Chamber and committees

Our British Sign Language (BSL) National Plan which we published in October 2017 sets out specific steps we will take by 2020 to support the teaching and learning of BSL. This includes working with Scotland’s National Centre for Languages to provide resources which will enable our schools to offer BSL alongside other languages. We believe this will play a crucial role in supporting and promoting BSL in Scotland, however it is the decision of each individual school and local authority as to which languages are taught and as such the Scottish Government is unable to intervene in these decisions.

Local authorities and other listed authorities are required by the British Sign Language (BSL) Scotland Act 20156 to publish their own BSL Plans by October 2018. These plans could include strategies for increasing access to affordable BSL classes in local areas.

Our British Sign Language (BSL) National Plan sets out our long-term goal that families with a Deaf child will be offered the information and support they need at the right time, including access to BSL.

We want to ensure that parents, grandparents and carers are able to learn BSL, so that they can communicate effectively with their D/deaf or Deafblind child in the crucial early years, and we are working with partners to explore how this can be provided on a consistent and sustainable basis across the country.

We are also supporting the National Deaf Children’s Society which delivers free events and courses including Family Sign Language, and we are working with the British Deaf Association to test out a new approach to supporting older D/deaf and Deafblind children and young people, and their families to learn BSL.

The management of prosecutions, including rape, is a matter for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service whilst the management of court business is a matter for the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service.

Within COPFS, all sexual offence cases are dealt with by specialist prosecutors. The way in which this work is undertaken has been reorganised, with a view to speeding up case preparation; and to reducing the time which it takes to bring cases to trial.

In November 2017, the Inspectorate of Prosecutions made twelve recommendations for further improving the way in which COPFS handles sexual offences; the Lord Advocate accepted all of those recommendations; a number of which have been implemented already and work is in hand towards implementation of the others.

Victims of traumatic crimes deserve to know that they will receive appropriate support and assistance through the criminal justice process, whilst also ensuring fair trials for those accused of serious crimes. The Scottish Government is committed to working with a number of partners including Rape Crisis Scotland and Scottish Women’s Aid to identify ways to reduce the trauma and improve the experience of victims within the criminal justice system.

The Scottish Government does not collect statistics on the number of foster carers who re-register as supported carers under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. This information is held by individual local authorities or independent or voluntary service providers.

The Scottish Government does not collect statistics on the number of foster carer registrations. Local authorities and independent or voluntary service providers hold information on the number of foster carers they have registered with them.

The Care Inspectorate have been collecting some information on foster carer registrations since 2015 and according to their Fostering and Adoption Statistical Bulletin 2016-17, there were 430 new foster carer households approved in the year up to 31 December 2016 (down 7% from 464 households in 2015). The Care Inspectorate do not hold information on foster carer registrations prior to this.

http://www.careinspectorate.com/images/documents/4140/Fostering%20and%20adoption%202016-17%20statistical%20bulletin.pdf .

The management of prosecutions, including rape, is a matter for Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) while the management of court business is a matter for the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service.

Serious sexual offences, principally rape, now account for around 75% of all High Court trials. In recent years there has been a significant and sustained increase in the number of sexual crimes reported to COPFS, with an unprecedented increase of 42% in the number of cases in which criminal proceedings were commenced in the last year alone.

Against that background, COPFS has reorganised the way its specialist prosecutors work in order to speed up case preparation and reduce the time which it takes to bring cases to trial. Particular efforts have been made to address the pre-petition workload which contributes to the journey time from report to trial, as a result of which COPFS has reduced the number of such cases from 700 in 2016 to approximately 200 today.

The Scottish Government is committed to finding ways to improve the criminal justice system as it affects all victims, and especially victims of sexual crime. Delays in the court process can contribute to stress, anxiety and reluctance on the part of witnesses. In this regard the Lord Advocate has accepted all of the recommendations made by the Inspector of Prosecutions in her recent report, and the Law Officers and COPFS are working hard with colleagues across the system to improve the efficient administration of justice in this important area.

Scottish Government research in 2016 into the drivers of the gender pay gap showed that the gap in the finance sector was mainly due to women not progressing to senior positions as quickly as their male counterparts or to roles more likely to attract bonus payments. This is unacceptable.

To help employers we are providing £205,000 to Close the Gap for July 2017- June 18 to challenge and change employment practices and workplace cultures.

As announced in the Child Poverty Action Plan we are establishing a Gender Pay Gap Working Group that includes expert stakeholders such as Close the Gap, Engender and STUC. The working group, which I will chair, will identify specific actions to reduce gender pay gaps across sectors as a key element of the Scottish Government’s inclusive growth vision.

In September 2017 the Scottish Government awarded £48,500 to Women Returners Ltd to deliver the Returners to Financial Services Scotland Programme. This will assist professionally qualified women who have had a career break to return to work in the finance sector.

The Scottish Government will continue to encourage all employers to tackle gender inequalities. That is why we promote Close the Gap’s free online toolkit to assist employers to report their gender pay gap to comply with the regulations. We are also providing £159,000 for 2018-19 to Family Friendly Working Scotland Partnership to support and promote development of family friendly workplaces.

Local authorities operate independently of central government and are accountable to their electorates for the services they provide. Local authorities have broad powers under section 69 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and section 20 of the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 to make reasonable charges for services provided. Decisions on how much to charge for local services are for local authorities, not for the Scottish Government, to take.

Provisions relating to the use of sexual history and character evidence in sexual offence trials are contained in sections 274 and 275 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995. The operation of the law in this area was subject to a full and independent evaluation in 2007. The law in this area has not changed substantively since the 2007 evaluation.

In December 2015 a commitment was made to Parliament to undertake a small high level data collection project to review the usage of the provisions in section 274/275 of the 1995 Act. This exercise concluded in June 2016 and the results can be found here:

http://www.parliament.scot/General%20Documents/20160624CSfJtoConvenerILR.pdf .

The Scottish Government is working with Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service to interrogate this data further. This exercise will inform any future consideration of the operation of the law in this area.

The Scottish Government welcomes the transparency that the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulation 2017 can help deliver. All those subject to the Act's provisions should comply with them and not seek to avoid reporting any gender pay gap in their organisation.