Chamber and committees

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

Emergency Response Training is compulsory for all SPS operational staff. This training provides staff with the skill to perform immediate care, until the arrival of medical help, to aid any person, or persons, who become injured or suddenly ill. All prisons are operationally staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The report Women's Service and Pathways Across the Forensic Mental Health Estate has been prepared by the Forensic Mental Health Services Managed Care Network working with NHS Boards. It will be published in due course by the Forensic Network.

The Independent Review of Forensic Mental Health Services in Scotland is undertaking a wide-ranging review of the delivery of forensic mental health services and must take account of existing pieces of work, including this report.

More than £400 million has been invested in the DSSB programme, which has provided access to fibre broadband to over 940,000 premises to date - over 100,000 more premises than originally estimated - with over 90% of those premises capable of accessing download speeds of at least 24 Megabits per second (Mbps).

Higher than anticipated take-up of services has resulted in funding being returned to the DSSB contracts across Scotland - including the recently announced £3 million for the Highlands & Islands contract - extending coverage even further.

As this is a national programme, it is not possible to provide a geographic breakdown of funding. However, to date, 9,983 premises on the Orkney Islands have been supported, and areas such as Holm and Tankerness will benefit from this additional investment.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information at present. As stated in the answer to S5W-20884 on 30 January 2019, the Scottish Government are currently working with the Scottish Prison Service to develop a shared approach to publishing the data captured by the operational database (as well as the range of historical data held) and making more data and information accessible to users.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

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

The decision to remove any individual in our care from association is always done in accordance with Rule 95 of the Prisons and Young Offenders Institutions (Scotland) Rules 2011.

An individual may only be removed from association and accommodated in a Separation and Reintegration Unit (SRU) where the Governor is satisfied that it is appropriate for maintaining good order or discipline; protecting the interests of any person; or ensuring the safety of others.

Individuals are only removed from association on a temporary basis and a management plan should always be devised, at the earliest possible opportunity, in order to support reintegration.

As part of the normalisation routine, people held in SRUs are afforded the opportunity to engage in outside exercise, education and the use of other SRU facilities including gym areas, when available.

Additionally, people held in SRUs retain their entitlement to access family visits, phone calls and mail correspondence.

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

SPS does not record the number of hours that people in our care spend in their cells.

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

There have been no transfers made directly from prisons in Scotland to Rampton Hospital in each of the last 10 years.

However in the last 10 years SPS has worked in partnership with NHS and HMPPS to manage the transfer of two women in our care to a high secure hospital in England; one in 2011 and one in 2014.

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

This quote from the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) report was made specifically in relation to HMP Barlinnie, not the wider SPS estate.

On Friday 1 November 2019 HMP Barlinnie was operating at 144% capacity. HMP Barlinnie has been routinely operating significantly above its intended capacity for some time and this has had a notable impact upon the operation of the prison.

Where any prison routinely operates above capacity then this inevitably impacts upon the ability to provide an enhanced regime across. HMP Barlinnie’s building design also inhibits open association and in order to ensure the safety of people in our care, out of cell activity requires `more structured delivery than at other prisons.

The CPT report highlighted that in the other prisons they visited, including HMP Edinburgh and HMP & YOI Grampian, people held on remand were provided the opportunity for out of cell activity which exceeded two hours per day.

In 2018/19 SPS facilitated a total of 6,258,125 Purposeful Activity (PA) Hours. This equates to, on average, 20 hours per week of PA, undertaken by each convicted person outside of their cell.

Scotland continues to attract more than its pro-rata share under the GB-wide Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) with around 19% of both domestic and non-domestic accredited installations being in Scotland.

The Scottish Government currently provides two loan schemes for self-funders and small to medium size enterprises (SME’s). The Home Energy Scotland Loan scheme provides individuals with interest-free loans up to the value of £38,500 (with up to £17,500 available for renewables) via the Energy Saving Trust for energy efficiency and renewable measures. The Resource Efficient Scotland SME Loans Scheme provides unsecured, interest free loans of up to £100,000 to SMEs to finance the installation of energy efficiency measures, and loans at a 5% interest rate for the installation of renewable energy technologies where the applicant is planning to claim the Renewable Heat Incentive. Since inception, the SME loan scheme has paid over £29 million in loans, funding more than 1000 projects. The uptake of renewable technologies also allows the applicants to apply for UK Government RHI subsidy which is administered via Ofgem.

The Scottish Government funds the Home Energy Scotland advice service which provides expert, bespoke advice and support to consumers on the uptake of renewables and energy efficient measures. Advice is also available to the non-domestic sector through Resource Efficient Scotland.

The Scottish Government has also provided around £40 million in funding through the Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Programme and the District Heating Loan Fund for low carbon heat projects.

We have recently launched the £30 million Scottish Low Carbon Heat Funding Invitation for local and industrial heat projects; committed to working with the construction sector so that new homes consented from 2024 use renewable or low carbon heat; and will bring forward a Heat Networks Bill supporting the growth of heat networks in Scotland.

Next Summer we will publish a new heat decarbonisation policy statement outlining how we can better reduce the emissions associated with heating homes and buildings.

The deployment of Scottish police officers to other UK police forces, on Mutual Aid, is an operational matter for the Chief Constable. The police force requesting Mutual Aid pays the supplying force on a cost recovery basis and Police Scotland utilise the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) "Guidelines on Charging for Police Services: Mutual Aid Cost Recovery" (link below) when working with other forces to agree funding for Mutual Aid deployments.

https://www.npcc.police.uk/documents/PoliceCertificates/NPCC%20Guidelines%20on%20Charging%20for%20PS_MA%20April_2019.pdf .