Question reference: S5W-34905
- Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 3 February 2021
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Current status: Answered by Maree Todd on 17 February 2021
Question
To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on public awareness campaigns to promote section 1 of the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Act 2019 between (a) 1 November 2019 and 6 November 2020 and (b) 7 November 2020 to date.
Answer
The Scottish Government has always been committed to taking steps to raise awareness about the removal of the reasonable chastisement defence in section 1 of the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Act 2019.
Our approach to awareness raising has been to use existing, trusted channels of communication to provide messaging about the Act to parents and carers, and to communicate directly with stakeholders.
This use of existing channels of communication and in-house resource to create messaging on the Act means that it has been possible to effectively reach people while minimising costs. Spend in this area has been nominal, and we will continue to explore opportunities for embedding messaging about the Act in existing sources of information in this cost-effective way.