Chamber and committees

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

SPS aims to provide a setting which encourages positive mental health in all aspects of prisoner management and care. SPS Governors work in partnership with NHS Health Boards to ensure the facilities and regime within establishments maximise access for those in our care to all healthcare services including mental health.

HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland has published Standards for Inspecting and Monitoring Prisons in Scotland. Health and Wellbeing is one of the Standards specifically examined by the Inspectorate (working with Health Improvement Scotland) during its formal inspections of establishment. It is also looked at closely by Independent Prison Monitors.

The Women and Girls Fund is currently still open to applications and does not close until 5pm on 25 January 2019.

There is currently an 80 per cent completion rate for electronically monitored orders. Some of those who are electronically monitored currently will already have statutory supervision, for example those on Parole licence.

Measures within the Management of Offenders Bill, will allow for the first time that electronic monitoring can be imposed with a Community Payback Order (CPO) at first instance. This will allow Courts to put a supervision requirement in place where they think it would be beneficial for an individual to have further support. As per the answer to S5W-20709 on 17 January 2019, the Scottish Government are also piloting ways of providing additional support to individuals subject to electronic monitoring. 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 .

Currently, as part of a Home Background Report or Community Assessment Report (which have to be completed prior to electronic monitoring being imposed), family circumstances in the home are assessed. In practice, this gives an opportunity for any householder to flag up a need for additional support or if they are not content for an individual to return then they can confidentially decline to have them back in the household. In the latter case, the individual seeking to be monitored is only told that the premises are unsuitable. Prior to beginning monitoring, G4S (the company appointed by the Scottish Government to provide the monitoring service) provide those in the household with a booklet, designed to explain in easily understandable terms what is involved in electronic monitoring for the individual and family. The Scottish Government also currently work with third sector providers to provide them with information to help them support families in understanding what is involved in electronic monitoring. Consent to having the monitoring equipment within the household can also be withdrawn by the householder at any time.

The Scottish Government have set up three demonstration projects to test the uptake, effectiveness and outcomes of providing holistic support to both individuals subject to EM orders as well as their families. Those pilots are operating in East Ayrshire, Dundee and Midlothian. Learning is still being assembled from those pilots which are funded to run until end March 2019. If the pilots were to suggest that a legislative change is necessary then there may be an opportunity to do that through the Management of Offenders Bill, however there may be a question of scope if any change related to families rather than those who have been through criminal proceedings. Irrespective of any need for further legislation in this area, the learning from the pilots will inform changes in the future design of the electronic monitoring service.

On Sunday 6th January 2019, the population in custody was 7,845. Prison population numbers are impacted by short term fluctuations and change over time.

There are a complex range of factors from across the Scottish justice system that impact the prison population, including changes in the number and nature of offences being prosecuted, sentencing decisions, decisions made by the Parole Board, releases on Home Detention Curfew (HDC), and changes to early release rules. The recent changes made to the eligibility criteria for prisoners receiving HDC has resulted in a significant reduction in the number of people being released under HDC arrangements. On Sunday 6 th January 2019 the population on HDC was 128. Prior to the recent reviews of HDC, the population on HDC rarely dropped below 270.

The Scottish Prison Service continue to respond to the increasing prison population effectively to ensure the security and safety of Scotland’s prisons are maintained.

All Local Authorities were invited to apply to take part in the Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) expansion delivery trials. Fourteen Local Authorities were selected based on an assessment of their applications. The trials took place between January 2016 and June 2018 and an evaluation report was published in May.

We are now in the delivery phase of the expansion and Local Authorities are phasing in increased hours in line with their local delivery plans and expansion planning guidance which asked authorities to ensure that those children who benefit most from the expansion also benefit first. As of September 2018, there were already over 11,000 children receiving expanded hours of funded early learning and childcare across the country, over and above their statutory entitlement to 600 hours.

The Scottish Government published an evaluation of the fourteen Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) delivery trials in May 2018 (published here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/evaluation-early-learning-childcare-expansion-delivery-trials/ ). These trials have now concluded and the findings from the evaluation have been used to learn lessons for the future roll out of the expansion programme.

The longer term monitoring and evaluation strategy of the expansion of ELC to 1140 hours has drawn upon independent advice (published here: http://www.healthscotland.scot/publications/evaluability-assessment-of-the-expansion-of-early-learning-and-childcare ). The first evaluation report was published in December 2017 ( http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/12/5250 ) and set out a number of baseline indicators on quality, flexibility, accessibility and affordability. We will continue to use and refine these indicators as the expansion programme progresses.

In August 2018, the Scottish Government commissioned the first phase of a bespoke, long term evaluation of the ELC expansion programme (known as the Scottish Study of Early Learning and Childcare) which is currently collecting baseline data from a sample of eligible two year old children and parents, across 18 local authorities in Scotland. These children will have received 600 hours or less of funded ELC provision. This baseline data will include measures of the child’s cognitive development as well as social, emotional and behavioural development. Parent outcomes will include measures of parental health and wellbeing as well as uptake of work, training or study. A report providing analysis of the baseline data collected will be published by the Scottish Government in 2020.

The Scottish Government monitors the mental health of the population as a whole via the Scottish Health Survey , with additional information available for some smaller groups from the Scottish Survey’s Core Questions . It is not possible to break the survey data down for all of the groups mentioned due to the relatively small size of some groups. The surveys cover the private household population and hence do not provide information in relation to prisoners.

Information collected by NHS boards, third sector organisations and other interest groups also inform the Scottish Government’s understanding of the mental health of the population, especially when it comes to minority groups.