Chamber and committees

We are working closely with the Mhor Collective and specialist violence against women and girls (VAWG) services, to identify the digital inclusion needs of women and girls who have experienced technology-facilitated VAWG and improve the support that is available to them.

We have established a VAWG Digital Inclusion Network, made up of specialist violence against women and girls (VAWG) services to consider how we can improve access to information and advice for survivors of technology-facilitated VAWG. This includes developing and sharing appropriate resources with the organisations supporting survivors and building the digital skills and confidence of staff and volunteers working in those organisations. We are funding the Mhor Collective, who have a long track record of digital inclusion work, to lead this work.

Recognising the barriers that exist for certain groups, we are considering the digital inclusion needs of minority ethnic women and girls, women involved in commercial sexual exploitation and women in rural and remote areas.

There has been no formal assessment of how many children have been affected by delays in implementation of the Children (Scotland) Act 2020, but the Scottish Government recognises the need to implement the Act to ensure the best interests of children are at the centre of any family proceedings.

The Scottish Government remains committed to implementing the Act, and I refer the member to the recent meetings of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee on unimplemented legislation where further commencement and implementation of the 2020 Act was discussed – on 10 December 2024 [see Official Report columns 11 to 15] and 24 June 2025 [see Official Report columns 10 to 14].

The Scottish Government holds no information on which public sector organisations have been awarded City of Sanctuary awards in the last 5 years. Some of this information is available in the Cities of Sanctuary UK 2024 Impact Report which is available on their website.

City of Sanctuary UK is registered as an independent charity working across the UK and I can confirm that no funding has been provided from Scottish Government to City of Sanctuary in the last 5 years.

The Scottish Government meets with the Scottish Ambulance Service regularly in the form of Operational Meetings, Mid Year and Annual Reviews where performance is discussed. The Scottish Government also receives weekly performance reports which are analysed and if performance is a concern, it is escalated to the Scottish Ambulance Service executive team.

The Forum, established as part of our Equally Safe Delivery Plan commitment to develop a collaborative programme of support to enable local and national partners to adopt a public health approach to preventing violence against women and girls (VAWG), has met twice to date, with a third meeting scheduled for October 2025.

The Forum is facilitated by the Improvement Service and seeks to enable collaboration between local and national partners to identify ways of embedding a public health approach in practice, identifying and overcoming barriers to implementation, sharing local experience, and supporting its wider application.

With the purpose of the Forum being identifying and overcoming barriers to implementation, sharing local experience and supporting its wider application, no formal recommendations have been issued. However, early learning from the Forum includes recognition of the challenges in shifting resources towards prevention, the importance of engaging a broad range of policy areas, and the value of identifying tangible, evidence-based actions that stakeholders can take within their own services.

The Forum continues to provide a collaborative space for peer support and shared learning, helping to embed a public health approach to ending VAWG across systems and sectors.

Abuse, violence or harassment of any kind, particularly violence against women and girls (VAWG), should not be tolerated in our society. We are taking forward a range of actions in schools to address VAWG and sexual harassment.

Our Equally Safe strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls emphasises the importance of challenging the underpinning attitudes which enable such violence to take place, including in education settings.

In March 2024 we published a national framework for schools to help tackle gender-based violence. It provides guidance on how schools can address the underlying causes of gender-based violence, and ensure appropriate action is taken in response to specific incidents.

To further support schools, we fund Rape Crisis Scotland to run Equally Safe at Schools, a programme which helps build a positive culture in which staff feel more confident and skilled in responding to incidents and disclosures of sexual harassment and students are empowered to seek help if needed. Alongside this, we also fund the Rape Crisis Prevention Programme to provide training for pupils on issues related to misogyny and violence. We also fund Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) Programme which is a peer education programme which works to tackle gender stereotyping and attitudes that condone violence against women and girls.

Relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education is an integral part of the health and wellbeing area of the school curriculum in Scotland. RSHP education focuses on equipping children and young people with the knowledge, skills and values to make informed and positive choices about forming relationships. This includes understanding of issues like consent, appropriate relationships and boundaries, which can play a crucial role in helping to reduce instances of gender based violence.

We have also supported Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) to develop their new Digital Discourse Initiative, which is a free online resource for teachers and educators designed to equip children and young people with skills to navigate digital media and counter the impacts of disinformation and online hate. The resource features a detailed case analysis about the so-called ‘Manosophere’ and the promotion of radical misogyny online from Zero Tolerance, the charity working to end men’s violence against women.

We have undertaken a literature review and engaged with a range of specialist organisations to understand the issue and what is required to address it. We are currently developing a policy definition of extended family abuse, including exploring how it interacts with intimate partner abuse and honour based abuse and other forms of VAWG.

We will continue to work with specialist organisations and academics in the Addressing Violence Against Minority Ethnic Women and Girls Network, and mainstream services including Social Work Scotland, Police Scotland, COPFS, NHS Scotland and local authorities to inform our work. We will share the draft policy definition with partners in Autumn 2025.

There are 360 secondary schools in Scotland recorded in the 2024 school census. The following is a table of how many of these are currently signed up to ESAS, broken down by local authority area.

The Scottish Government were aware of concerns that the link between health professionals and Police Scotland has not always been clear when victims of spiking present to emergency departments.

Through the collaborative work of the multi-agency Spiking Roundtable, the Scottish Government has been exploring a range of initiatives with partners from policing, victims organisations and COPFS, as well as representatives from colleges and universities, community safety groups, and the night-time economy sector to ensure our response is robust and effective.

To address these concerns it was recently announced here: Public urged to be vigilant against spiking ahead of summer events on 11 July 2025 that the Scottish Government, in collaboration with NHS 24 and Police Scotland, has developed a consistent narrative for health professionals. The guidance ensures that victims receive clear and uniform advice regarding the roles of health professionals and the police when they report incidents of spiking. This approach has been endorsed by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.

As part of this multi-agency national response, Scotland’s 111 service has also been updated to include spiking-related guidance, helping to better identify and support victims.

Additionally, the NHS are introducing changes to their digital system which will allow recording of those who present to emergency departments as potential victims of spiking. This will provide invaluable data on previously unrecorded incidents and will allow for a better understanding of the extent to which these lead on to formal police reporting.