Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government continues to routinely engage with local authorities across Scotland as part of ongoing work ensuring all key stakeholders such as building owners, representative organisations and professional bodies can share information and best practice on RAAC management, where required. Engagement is primarily through the Scottish Government led Cross Sector Working Group but also via Scottish Futures Trust for school estate interests and the Scottish Heads of Property Services (SHoPs) network.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the Victim Surcharge Fund broken down in this way.

Following the announcement of funding from the Scottish Government, on 20 September 2023, to build cyber resilience in communities and enable more people across the country to keep themselves safe and secure online;

(a) 961 people participated in Scottish Union Learning workshops, and

(b) over 950 people participated in workshops organised by Community Enterprise.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-29572 on 17 September 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

We are committed to ensuring that people living in Scotland with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) are able to access the best possible care and support, and benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective and person-centred.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water, and the Scottish Government does not hold the information, I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Scottish Water is able to provide figures for 2022-23 onward, as a new system was introduced then which means that any figures before this would not be comparable, with some data representing reporting anomalies rather than leak repair times. Scottish Water has also advised that these figures do not necessarily relate to customers but are reports into their contact centre of visible leaks. Work to identify and repair some leaks can in some cases be complex in nature or require preparations such as traffic management, notice of roadworks, etc., and there can be cases where the timescales relate to administration of the record as opposed to the leak repair.

For 2022-23, repairs of 4 bursts took over 100 days. For 2023-24, repairs of 8 bursts took over 100 days.

Scottish Government marketing and advertising spend is published each year on gov.scot including a breakdown by campaign and media type. Spend for 2024-25 has still to be agreed in light of the need to freeze public sector marketing expenditure and the ongoing process to identify exceptions.

Since the integration of health and social care, most funding for aids and adaptations for all housing sectors comes from Health and Social Care Partnerships. Housing adaptations are structural changes to a property made to support a disabled person to live safely and independently at home.

The Scottish Government provides some funding to help Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) deliver adaptations for their disabled tenants. Funding of £8.245 million is available for 2024-25 for adaptations for RSL tenants.

The budget allocation process for the 2024-25 RSLs Adaptations Programme is underway. My officials will contact RSLs directly with information on their funding allocation once the process has been concluded. I expect this to be in the coming weeks.

The imposition, collection and enforcement of a victim surcharge mirrors the arrangements for fines subject to some differences set out in the The Enforcement of Fines (Relevant Penalty) (Scotland) Order 2019 (legislation.gov.uk)

The court is required to grant time to pay a victim surcharge – the time allowed is a matter for the sentencer taking account of the circumstances of each individual, but subject to a minimum of seven days. The court cannot impose an immediate term of imprisonment, which it could do for a fine if it could not be paid immediately.

When any relevant penalty has been imposed the court shall make an enforcement order. The order sets out the penalty/payment terms and explains the effect of the enforcement order. The victim surcharge would then be collected and enforced in the same way as any other relevant penalty (including a fine) subject to the provisions of section 253J Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 (legislation.gov.uk)of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 (“the 1995 Act”).

Section 253H Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 (legislation.gov.uk)of the 1995 Act provides that where a court makes a victim surcharge and imposes a fine and/or makes a compensation order, the monies would be applied in the following order:

1.Compensation

2.Victim Surcharge

3.Fine

The Flood resilience Strategy is currently scheduled for publication by the end of this year. The report on the analysis of the Flood Resilience Strategy consultation responses is scheduled for publication on the Citizen Space website at the beginning of November. This will be accompanied by all of the responses that have given their permission to be published and a “We Asked, You Said, We Did” summary. This highlights the main points of the consultation ("We Asked”), how many responses there were and key messages coming out of the responses (“You Said”) and what we have done, or plan to do as a result of the consultation (“We Did”).