Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government want all victims to have the confidence to report sexual crimes, including those that may have happened some time ago. A Scottish Government led Governance Group has now been established, comprising key stakeholder interests, to enable progress and detailed consideration of the recommendations within Lord Justice Clerk’s Review Group report on improving the management of sexual offence cases.

We remain absolutely committed to improving the justice system to respond better to the needs of survivors in Scotland and it is hoped that this work will go some way to addressing any barriers to reporting.

The creation of Police Scotland has transformed the way rape and other sexual crimes are investigated in Scotland allowing far greater consistency of approach, including the training of police officers and use of specialist officers.

The Scottish Government also recognises the key role that advocacy services play in helping victims come forward and engage with the justice process, like those provided by Rape Crisis Scotland, which is why we fully fund the RCS National Advocacy Project.

Violence against women and girls is a devastating violation of human rights and any increase in reports of these types of crimes is concerning.

The Scottish Government has taken robust action to help justice agencies tackle sexual offending by improving and making much clearer the operation of our sexual offence laws, providing the necessary funding to support law enforcement efforts to deal with sexual offending and encouraging more victims of recent and historical cases to come forward so that justice can be achieved.

Our Programme for Government committed to legislating for a statutory right to lifelong anonymity for complainers in sexual offence cases, and a Scottish Government led Governance Group has now been established, comprising key stakeholder interests, to enable progress and detailed consideration of the recommendations within Lord Justice Clerk’s Review Group report on improving the management of sexual offence cases.

Our £100 million three-year commitment to tackling violence against women and girls includes a new Delivering Equally Safe Fund which will direct £38 million to frontline services over the next two years.

The Scottish Government welcomed and supported the recommendation of the Virtual Trials National Project Board, which has the potential to deliver significant benefits for victims by reducing the traumatising impact of the court environment. The Report acknowledges that existing legislation with guidance issued by the Lord Justice General could support the further use of virtual trials. We will consider the need for legislation in a future consultation exercise.

Lord Advocate’s guidelines to Police Scotland on the use of Recorded Police Warnings have been in place for a number of years. My statement to the Scottish Parliament on 22 September 2021 was reflected in a corresponding amendment to the guidelines.

The current guidelines permit a police officer to issue a Recorded Police Warning in relation to an offence involving simple possession of all classes of controlled drug.

As per the Lord Advocate’s Statement to the Scottish Parliament on 22 September 2021, the scope of the recorded police warning scheme has been extended to include possession only offences of Class A drugs. The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of recorded police warnings issued, nor the number of people that have been referred to drug treatment services in these cases. This information is held by Police Scotland.

National Records of Scotland produce an annual National Statistics publication each year on drug-related deaths in Scotland. The most recent report provides information on drug-related deaths details in 2020 and earlier years. Section 7 of the report provides an overview of drug-related deaths by substances implicated. Tables SUB1 and SUB2 provide information on the substances which were reported for drug-related deaths in Scotland between 2000 and 2020. Tables HBX and CX provide figures for individual drugs, for NHS Boards and councils. Annex E and Table NPS1 provide information relating to New Psychoactive Substances.

The full report and supplementary tables can be accessed from the following link: Drug-related Deaths in Scotland in 2020 | National Records of Scotland (nrscotland.gov.uk)

Hospital admissions

Public Health Scotland information on hospital activity relating to illicit drug use in Scotland are not specific enough to identify the substances specified (heroin and methadone are the only opioids with specific ICD-10 diagnostic codes).

The emergence of new drugs is regularly monitored by Public Health Scotland and, following the alert from Public Health England in 2021, work is underway to incorporate screening for isotonitazene into toxicology procedures for both drug-related deaths and police seizures in Scotland.

In relation to detection of substances, unfortunately we do not hold information broken down to the level of detail requested. Scottish Government publish statistics on the number of drug possession and supply crimes and the quantities seized. These statistics relate to drugs controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The full report can be accessed via this link:

Drug seizures and Offender Characteristics, 2018-2019 and 2019-20 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Psychoactive Substance Act 2016 made it an offence to produce, supply, offer to supply, possess with intent to supply, possess on custodial premises, import or export psychoactive substances. The number of crimes of production, supply or possession in custody of a psychoactive substance was 2 in 2018-19, 10 in 2019-20 and 8 in 2020-21 (source: annex of the above noted report).

The Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce has funded a project through Stirling University to research and develop the key components required to implement Drug Checking facilities in three areas in Scotland (Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen). Research began in January 2021 and will conclude with an evaluation report in January 2023. The project will also include a parallel programme of implementation.

The project team has committed to submitting applications to the Home Office in early 2022. Assuming support from the Home Office is forthcoming, we expect services to be established in Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow in 2022.

We have highlighted our desire to introduce these facilities to the Home Office as any activity which involves the possession of controlled drugs would require a Home Office licence. Kit Malthouse, the UK Government Minister for Policing, has indicated that he is open to discussing this with the Scottish Government and conversations have taken place between Scottish and UK officials to progress this.

From September 2021 we have introduced quarterly reporting of suspected drug-related deaths, providing far more timely data on the DRD crisis/situation for the first time. This report uses management information from Police Scotland on suspected drug deaths. The second publication of these suspected figures was in December 2021 and covered the period from July to September 2021 ( Suspected drug deaths in Scotland: July to September 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ). The next report will be published in March 2022 and will cover suspected deaths up to the end of December 2021.

We continue to work with Police Scotland, Public Health Scotland and National Records of Scotland to review the surveillance data we have, review quality and determine whether additional information could be published in the future.

The early warning system, referenced in the Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce’s Interim Report, is on track to be developed and rolled out by 31 March 2022.

Public Health Scotland is leading the development and will operate this system by working closely with Health Boards to monitor information on drug harms. The early warning system will review evidence of trends or clusters of drug harms or deaths and support early, targeted and intelligence-led action in response. When concerns about clusters or trends in drug harms are identified, a risk assessment will be completed to guide actions and communicate risks where appropriate.

An advisory group will be in place to ensure actions are taken at a local and national level to reduce further harms.