Chamber and committees

Transport Scotland publish information notices in relation to temporary traffic regulation orders providing for trunk road closures (including those closures which are necessary in connection with the holding of a community event) in line with relevant current legislative requirements.

These notices are published in at least one local and/or national newspaper circulating in the area in which any road to which the order relates is situated.

In appropriate cases, a notice can also be displayed at each end of the length of road in question and at the points at which it will be necessary to diverge from the road.

It is the responsibility of the event organiser to consult, plan and organise wider publicity for the event.

The Scottish Government is working in partnership with justice bodies and other agencies to deliver the recommendations of the Commission on Women Offenders.

In addition to the range of community-based sentences, diversion from prosecution and other non-custodial sentences already available to sentencers, we are funding an enhanced diversion project based in Glasgow, which is testing how diversion from prosecution could be more widely used for the most chaotic women.

Additionally, £3 million has been allocated over 2013-15 to support new and enhanced services for women offenders in the community. This includes projects focusing on early intervention, and projects looking at whether providing enhanced support to the summary court assists their consideration of the use of non-custodial alternatives.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. His response is as follows:

‘‘The SPS set up the women offenders project to design and build an establishment specifically for the needs of female offenders at Inverclyde, which encompasses a national facility and a facility to cater for the needs of those prisoners from the west coast of Scotland, where the highest number of female offenders would reside upon release from prison. This is scheduled to open in the summer of 2017.

The building of a female specific Regional Unit at HMP Edinburgh, which will cater for female offenders in the east of Scotland, is scheduled to open in the autumn/winter of 2016, again displays the emphasis the SPS has placed on ensuring that offenders are located as close as possible to their own home area to support the throughcare and re-integration process upon release.

Additionally, HMP Inverclyde is proposing to have ‘roll on, roll off’ visit sessions where families, after having booked the day they will attend, are able to spend as much time as is available at the visit with their female relative. With the commitment to build a family centre and help hub at Inverclyde, this again supports the SPS priority of ensuring that the families attending visits at establishments needs are met.

Further to this is the proposal to provide technology at both sites, which will support virtual visits and enhance the links with family, and with the increased use of video conference technology currently being rolled out across the SPS, this is currently supporting communication and interaction of families at a number of sites across the SPS for all prisoners who are currently not located at an establishment close to their home area, where visiting may present difficulties.

There is a family centre and help hub currently being built at HMP Grampian, and this supports the needs of those family members attending visits, and they can be catered for with regard to additional support for partner and third sector agencies, and be provided with refreshments or food before, during or after their visit. Family or visitor centres are also located at HMP and YOI Cornton Vale and HMP Edinburgh.

The SPS is also part of the wider Assisted Prison Visits Scheme, where families can apply for financial support for visiting family members in custody. They can claim for up to 26 visits per calendar year.’’

The information requested can be found in the following table:

An additional £3 million of Scottish Government funding will be distributed in May 2015 according to local authorities’ actual expenditure on discretionary housing payments. This distribution was agreed with COSLA on 29 August 2014.

The initial allocation of £20 million was included in the 2014-15 local government finance settlement from 1 April 2014 and is being paid to individual local authorities on a weekly basis as part of their general revenue grant allocations. An additional £15 million was held back whilst negotiations were ongoing with the UK Government around the removal of the cap on Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs). Following agreement with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, £12 million of this will be paid in the last two weeks of March 2015, the remaining £3 million being paid in May 2015 following the publication of DHP statistics which will allow the Scottish Government to reimburse local authorities according to actual DHP expenditure.

The funding was announced in advance of the Scottish budget in February 2014 and I wrote to each local authority on 28 March 2014 to confirm that they would receive sufficient funding to fully mitigate the bedroom tax in 2014-15.

I assume the member is referring to cases where a judge or sheriff has appointed a child welfare reporter (formerly known as a bar reporter) to assist in cases such as contact or residence under section 11 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995.

Child welfare reporters do not have to be solicitors although our understanding is that most of them are. It may not be possible to raise a complaint with the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission about the standard of service provided by a child welfare reporter who is also a solicitor. This is because there is no direct client/solicitor relationship between the reporter and a party to the case. The reporter is appointed by the court, rather than by one of the parties to a case. Section 2(1)(b) of the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007 lays down that service complaints are suggestions that “professional services provided by a practitioner in connection with any matter in which the practitioner has been instructed by a client were inadequate”.

Any concerns about a report by a child welfare reporter or the conduct of the reporter should be raised with the judge or the sheriff dealing with the case. Any general concerns about the quality of work provided by a specific child welfare reporter could be raised with the sheriff principal or the Lord President. For sheriff courts, the sheriff principal maintains a list of those persons who may be appointed as a child welfare reporter in the sheriffdom: the Lord President maintains a similar list for the Court of Session.

Any complaints about the conduct of a solicitor could be raised with the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission. Conduct complaints are suggestions of professional misconduct or unsatisfactory professional conduct. Any such complaints could include the conduct of a solicitor whilst performing the role of a child welfare reporter. The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission would need to consider if they have authority to consider such a complaint. If the commission decides it does have authority to consider a complaint relating to conduct, it would then pass the complaint to the relevant professional body for investigation.

The government has been leading a working group on child welfare reporters. More information on this working group is available on the government’s website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/law/17867/reporters

The £9 million Hardgrove to Kinmount improvement project was opened to traffic on 27 June 2014. This was a significant achievement given its construction took place over one of the wettest winters in recent memory.

This information is not held centrally.