Chamber and committees

On 23 April 2021 the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) for England and Wales issued a judgement in Josephine Hamilton & Others v Post Office Limited [2021] EWCA Crim 577 relating to cases referred to it by the Criminal Cases Review Commission for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The case involved a total of 42 applicants who were formerly sub-postmasters or sub-postmistresses for the Post Office Limited who had been convicted of offences including theft, fraud and false accounting.

The Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of 39 of the applicants on the basis that evidence from the Horizon computer system, operated by the Post Office Limited, could not be relied upon.

Post Office Limited have identified persons known to have been convicted in Scotland on the basis of evidence that may relate to the Horizon computer system. This information has been provided to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). A number of cases are under review by the SCCRC. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is assisting the SCCRC with its review. Any decision to refer the cases to the High Court is a matter for the SCCRC.

The Island Connectivity Plan was last discussed with the Trades Unions, including Prospect, during the Scottish Trade Union Congress meeting with the former Ferries Minister, Mr Wheelhouse, on 18 August 2020.

We have a commitment to engage with all stakeholders as we develop the plan and the Unions will form part of these discussions going forward.

Scottish Ministers fully recognise the importance of reliable ferry services to the economic, social and cultural development of island and remote mainland communities.

The recent breakdown of the MV Loch Seaforth, and the impacts felt across the network, caused unacceptable disruption for our island communities. During the disruption, Transport Scotland worked with CalMac and engaged with local stakeholders in order to ensure everything was done to return the vessel to service as soon as possible. CalMac redeployed vessels in order to minimise the impacts across the network and put in place measures to maximise capacity, such as deploying a second vessel on the route from Kintyre to Arran. It is imperative the causes of that breakdown are understood and lessons properly learned so that we avoid this situation arising again in future.

Ferry passengers, whether travelling for tourism or other purposes, can apply for compensation for disruption under Passenger Rights Legislation. No other compensation for travel disruption is available for the tourism industry or wider sectors of the economy. However, Scottish Ministers have provided £3.6 billion of support during Covid to tourism businesses and we are committed to investing at least £580 million in ports and vessels over the next five years.

Transport Scotland, through its Trunk Road Operating Companies and Design Build Finance Operate (DBFO) Concessionaires, is responsible for the management and maintenance of the strategic trunk road network, including motorways. Repair of potholes on all other roads is the responsibility of the local authorities.

The following table shows the number of potholes reported or identified on the trunk road network since 2007, by financial year. Transport Scotland’s asset information system does not hold this data prior to 2007.

The Scottish Government fully funds the inspection and repair of all high risk category 1 defects (for example vandalism flooding, spills and potholes), on the trunk road network. The repair of all category 1 defects is funded from commercially sensitive monthly sums and cannot be provided. Transport Scotland’s asset information system does not hold the cost of repairing individual defect types such as potholes.

Trunk road investment is not allocated, recorded or reported on the basis of local authority area.

Since 2007, this Government has invested £4.35 billion in managing, maintaining, and safely operating the Scottish trunk road and motorway network. In 2021-22, we will invest £529 million, an increase of £59 million from 2020-21.

The budget for structural repairs and network strengthening of trunk roads and bridges, including the Forth Road Bridge, is being increased by £46.5 million in 2021-22 to £207 million. The budget for routine and winter maintenance of trunk roads is being increased by £12.5 million to £106.9 million.

We will continue to invest in our extensive trunk road maintenance and operations programmes, to improve Scotland’s road network through essential road maintenance schemes, our bridge strengthening programme, renewal of ancillary assets and increasing the resilience of the network to unplanned events such as landslides, flooding and extreme weather events.

The increases in Network Strengthening and Structural Repairs budgets will provide further investment to support our programmes of essential road carriageway maintenance and bridge strengthening and repairs contributing to our commitment to double investment in maintenance of existing assets over the next 5 years.

In addition, the overall condition of our network is being enhanced through the delivery of our capital investment programme.

Transport Scotland’s Procurement Strategy plays a key role in achieving Transport Scotland’s Vision to create a sustainable, inclusive, safe and accessible transport system, which in turn will help to deliver a healthier, fairer and more prosperous Scotland for communities, businesses and visitors. It aligns to the Scottish Government’s procurement policy and assists in achieving its national outcomes.

Although Transport Scotland does not regularly measure its public procurement policies in the ferries sector against the National Performance Framework specifically, it publishes an Annual Procurement Report, which reports on Transport Scotland’s regulated procurements.

The Transport Scotland’s Annual Procurement Report 2020 was published in January 2021 and reported on compliance with commitments made in our Corporate Procurement Strategy and includes a summary of community benefits generated through Transport Scotland ferries contracts.

The General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) is the independent, regulatory body for the teaching profession and are responsible for the accreditation and approval of all Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes. They will only approve programmes which meet the requirements in their Guidelines for Accreditation of ITE Programmes. The Framework specifically asks how student teachers are supported to develop an understanding of a range of pedagogy approaches in a number of key areas. One of the key areas is health and wellbeing education with mental health education being included in this theme.

ITE providers regularly meet to discuss the quality of their provision and, on 8 June, held a symposium covering health and wellbeing. The learning from this symposium will inform future revisions to programmes.

Regulations amending the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions and Requirements) (Local Levels) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 were made today.

These Regulations amend the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions and Requirements) (Local Levels) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 (“the principal regulations”) and will take effect on 19 July 2021.

The Regulations provide that all of Scotland is in Level 0 for the purpose of the principal regulations and accordingly the restrictions and requirements applicable at Level 0 and set out in schedule 1 to the principal regulations apply in all areas of Scotland.

The Regulations also make some adjustments to the restrictions and requirements which apply in Level 0.

The physical distancing requirements at Level 0 are reduced to 1 metre indoors and outdoors and the requirement for physical distancing between people in a gathering of up to 15 people outdoors is removed.

The Regulations also provide that in Level 0 children under the age of 12 years do not count for the purpose of calculating the number of households permitted for gatherings indoors.

Hospitality and casino opening hours in Level 0 are also adjusted to restrict opening to between 04:00 and 00:00.

The regulations have been published at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/id/ssi/2021/263

The Scottish Government has committed to removing non-residential social care charges in line with recommendations made by the Independent Review into Adult Social Care. We are now working with COSLA and other stakeholders to identify the most effective way of achieving this as soon as possible.

The Employee Voice indicator in the National Performance Framework draws on data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS), which is run by the Office for National Statistics. This is the largest household study in the UK and provides the official measures of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity.

Performance of the Employee Voice indicator is determined by a change of ±1.5 percentage points between the current year’s headline (i.e. all of Scotland) figure and the previous year’s headline figure.

The system of sampling used for the LFS provides a representative sample of the population at a regional level, but provides no guarantee of adequate coverage of any individual industry (as the survey is not industrially stratified). Industry category is self-reported by respondents participating in the survey and questions relating to collective agreements on pay are asked in the October to December survey period.

As a result, the Employee Voice indicator is based on a sample that is representative for Scotland as a whole, but may or may not be representative for any particular industry within Scotland.

Therefore, the Employee Voice indicator will have sampled workers from the transport industry, but those included in the sample may not cover all the sectors within that industry.

Following the First Minister’s announcement on 13 July, we will update our published guidance for marriage ceremonies and wedding receptions as soon as possible to take account of the new arrangements. In advance of that, we are writing to our principal contacts within the wedding sector to highlight the key changes we will make to the guidance to set out the impact.