Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government agrees that the physical punishment of children in any form can damage their wellbeing and is likely to be detrimental either physically or emotionally. The Scottish Government has noted that the Equally Protected? report says that “a link between physical punishment and child maltreatment was consistently supported in the reviewed literature”. The Scottish Government has also noted that the report says that there “is strong and consistent evidence from good-quality research that physical punishment is associated with increased childhood aggression and antisocial behaviour”. The report also says that “there is fairly consistent evidence for a link between childhood physical punishment and adult aggression or antisocial behaviour” and “there is good evidence that the experience of physical punishment is related to depressive symptoms and anxiety among children. Links with depressive symptoms and reduced self-esteem in later life were also reported, but were less consistent.” Finally, the Scottish Government has noted that the report says that one of the key messages is that "physical punishment is not effective in achieving parenting goals" and that is why the national parenting strategy seeks to ensure that all parents are educated, informed and supported to care for their children using acceptable forms of boundary setting.

The Scottish Government considers that in many cases it is necessary to have specific provision to protect children from violence. For example, section 12 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 contains a specific criminal offence in relation to cruelty to persons under 16. The Scottish Government will continue to keep all legislation designed to protect children from violence under review.

The Scottish Government recognises that there are differing views on whether to change the law on physical punishment of children. As we would do with any proposal to change the law, we would want to consult widely. The Scottish Government continues to work with Children 1st and other partners on this important issue. We also wish to learn from the experience of other countries that have legislated to prohibit the physical punishment of children, such as Sweden, Ireland and New Zealand.

The Scottish Government welcomes the publication of this report. The Scottish Government does not support the physical punishment of children and does not consider that physical punishment of children is effective. The Scottish Government has noted that the report outlines what research says on the consequences of physical punishment for children’s health and development, as well as on their later life health and wellbeing.

The Scottish Legal Aid Board data show that the percentage of applications for criminal legal aid that are granted has remained steady over the past three years at around 93% for summary proceedings and 96% for solemn proceedings. Therefore, evidence shows that it is inaccurate to claim that more people are appearing unrepresented as a consequence of reducing legal aid budgets. When individuals satisfy the eligibility criteria, they will continue to receive legal aid in our demand led legal aid system.

In terms of civil legal aid, we are committed to maintain the current wide scope of legal aid available, and achieving efficiencies in the operation of the legal aid system will support the delivery of that continuing commitment. That has not been the case in England and Wales where people can no longer access legal aid to help with some family, medical, housing and welfare benefit problems and their only option is to represent themselves.

In Scotland, we were able to increase the legal aid budget by £3.6 million (2.5%) in 2015-16 but that has proved unsustainable in the face of the Westminster settlement this year. The stark financial reality is that we must manage expenditure on legal aid through efficiencies and simplification if we are to protect access to justice and maintain the current generous legal aid system.

We believe there is potential for significant efficiencies and simplification of the current system that can deliver savings without affecting access to justice. The Law Society of Scotland set out ways in which efficiency and streamlining could be achieved in its paper on legal assistance. We are reviewing the legal aid system and intend to continue to work closely with the Scottish Legal Aid Board and the Law Society of Scotland to develop a more efficient and streamlined legal aid system.

We are committed to maintaining the broad scope of civil legal aid and avoid the approach taken in England and Wales where there is limited availability of legal aid. It should be noted that the legal aid system in Scotland is highly regarded by our international colleagues who admire the way in which the Scottish Government has been able to make efficiencies without compromising the scope of legal aid.

Legal aid in Scotland will continue to be a demand led system and all who are eligible will continue to receive legal aid – no one will be turned away and therefore there is no anticipated negative impact on access to justice.

Statutory responsibility for fire safety awareness lies with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS), which must use its resources to ensure that campaigns are targeted where they are needed most.

The Scottish Government is very supportive of the excellent fire safety awareness work undertaken by SFRS which regularly runs fire safety awareness campaigns, at both local and national levels, at various key points during the year, including a full winter safety media campaign covering a range of fire safety issues.

SFRS is also responsible for fire safety enforcement in non-domestic premises and promotes awareness at various events and during the course of its engagement with duty holders during fire safety audits.

The SFRS website is also an excellent source of domestic and non-domestic fire safety advice.

The Scottish Government specifically asked the Regulatory Review Group to consider this issue in its review and will consider this recommendation, along with the report’s other recommendations. This will include exploring the options for introducing such a requirement through legislative or non-legislative means and assess the impact of any regulation on providers of third party risk assessment services.

This is not a recommendation of the BRE briefing paper. The guidance referred to in the paper is the sector specific guidance which is published by the Scottish Government on its FireLaw webpages and is intended to assist those who have responsibility for ensuring fire safety of relevant premises covered by Part 3 of the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005, known as “duty holders”.

The paper recommends that the guidance be updated with relevant findings from the research work to reduce false alarms. The recent Regulatory Review Group (RRG) report Review of Part 3 of the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 also makes the recommendation that the sector specific guidance be reviewed, and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) and the Scottish Government are considering the RRG report to establish how best to take forward the necessary work. The findings of the BRE paper will be taken into consideration in the process of that review.

The SFRS is working closely with duty holders to reduce unwanted fire alarms which occur from a variety of sources, including manual call points.

The Regulatory Review Group’s report Review of Part 3 of the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 makes the recommendation that the sector specific guidance, which is published by the Scottish Government on its Firelaw webpages, be reviewed. The Scottish Government was pleased to read in that report that the sector specific guidance is considered useful, and we will work closely with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) and other partners to review the guidance, bring it up to date, and consider carefully any improvements that can be made. The current guidance includes information on reducing false alarms, and we will consider the findings of the BRE paper as part of this work. Whilst preliminary work with SFRS has already begun, this is likely to be a lengthy process and a timetable for the completion of the revision of the guidance is being developed.