Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has not had any discussions to date, relating to the introduction of a national garden waste tax.

Decisions on local service provision and charges are for local authorities to make. However we want to make sure that the best choice for the environment is also the easy choice for households and will be consulting in May on a new set of measures to achieve our waste and recycling targets to 2025 and beyond.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of reported incidents of door-to-door scams. Some information is available from a 2018-19 study into police recorded fraud in Scotland, the findings of which were presented within the Recorded crime in Scotland 2018-19 National Statistics .

This study suggested that ‘fraudulent selling’ accounts for approximately 12% of fraud crimes, equivalent to 1,160 crimes. This typically relates to where a victim has paid for a service or product (either in person or through the internet) that the perpetrator has no intention of providing. This could include through online transactions, or payments to bogus workmen. Further analysis of this group suggests that an estimated 270 crimes of recorded fraud (or 3% of all fraud) involved a perpetrator knocking on the victim’s door, taking money and not providing a service.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of reported incidents of online scams, though estimates are available on the volume of police recorded fraud that was cyber-enabled over 2018-19 to 2020-21 (see the following table). Further detail is available in Table A12 of the 2020-21 recorded crime National Statistics .

As with other types of crime, not all cases of fraud are reported to the police, and cyber-enabled fraud can potentially encompass a wide range of incident types.

At least part of the increase in 2020-21 may be due to the significant impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and government instructions to limit social contact. For example, in their ‘ Crime in England and Wales : year ending March 2021’ release, the Office for National Statistics noted that an increase in fraud and computer misuse offences could reflect perpetrators taking advantage of behavioural changes during the pandemic, such as increased online shopping.

Furthermore, a procedural change was made to the recording of international crime in 2020-21, whereby cases carried out by a perpetrator who was likely to be outside the UK are now included. This change resulted in an estimated 900 additional crimes of cyber-enabled fraud being recorded in the latest year. Estimates for 2021-22 will be published later in the year as part of the 2021-22 recorded crime National Statistics.

Police recorded fraud in Scotland that was estimated to be cyber-enabled.

The National Referral Mechanism is the UK-wide framework for identifying victims of human
trafficking and exploitation and ensuring they receive appropriate support. The NRM is
operated by the Single Competent Authority and Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority
within the Home Office.

NRM data can be accessed via the Modern Slavery: National Referral Mechanism statistics which
contains records back to 2013.

In terms of police recorded crime statistics, there is no single crime of slavery. However multiple
types of crime involve, or can involve, slavery. A list of these is provided below. Further information
on slavery related activity is also available from the Anti-Slavery Commissioner, within their
Annual Report . The data the Scottish Government receives from Police Scotland is a general count
of the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police, split by local authority. We do not receive
further details on the characteristics of these cases, including the number of victims.

Slavery or forced labour

Human organ offences

Immoral traffic

Procuration (excluding homosexual offences)

Procuration (homosexual offences)

Breach of trafficking and exploitation order

Most of these crime types fall under the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015.
This came into effect on 31 May 2016, with the first recorded crimes falling in the 2016-17 recording
year (see Table One below). Prior to this act there were no straightforward means to track crimes of
slavery.

Table 2 shows the number of Immoral traffic and Procuration-based crimes recorded in Scotland since
1999 (both of which are classified as crimes associated with prostitution). It should be noted that the
same crimes are shown in Tables 1 and 2 for Immoral traffic over 2016-17 to 2020-21. This is because
the data we hold does not identify which crimes of Immoral traffic relate to the Human Trafficking and
Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015, and which relate to earlier legislation.

Table 1 – Recorded crimes under the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015,
Scotland, 2016-17 to 2020-21

The Scottish Government is committed to understanding the health inequalities faced by people experiencing homelessness, and improving the way health and housing services work together to promote an integrated and holistic model of care.

GP registration is the main way to gain access to the vast majority of NHS healthcare services. The Scottish Government published patient registration guidance in September 2018 clarifying that patients do not require proof of identity or address to register with a general practice. The inability by a patient to provide identification or proof of address is not considered reasonable grounds to refuse or delay registering a patient.

We know that poor health is both a cause and a consequence of homelessness and that is why homelessness must be seen as both a housing and a health matter. In recognition of the need for collective responsibility across public services to prevent homelessness, we are consulting on plans to introduce new homelessness prevention duties, including on public bodies in health and social care, to ask about a person’s housing circumstances and act where a problem is identified.

Despite the promised £290 million from the UK Government not turning out to be net additional funding, given the offsetting reductions they applied to their prior funding estimates, the Scottish Government during the Budget Bill Stage 3 debate on 10 February, detailed additional support worth around £290 million for our cost of living response. £150 is being provided to everyone in receipt of Council Tax Reduction, and to everyone in council tax bands A to D, as well as certain households exempt from council tax. This is worth around £280 million, plus £10 million to continue our Fuel Insecurity Fund.

This information is currently not held by Scottish Government.

The Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 provides local authorities with a discretionary power to set up workplace parking licensing (WPL) schemes. It will be for local authorities to decide whether to implement a WPL scheme in their local area, and to make decisions on how their local scheme will operate.

If implemented by local authorities, the WPL charge will be levied on employers and it will be a matter for employers, including the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament to decide whether they pass the cost of schemes onto employees. However, no specific workplace parking licensing schemes have yet been proposed.

The Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 places the statutory responsibility for local roads improvement, maintenance and repair with local road authorities.

The vast majority of funding to local authorities from the Scottish Government is provided via a block grant and we do not stipulate how local authorities should utilise their individual allocations. It is therefore the responsibility of each local authority to manage their own budget and to allocate the financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

However, the Scottish Local Government Finance Statistics (SLGFS) provides an overview of actual spend based on Local Authority’s audited accounts which may be useful.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-local-government-finance-statistics-slgfs-2019-20/ .

Previous annual reports can be located at the following link; Local government finance statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

This data is not collected centrally.