Chamber and committees

As our Programme for Government for 2019-20 indicates, a campaign is now in an advanced planning stage.

SFRS have just commenced a programme of installing charging points at ten strategically located sites across the country.

The Scottish Fire & Rescue Service (SFRS) intend to install two public charging points at each of five of its corporate sites in Cambuslang, Hamilton, Perth, Inverness and Dundee. This work has commenced and will be complete by February 2020.

The Dundee Asset Resource Centre was the first site in this programme and has just been fitted with six charging points, two of which are public. Newbridge has also been fitted with two public charging points.

The Scottish Government provides the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) with a Capital Budget of £32.5m. It is for the SFRS to decide how that money is spent. In 2018-19 SFRS reported spending £4.255m on IT and Digital and in 2019-20 SFRS has allocated £5.17m.

For 2019-20, the Scottish Government has increased the budget of SFRS by £5.5 million to invest in service transformation. This is in addition to increasing the spending capacity of the service by £15.5 million in 2018-19. We continue to press the UK Government for return of the £50 million paid in VAT since 2013.

A framework setting out a consistent position regarding the storage, removal and enforced prohibition of combustible materials in common areas is being taken forward by a Working Group made up of relevant stakeholders and is expected to be completed before the end of 2019.

We will shortly publish the analysis report of the responses to the consultation paper " Protecting Children: Review of section 12 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 and section 42 of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009" . The consultation sought views on potential changes to the criminal offence of cruelty to children to ensure it reflects modern understandings of what constitutes child abuse and neglect, including making it explicit that the offence covers emotional harm.

The response to our consultation shows there is a deep interest in this area and the overwhelmingly positive response to our proposals confirms there is interest in further reforms. Respondents also raised a number of potential issues and complexities with such a reform and we consider that further engagement on the detail of legislative reform is required.

This is a complex and sensitive area of the law and we are currently carefully considering responses to help shape our next steps before consulting on draft provisions.

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

Following several months of positive discussions with the POA(S) regarding prison officers’ pay, SPS made a pay offer on 9 August 2019.

The offer is a three year deal for 2019-22 providing a 6% pay rise for prison officers in year 1, with higher awards of 6.4% and 6.6% respectively for staff in Bands C and D at the top of their pay band maximum. This is followed by further 4% rises, for those earning up to £36,500, in years 2 and 3.

The POA(S) announced on 30 August 2019 that following a ballot of their members the offer had been overwhelming accepted.

As set out in my answer to questions S5W-22749 on 2 May 2019 and S5W-19571 on 7 November 2018, we were seeking an Order under section 104 of the Scotland Act 1998 to facilitate recovery of the surcharge via deduction from benefits and bring Scotland into line with the powers that already exist in England and Wales.

The Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2014 (Consequential Modification) Order 2019 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/1092/signature/made subsequently came into force on 8 July 2019.

We intend to lay the Victim Surcharge (Scotland) Regulations, which will implement the surcharge, before the Scottish Parliament shortly.

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:

Operational guidance has been developed to support our staff to better understand how to minimise exposure to unknown substances. As new and emerging substances come to our attention, this guidance will be reviewed in order to ensure that the health and safety of staff is maintained at all times. SPS also has robust mail handling procedures in place across all Scottish prisons to deter and disrupt attempts to introduce illicit articles to the prison estate and support the identification of any substances recovered.

SPS is currently trialling technology across a number of sites to support the identification of illicit substances on paper. Early indications suggest that this technology is preventing illicit substances from entering our prisons.

A Strategic Risk and Threat Group (SRTG) has also been established which is responsible for providing an overview of any emerging threats and the deployment of resources and tactical options. The SRTG is responsible for the management of a national tasking log which supports planned programmes of large scale tactical searching across the estate. These searches are frequently supported by trained drug detection dogs able to identify illicit substances which have been impregnated on to paper.

Procurement of the roadside screening devices for implementation of the Drug Driving (Specified Limits) (Scotland) Regulations 2019 is an operational matter for Police Scotland.

However, Scottish Government officials have been in touch with Police Scotland who have advised a quantity of devices capable of testing for cannabis and cocaine have been received by Police Scotland to facilitate training of relevant officers, and more will be delivered in due course to facilitate further training. A larger batch will be delivered and distributed ahead of the 21 October 2019 implementation date. Post implementation, Police Scotland will take delivery of more devices as and when required, to ensure operational effectiveness, while minimising potential for waste, noting there is a service life for such screening devices.

The Scottish Government consults regularly on the modernisation of civil law, often as a consequence of the law reform work carried out by the Scottish Law Commission in this area.

By way of example in the past year we have or are consulting on: Judicial Factors (August 2019); the law of Succession (May 2019); Defamation in Scots Law (April 2019); Success Fee Arrangements in Scotland (January 2019); The future of civil partnerships in Scotland (December 2018); and Review of Part 1 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 and creation of family justice modernisation strategy (September 2018).