support via a team of trained wellbeing and counselling practitioners. Also, the trauma risk management—TRiM—process supports officers and staff affected by potentially traumatic incidents at work.

The Scottish Government continues to work with law enforcement agencies in Scotland and elsewhere to tackle organised crime. We cannot comment on individual operations, but we will continue to take any action that we can—as will our partners—within our current powers to ensure that organised crime groups do not see Scotland as a safe haven for their assets.

It does so by ensuring that we work with organisations, including those that I have mentioned already, as well as the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the national health service, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, the National Crime Agency, HM Revenue and Customs and others that are represented on the serious organised crime task force.

We also benefit hugely—despite what was said in the previous set of questions—from having the crime campus, which is unique in the UK. It has been commended by most of the justice organisations, and by the UK Government on a regular basis, given the frequency of its visits to see how that work is carried out.

The attack on serious organised crime is carried out jointly, with fantastic co-ordination, at the national crime campus. We are determined that, despite the occasional brickbats that are thrown from elsewhere for party-political purposes, we will continue to work in that way with our agencies in Scotland and with those across the UK. Of course, we recognise that serious organised crime does not recognise borders and that our response to it must therefore be joined up.

I am sorry that Mr Findlay has so quickly adopted his usual attack-the-SNP mode. There is a very serious issue at the root of his question, which is the pervasive influence of organised crime. We and Police Scotland work very effectively with other agencies, including the National Crime Agency, to address not only organised crime but issues with drug gangs. I will continue to support Police Scotland in those efforts, and to support our joint work with the National Crime Agency and other partners in Scotland and the UK. That seems to be a constructive and effective way to go forward, rather than seeking to throw mud whenever possible.