Chamber and committees

As was acknowledged by the Lord Advocate in her statement to Parliament on the 16 th January, any miscarriage of justice that has occurred as a result of the Horizon IT systems requires to be identified and addressed. The Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (“the SCCRC”) is the independent public body that investigates and reviews alleged miscarriages of justice in Scotland.

The SCCRC was established in 1999. Its role is to review and investigate cases where it is alleged that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred in relation to conviction, sentence or both. Its aim is to investigate all cases efficiently, without undue delay and to a consistently high standard, and to strengthen public confidence in the ability of the Scottish criminal justice system to address miscarriages of justice.

Any person convicted of a criminal offence in Scotland who considers that their conviction was a miscarriage of justice may apply to the SCCRC. The SCCRC is an independent body. It does not represent the prosecution, the defence, the police, the courts or any other part of the criminal justice system. It will consider all applications and review cases to decide whether they should be referred to the High Court to be considered again. The SCCRC will refer all cases to the High Court where it believes that there may have been a miscarriage of justice.

To apply, an individual can complete an application form which should set out the details of the conviction which they believe resulted in a miscarriage of justice. Applications forms can be obtained from the SCCRC or online. An individual may apply directly to the SCCRC and there is no charge or fee for the Commission to review any case.

With the assistance of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, the SCCRC has already written to at least 73 individuals. It is however important to recognise the different roles of the Commission and COPFS. The Commission is the proper body to be approaching individuals who may have been impacted by the Horizon IT system. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has engaged with the Commission and will continue to do so to support its ongoing work in these cases. I know that anything that can be done to assist and support those who have been affected to come forward will be done to ensure that there is access to justice for all who may be affected.

This is a matter for the independent Scottish Housing Regulator to determine. The SHR has published information about the application process for statutory managers ( Statutory Manager List - Application pack | Scottish Housing Regulator ).

This is a matter for the independent SHR itself to determine in line with the powers given to it by the Housing (Scotland) Act 2010 to appoint statutory managers. When the Regulator are considering who to appoint from the statutory manager’s list, they will take into account any potential conflicts of interest and would seek to ensure that the appointment has the appropriate experience, skills and expertise for the specific appointment.

The Digitisation of records is an operational responsibility of individual Health Boards and GP practices. At a national level, and building on the existing use of electronic patient record systems, we are focussed on allowing medical records to be stored, linked, and shared securely. This will support our ambition set out in the 2021 Digital Health & Care Strategy to make the right information available to all appropriate staff, when and where it is needed.

To achieve this, most Health Boards have a Clinical Portal. This system works across organisational, regional, and national boundaries to provide a timely transfer of information. The key developments to improve the sharing of information within Health Boards and GP Practices is the GPIT Programme, the National Digital Platform, TRAK Care and Clinical Portal.

HEPMA ( Hospital Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration ) is a system that can also replace paper prescribing and medication administration systems within hospitals. It has already been successfully implemented in thirteen Health boards across Scotland with the remainder to commence in 2024. We are also developing the Digital Prescribing and Dispensing Pathways (DPDP) programme which is on track to replace the current paper prescription in Scotland with a digital approach by the end of this Parliamentary term in 2026.

The Scottish Government has no plans for any changes to the current regulatory system for social landlords. All Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) are subject to the same regulatory requirements. The Scottish Housing Regulator has one statutory objective to safeguard and promote the interests of tenants and others who use local authority and RSL housing services. It is right that the focus of its statutory role should be on protecting tenants interests.

The statutory manager is not an employee of the Scottish Housing Regulator or of the landlord. The appointment is to carry out a statutory function. It is for the SHR to determine the information it publishes on those appointed to the statutory managers list to ensure the process is open and transparent.

Public sector support for research and development does not sit within the Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy portfolio. This support is directed and delivered by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC).

SFC strategic initiatives, such as Alliances for Research Challenges, Innovation Centres, and Research Pools, aim to harness our research and knowledge exchange capabilities across a number of priority areas, including Life Sciences.

The Scottish Government continues to support high-quality research and innovation across Scotland, and has increased the investment in higher education capital to over £350m for 2024-25.

Within the Scottish Government, funding of Health and Care Research comes under the remit of the Chief Scientist Office (CSO). CSO provides funding support through NHS Research Scotland who are currently supporting 13 Brain Tumour Clinical studies with over 190 patients recruited.

Additionally, Scottish Enterprise are an active investor and collaborative partner supporting the life sciences sector.

The Scottish Government has a contract for the provision of an electronic vote counting solution between the Scottish Ministers and Fujitsu Limited dated 16 October 2020. This contract delivered electronic vote counting services for the Scottish Local Government elections held on 5 May 2022. The software used for electronic vote counting is specialist elections software provided by a separate elections company, as a sub-contractor to Fujitsu. The electronic counting solution has already been tested rigorously, and independently assessed as secure and suitable, and successfully delivered the national Local Government elections in May 2022. The same elections specialist company provided the software that successfully counted votes and delivered the Local Government elections results in 2012 and 2017, as sub-contractors to a different prime contractor, CGI. The current contract also covers electronic vote counting services for Local Government by-elections held up to 31 January 2027. The solution remains in live operation for by-elections and there is no current intention to repeat the rigorous and independent testing that has already taken place.

The Scottish Government is committed to providing revenue funding to the Regional Transport Partnerships (RTPs) and revenue budget allocation was provided in the 2024-25 Scottish Budget. Budget allocations are subject to Scottish Government in-year spend controls and assurance processes, and allocations will be communicated to all RTPs directly in the coming months.

The Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) general capital support budget allocation is funded through the Local Government Finance settlement. A decision was taken to pause funding for 2024-25, given the current financial constraints, with a view to keeping under review in future years. Transport Scotland and SPT are in dialogue about the impact of this decision and maintaining their forward investment programme. These discussions will also explore the opportunity to utilise reserves currently held by SPT, and the impact of any use of reserve balances or re-phasing of capital funding, on SPT's forward maintenance and investment programmes.

The Scottish Government draft budget for 2024-25 allocates £0.5 million in revenue funding to Clyde Gateway. There is currently no capital budget specifically allocated to Clyde Gateway. Ministers have, however, yet to determine how the remaining budget within the portfolio will be prioritised.