Chamber and committees

Between 28 December 2023 and 7 March 2024, the Scottish Government, along with the UK, Welsh and Northern Irish governments, held a consultation on reforming the producer responsibility system for waste electricals and electronic equipment (WEEE). This consultation sought views on a number of policy reforms. Along with this our Circular Economy Route Map the Scottish Government has also committed to creating a Product Stewardship Strategy, with the aim of minimising the health, safety, environmental and social impacts of products and packaging. Recognising the significant e-waste impact of single-use vapes, The Scottish Government is also introducing regulations to ban these products, incentivising more resource-efficient design and ensuring any vapes on the market are both rechargeable and refillable.

Effective product stewardship policies can help to meet our objective of having a circular economy. They reduce waste by decreasing the materials needed for production, and by increasing product lifespan. They increase recycling by providing incentives to collect, re-use and recycling products and their component parts. They help keep products and materials within the circular economy and reduce waste to landfill.

The Lord Advocate is constitutionally responsible for the investigation of sudden, unexpected and suspicious deaths in Scotland. These functions are exercised independently of government. Parliament considered and modernised the law on FAIs in 2016 and there are no current plans to revisit the legislation.

The Scottish Government, in conjunction with the Crown Office, continually assesses the effectiveness of the system for FAIs. As a result of this continual assessment, the Crown Office has significantly reformed the arrangements for the investigation of deaths. These reforms have already resulted in reductions in the duration of death investigations and it is expected that they will continue to do so. The Crown Office has also recently established a Specialist Casework Death Investigations Improvement Programme. Its purpose is to oversee all ongoing pieces of work and new proposals to achieve greater public confidence, to improve the service delivered to bereaved relatives and to deliver increased efficiencies in the investigation of deaths.

The Crown Office has acknowledged that in some cases the time taken to conclude a thorough death investigation has been too long. Unfortunately, there will always be a small number of deaths that will need a prolonged period of investigation due to their complexity. Irrespective of the type of FAI, the investigation must be completed thoroughly before a decision can be made to commence any inquiry proceedings. The decision to hold an inquiry cannot be taken until other proceedings, such as any criminal charges have been completed or ruled out.

FAIs are just one part of the system for investigating deaths. In many cases lessons are often learned, changes made and answers given to families without an FAI.

We have increased the Crown Office budget in recent years to support a range of its improvement work, including modernising processes for investigating deaths. The Crown Office has also significantly reformed its processes to reduce the time taken to investigate deaths and to bring FAIs to court more quickly.

We have every confidence in the system that is in place for FAIs but we acknowledge that there is always more that can be done. We keep matters under review in consultation with the Crown Office and are looking for ways in which the system can be improved.

All workers should be paid fairly for the work they do and have the opportunity of job security. Recent research from Herriot-Watt University points to particular challenges in this regard in the gig economy.

These are not unique to Scotland. According to the Living Wage Foundation, 20% of workers in Scotland experience some form of work insecurity. Only London (18%) and the South East (19%) have lower levels compared to the highest region, Wales (26%). Research from the Fair Work Convention shows that other countries do better.

Responsibility for employment law, including the rights and protection of workers, is reserved to the UK Government, therefore the Scottish Government cannot legislate for greater job security. Nevertheless, through Fair Work First we require recipients of government funding to move away from the inappropriate use of zero hours contracts and other non-standard types of employment that offer workers minimal job or financial security. This is part of our approach to delivering an economy that is fair, green and growing, while creating more secure, sustainable and satisfying jobs.

The First Minister last met with the Chief Constable on 16 May 2024. Deputy Chief Constable Alan Speirs was also in attendance. The agenda covered:

• Introduction
• Mental health and policing
• Criminal justice system
• Workforce and operating model
• Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill
• Hate crime

I meet the Chief Constable regularly. The last meeting was on 4 June 2024 with Deputy Chief Constable Bex Smith also in attendance. The agenda covered:

• Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill
• Revised model of policing
• Criminal justice system
• Scottish Resilience Partnership
• Emma Caldwell Investigation – NPCC Request

The Lord Advocate last met with the Chief Constable on 12 March 2024. Deputy Chief Constable Bex Smith was also in attendance. The Lord Advocate and Chief Constable discussed violence against women and girls in Scotland and how prosecutors and police officers could work together to improve outcomes for victims.

From January 2024, I agreed with the Chief Constable and SPA Chair to publish notes of their meetings, once approved, on the Scottish Government website: https://www.gov.scot/collections/police-minutes-of-regular-meetings

Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) uses a live, operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical purposes and the information within it is structured accordingly. Information provided is at date of extract and may therefore be subject to change as data and systems are updated for operational reasons.

Of the 545 charges referred to in the answer to question S6W-27369, 90 charges took place in the Lothian region. For the purposes of this answer, the ‘Lothian region’ has been limited to charges reported to COPFS from Edinburgh and Livingston Sheriff Court Districts only.

Of the 17 convictions referred to in the answer to question S6W-27369, there were 2 which related to offending against residents of the Lothian region.

