Chamber and committees

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The Scottish Government is currently considering draft guidance which was prepared by the Scottish Restorative Justice Forum in 2015, along with extensive and constructive feedback on that draft which was provided by key victim support organisations.

While the Scottish Government is keen to publish guidance as soon as possible, it is crucial to ensure that this takes into account the views of those with expertise in both restorative justice and victims’ issues. A further draft of the guidance will be developed by the Scottish Government and circulated to the Scottish Restorative Justice Forum and victim support organisations by the end of March 2016 for comment and discussion, but the final guidance will not be published during the current parliamentary session.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-29572 on 10 February 2016. 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.

Preparatory work for the establishment and administration of the victim surcharge fund is on-going. The timetable for the introduction of the fund has been influenced by a number of factors, including further detailed consideration of viable options for delivery and the potential role of third sector or other organisations in this process. To inform this consideration, I have asked my officials to engage with key victim support organisations and others with experience of administering similar schemes to determine how the fund can be most effectively managed and delivered to benefit the victims of crime.

These planned discussions will inform the timing of the establishment of the fund and first payments during the next Parliament. Further details of how the fund will operate must be set out in subordinate legislation, which will be subject to parliamentary approval in due course.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.