Questions and answers

Question reference: S4W-24102

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 3 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what projects supporting women offenders in the community it will provide support for in 2015-16, broken down by funding.

The Scottish Government has identified an overall community justice budget for 2015-16 of £113.2 million – which includes over £95 million allocated under Section 27 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 to Community Justice Authorities to deliver criminal justice social work services.

The allocation of funding each Community Justice Authority does not specify how much funding is to be allocated to support women offenders. Provision of funds to specific projects or areas of work is a matter for local community justice partners. Community Justice Authorities have the flexibility to allocate this funding as they see fit across their area, in accordance with their area action plans, and in the way they see as most appropriate to fulfil their statutory obligations and to reduce reoffending.

A number of payments will be made specifically to projects supporting women offenders. An annual payment of £1.7 million is made to support the 218 Centre in Glasgow. The Reducing Reoffending Change Fund has been sustained into 2015-17, with funding of up to £3 million from the Scottish Government, and it will continue to support projects including the national mentoring service for women offenders (which received £1.3 million annually in 2013-15), as well as services for both men and women delivered by Tayside Council on alcohol (£155k annually), and Voluntary Action South Lanarkshire (£90k annually).

In addition, I indicated on 28 January 2015 that a further £1.5 million will be made available specifically to support community justice services for women in 2015-16.

Question reference: S4W-24099

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 3 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it allocated to each community justice authority for (a) 2013-14 and (b) 2014-15, and how much it will allocate in 2015-16.

The allocation of funding to each community justice authority (CJA) area in 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 is as follows:

	Fife and Forth Valley	Glasgow	Lanarkshire	Lothian and Borders
2013-14	£12,562,852	£18,183,684	£11,668,036	£14,544,205
2014-15	£11,853,431	£18,120,784	£10,935,194	£14,586,007
2015-16	£12,166,592	£17,948,674	£10,926,872	£14,708,692

	Northern	North Strathclyde	South West Scotland	Tayside
2013-14	£12,247,626	£10,233,282	£9,516,975	£7,828,587
2014-15	£12,214,634	£10,130,463	£9,532,692	£7,827,932
2015-16	£12,023,075	£10,000,494	£9,657,964	£7,765,060

	Total
2013-14	£96,785,247
2014-15	£95,201,137
2015-16	£95,197,422

Any year-on-year changes are reflective of CJA-specific projects and pilots beginning or ending (with funding being changed as a result), as well as changes in criminal justice social work workload being reflected in the allocation to individual CJA areas.

Question reference: S4W-24068

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 16 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 29 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how many police (a) officers and (b) staff undertake the role of firearms enquiry officer.

Question reference: S4W-24067

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 16 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 29 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how many police staff posts will be lost as a consequence of proposed changes to the firearms licensing function arising from the national firearms licensing review.

Question reference: S4W-24060

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 16 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 29 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it has not implemented the provisions of the Custodial Sentences and Weapons (Scotland) Act 2007, as amended by the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, with regard to the release arrangements that apply to prison sentences.

In 2008, the independent Scotland’s Choice – report of the Scottish Prisons Commission recommended that implementation of the release arrangements contained in the Custodial Sentences and Weapons (Scotland) Act 2007 should ‘‘…follow the implementation of this Commission's other recommendations and the achievement of reductions in the short sentence prison population.’’

The Scottish Government agreed and continues to agree with the view of the McLeish Commission in relation to fundamental reform of the system of early release only being able to follow a sustained reduction in the prison population.

Question reference: S4W-24036

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 29 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it provided to community justice centres in (a) Edinburgh, (b) Glasgow, (c) Aberdeen and (d) Dundee in (i) 2013-14 and (ii) 2014-15.

The Scottish Government issued grant funding in 2013-15 to sixteen projects across Scotland, to support the development of community justice services for women. These grants were made in addition to the annual allocation of funding for community justice activity given to Community Justice Authorities.

The grant allocation to projects in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee was as follows:

Location	Project	2013-14	2014-15
Edinburgh	Willow project	£305,184	£298,835
Glasgow	Tomorrow’s Women Glasgow	£274,556	£388,078
Aberdeen	Women offenders project	£54,954	£194,778

The grant allocation to support women offender services in Dundee supported proposals made by Dundee criminal justice social work (CJSW) leadership, and was used to recruit additional staff into the Dundee City CJSW women offenders team, working from their existing premises.

Location	Project	2013-14	2014-15
Dundee	CJSW women offenders team	£118,800	£118,800

Question reference: S4W-24035

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 29 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has allocated to support for women offenders in the community in the 2015-16 budget.

The Scottish Government has identified an overall community justice budget for 2015-16 of £113.2 million – which includes over £95 million allocated under Section 27 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 to Community Justice Authorities to deliver criminal justice social work services. This funding supports services for both men and women, throughout Scotland.

The budget allocation does not specify how much funding is to be allocated to support women offenders. Provision of funds to specific projects or areas of work is a matter for local community justice partners. Community Justice Authorities have the flexibility to allocate this funding as they see fit across their area, in accordance with their area action plans, and in the way they see as most appropriate to fulfil their statutory obligations and to reduce reoffending.

This budget includes the Scottish Government’s input to the Reducing Reoffending Change Fund, which has been renewed for 2015-17, to use up to £4 million annually to continue support for offender mentoring services for men and women.

Question reference: S4W-24037

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 29 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it provided to projects supporting women offenders in the community, other than community justice centres, in (a) 2013-14 and (b) 2014-15, also broken down by project.

In 2013-14 and 2014-15 the Scottish Government allocated grant funding to support the development of projects providing community justice services for women, in line with the recommendations of the Commission on Women Offenders’ report. These grants were made in addition to the annual allocation of funding for community justice activity to Community Justice Authorities (CJA).

The allocations were made in response to proposals submitted by local community justice bodies, for the development of services which they considered would help meet the needs of the local population, and which could be sustained by local resources at the conclusion of the grant funding.

The answer to question S4W-24036 on 29 January 2015 set out the grant funding provided to community justice centre projects in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. The remaining grants were as follows:

Location	Project	2013-14	2014-15
Aberdeenshire	Women’s services development officer	-	£61,697
Angus	Glen Isla outreach project	£71,581	£137,162
Ayrshire	Kilmarnock court support project	-	£45,500
Dunbartonshire	Women offender groupwork project	-	£35,529
Dundee	Criminal justice social work (CJSW) women offenders team	£118,000	£118,000
Inverclyde	Women’s services centre	-	£94,278
Inverness	Groupwork/outdoor work project	-	£23,000
Fife	Outreach project	£65,715	£131,430
Falkirk and Forth Valley	Women offender support network	£26,305	£48,869
North Lanarkshire	CJSW women offenders team	£90,000	£180,000
North Strathclyde	Renfrewshire CJSW womens’ service	£23,000	£46,000
South Lanarkshire	CJSW women offenders team	£59,000	£118,000
South West Scotland	Early and effective intervention project	£35,548	£71,097

Additional projects:

Location	Project	2013-14	2014-15
Northern CJA	Women offender services research	-	£50,000
Glasgow	Enhanced diversion project	-	£60,400

National evaluation of
women offender projects

£118,100

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Question reference: S4O-03974

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 January 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how it will support town centre regeneration in Dumfriesshire in 2015-16.

Question reference: S4W-24019

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 28 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether secondary legislation is required to enable the establishment of the Scottish sentencing council and, if so, how long it will take to introduce it.

Chamber and committees