Education Scotland published the results of a deep dive on attendance in November 2023, which sought to understand the current barriers and challenges which influence school attendance and make recommendations on how local authorities can support increased attendance. All 32 local authorities were consulted as part of the work, with 14 local authorities and 18 schools taking part in case studies. The case studies indicated that pupil mental health is a key concern and is believed to be a significant driver behind absence.

Im proving attendance: Understanding the issues (education.gov.scot)

The Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research (BISSR), published in November 2023, included insights into behaviours that were related to attendance and engagement in school. Attendance and school avoidance was identified as a significant issue post-COVID 19 by school staff and local authority representatives. Across local authority areas, representatives spoke about a small but persistent cohort of students who had experienced difficulties in returning to school post-COVID-19 and were continuing to learn online and in the community. The research found that some school staff felt that the disruption had made pupils feel that in-school attendance wasn’t important, while others felt that low attendance was related to mental health issues as a result of the pandemic.

Behaviour in Scottish Schools 2023 (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Breast Screening Programme Statistics 2022-23 show that more women than ever are attending breast screening appointments, and that uptake is increasing for most groups. It is important to note that uptake for women receiving their first breast screening invitation in 2022-23 was higher than any pre-COVID year since 2013-14, and was above the 10 year average of 70.8%. It is also above the standard uptake rate of 70%. Therefore, overall the picture for breast screening uptake is encouraging.

However, the Scottish Government recognises that there is still work to be done to improve uptake, including among those receiving their first invitation, and to meet the 80% achievable standard. We continue to work with the organisations responsible for breast screening to fully understand barriers to uptake, and to encourage all women to attend breast screening when invited. As part of this, we continue to ensure work is carried out to address inequalities in uptake and access to screening, having committed £3 million since 2021 to tackle inequalities in the programmes, which remains a priority. We will also provide £1 million funding for 2024-25.

The Breast Screening Review that was published in 2022 noted recommendations that seek to increase breast screening uptake. The Breast Screening Modernisation Board, chaired by Dr Marzi Davies, is currently taking forward these recommendations.

The Scottish Government has ongoing dialogue with the National Records of Scotland regarding access to adoption records. We are exploring collaboratively what more we can do to ensure people affected by adoption are able to easily access the right information and support when they need it.

Both the National Records of Scotland and the Scottish Court and Tribunals Service have updated the information that they provide online in order to assist people with the practical aspects of accessing records, as well as signposting to further support. Both organisations will continue to provide access and assistance to adoption records in line with current legislation.

We will focus on policies and activities that have the greatest environmental and economic impact while continuing to encourage best practice by all businesses and consumers, with the aim to produce, consume and manage resources as effectively as possible. The Product Stewardship Strategy will set out a clear, cohesive approach to tackling the environmental and social impacts of products placed on the Scottish market, making the most of opportunities within the competence of the Scottish Government to reduce the environmental impacts of products and goods, and being clear where this requires further action from the UK Government.

The Scottish Government is committed to maintaining alignment with the EU where such alignment would be possible and meaningful in protecting and advancing the standards we share.

On waste management sources of energy, where waste is unavoidable and unrecyclable, the Scottish Government’s aim is to recover the highest value, while minimising as far as possible the environmental impacts of managing this waste, including through energy recovery. The second report of the Review of the Role Incineration in Scotland’s Waste Hierarchy made recommendations on the decarbonisation of residual waste, and the Scottish Government accepted these recommendations in full or in principle, including on the expansion of the UK Emissions Trading Scheme, ending the unnecessary incineration of plastic, incentivising heat networks and supporting the development of Carbon Capture Utilisation Storage (CCUS).

On heat networks, the Heat Network Support Unit, sponsored by the Scottish Government, supports heat network projects through the pre-capital stages of development through advice and funding. This support includes offering advice and grant funding for developing feasibility studies, Outline Business Cases (OBCs) and project commercialisation. The HNSU has supported several projects that seek to utilise excess heat from Energy from Waste facilities. This includes a recent feasibility study with Glasgow City Council, exploring the opportunity to utilise heat from the Glasgow Recycling and Renewable Energy Centre (GRREC). Through Scotland’s Heat Network Fund and its predecessor the Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Programme, the Scottish Government has provided approximately £32.8 million combined funding for heat networks which utilise recovered heat, including two projects using recovered heat from waste facilities in both Aberdeen and Midlothian and a project recovering Heat from a Waste water treatment facility in Stirling. In addition, the Scottish Government, in collaboration with Scottish
‎ Enterprise, will shortly publish a guidance document which provides information about how we can improve the capture and utilisation of heat from industrial and commercial processes.

In taking these things forward we will of course be mindful of existing and new EU legislation, like the EU Waste Framework Directive, Industrial Emissions Directive and Renewable Energy Directive.

The second report of the Review of the Role Incineration in Scotland’s Waste Hierarchy can be found here: 1 Introduction - Decarbonisation of residual waste infrastructure: report - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

The Government Response to the second report of the Review of the Role Incineration in Scotland’s Waste Hierarchy: Supporting documents - Decarbonisation of residual waste infrastructure: Scottish Government response - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).