Chamber and committees

Domestic violence is completely unacceptable and the Scottish Government believes that a zero tolerance approach to it is the right approach for Scotland to take and is investing significant levels of funding as well as bringing forward new legislation to tackle it.

We are investing £24 million over 2015-17 from the Equalities portfolio to support a range of projects and initiatives – this continues to support a range of front line specialist services working with women and children who have experienced domestic abuse. In 2015, we announced an additional dedicated £20 million over 2015-18 from Justice budgets to be invested in a range of measures to tackle all forms of this type of violence.

We are implementing Equally Safe, Scotland’s strategy to tackle all forms of violence against women and girls. This aims to prevent violence from occurring in the first place, build the capability and capacity of mainstream and specialist services to support survivors and those at risk, and strengthen the Justice response to victims and perpetrators. Equally Safe delivery plans will come forward later this year.

We will introduce legislation in this Parliamentary year to create a specific offence of domestic abuse that will cover not just physical abuse but also other forms of psychological abuse and coercive and controlling behaviour that cannot easily be prosecuted using the existing criminal law. Creation of this new offence will bring clarity for victims so they can see explicitly that what their partner or ex-partner has done to them is wrong and can be dealt with under the law. Justice agencies are already showing strong leadership in this area; Police Scotland have established a National Domestic Abuse Taskforce to target the most prolific perpetrators, and the Crown Office have a dedicated National Prosecutor for Domestic Abuse.

The Scottish Government are investing £128 million in 2017-18 in Territorial Boards in supporting delivery of service reform. NHS Ayrshire & Arran will benefit from this investment, which clearly demonstrates our commitment to protecting frontline services and supporting reform. NHS Ayrshire & Arran’s budget allocation for 2017-18 includes an uplift of 1.5% - £10.0 million - which protects the underlying budget in real terms. In addition, NHS Ayrshire and Arran will receive a share of £50 million of additional parity funding, which will ensure that all NHS Boards, for the first time, are no further than 1% from their target share of funding. As with all NHS Boards, we will work with NHS Ayrshire & Arran to deliver savings to ensure public money is being used effectively and for the benefit of patients, and every penny of these savings will be directly re-invested in the front-line budget.

Latest cancelled operations figures for the month of 31 January 2017 shows that in NHS Ayrshire and Arran nearly 1,947 operations were carried out with only 9 operations cancelled due to capacity or non-clinical reason - a rate of 0.5% Most cancelled operations continue to be due to clinical reason or patient cancellations. The Scottish Government continues to work to support health boards to manage their capacity planning to keep cancelled operations to a minimum. Decisions to cancel a patient's operation is never taken lightly, any postponed operations will be rescheduled at the earliest opportunity. The Scottish Government has also already announced a £200 million investment to create six new elective treatment centres which will carry out procedures like hip, knee and cataracts operations. These centres will allow people to be treated more quickly for planned surgery to help the NHS meet increasing demand from a growing elderly population and reduce the number of operations cancelled.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-06120 on 24 January 2017. 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.

The provisions in this area have not yet been fully implemented. The Scottish Government will consider evaluation requirements in due course.

The Scottish Government specified that the new franchise (from April 2015) operate a delay/repay scheme to compensate passengers appropriately when there are significant delays or cancellations.

In the financial year to date, the total amount of delay-repay recompense paid out has already been reported as being £587,527 (for periods 1-9 of the 2016-17 financial year).

The last few months have seen a consistent improvement in performance, from 89.5 percent for the year ended mid-October (end-period 7), to 90.1 percent for the year ended the start of February (end-period 11).

As set out in our draft Energy Strategy innovation is key to underpinning a stable, managed energy transition in ways that are capable of reaching all communities and to drive the local energy system. Local authorities are best placed to understand what innovation would suit their area and what is required to meet their low carbon commitments.

A number of urban renewable energy initiatives, including intelligent street lighting, have been explored through a feasibility study by the Scottish Cities Alliance, the findings from this will be available to Local Authorities once the study has finalised.

We are encouraged that there are Scottish companies Scottish companies competing in this area and advise that if they have not done so they seek assistance from our enterprise agencies; Scottish Enterprise, or Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

The growth of the internet has transformed the way we do business, socialise and provide key services. It also offers significant opportunities for those with criminal intent. With 80% of cybercrime preventable by getting the basics right however, it is essential that we all take steps as individuals and businesses to ensure that we take appropriate steps to minimise the risk and safeguard online information and processes. This can be achieved through patching, good password and access control management and regular system backups.

The Scottish Government published 'Safe, Secure and Prosperous: A Cyber Resilience Strategy for Scotland' in November 2015 which sets out 4 priority themes, 2 of which are: awareness raising; and education, skills and professional development. The strategy is being taken forward with key partners through the establishment of a National Cyber Resilience Leaders Board. Some of the work already taken forward includes the development of a toolkit to help businesses get the basics of cyber resilience right and awareness raising workshops across Scotland. A Digital Scotland voucher scheme supports businesses to improve their knowledge, understanding and strategy towards handling cyber security and protecting valuable information. Awards of up to £1500 are available to businesses in Scotland to help them check their current systems meet Cyber Essentials UK Government Standard.

It is not possible to accurately quantify possible losses for a number of reasons such as non-reporting of incidents but available data suggests that 50% of the worst breaches were caused by inadvertent human error and that cybercrime costs UK businesses £34bn per year.

The measures to introduce a 12.5% cap on business rate increases for hotels, pubs, restaurants and cafes and Aberdeen / Aberdeenshire offices will apply for 2017-18 and we will consider if any future support is required in due course.

Taking next year’s local government finance settlement, including the extra £160 million announced on 2 February, plus the other sources of support available through actual and potential increases in council tax income and the support through Health and Social Care Integration, the overall increase in spending power to support local authority services amounts to over £400 million or 3.9 per cent in cash terms, or £249.7 million or 2.4 per cent in real terms. North Ayrshire Council's overall increase in spending power to support local authority services amounts to over £26.7 million or 9 per cent in comparison to 2016-17.

These figures are for 2015-16 entry to university and predate the work carried out by the Commission on Widening Access. More recent UCAS figures show clear progress on access, with a record entry rate of 10.9% in 2016 for 18 year olds from the 20% most deprived areas in Scotland and an increase in the application rate for the same group in 2017.

The Scottish Government is committed to fair access to higher education and has committed to implementing the recommendations of the Commission on Widening Access in full. This includes the target to ensure that by 2030, students from the 20% most deprived backgrounds should represent 20% of entrants to University.