Chamber and committees

There are no plans to update the current legislation regarding the protection of retail workers. Section 1 of the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021 already makes it a specific offence to assault, threaten or abuse a retail worker. Such behaviour can also be prosecuted using other, more general, offences including, for example, common law assault and the offence of threatening or abusive behaviour.

It is essential that those who perpetrate violence are held to account for their actions. Legislation and prosecution form part of our overall response to tackling violence, and sits alongside our preventative approach as set out in the Violence Prevention Framework for Scotland.

All funding for Community Engagement was distributed in the form of small grants for refugee assisting communities and groups, to enable their engagement in the development of the New Scots Strategy held between Q4 2023-2024. As published in the New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy 2024: Engagement Analysis Report, 72 groups were funded and 81 events were held.

The Scottish Government fully condemn all forms of prejudice including sectarianism, racism and religious bigotry.

That is why we have consolidated legislative protections aggravated by protected characteristics, including race and religion, through the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 to support Police Scotland to deal with prejudice and discrimination and why we are currently working closely with Police Scotland and Scottish football authorities to assess the effectiveness of football banning order legislation.

Separately, we have invested over £5 million of funding since 2016 to tackle sectarianism through community based projects in schools, colleges, communities and workplaces. Organisations such as Nil by Mouth and Fair Play Foundation will continue to work with football clubs from grassroots to senior football in 2025-26 and Sense Over Sectarianism will continue to engage with Police Scotland to ensure the ‘Pitchin’ In’ programme is available for officers to use in schools to help develop pupils decision making and steer them away from prejudicial behaviour.

The report of the key issues raised at the summit will be published shortly. The member will also be aware that preparations are currently being made for a further cross-party meeting of MSPs at which these issues will be discussed.

The Scottish Government provided £1.9 million (1,957,987.36) in associated costs to the New Scots refugee integration strategy intermediary/strategic funding through Equality, Connected Communities and Mainstreaming and Inclusion Budgets between July 2019 and March 2024. We do not currently plan to publish a further breakdown in costs.

The Scottish Government have committed £6,000 to Scottish Refugee Council for Lived Experience on New Scots Core Group. We do not intend to publish a further breakdown of cost.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-35981 on 31 March 2025. 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

All funding provided towards the development of the app is currently interlinked with the piloting of the app, which will begin in Lanarkshire from 2025 and begin it’s rollout from 2026.

The Scottish Government and NES are also in the development stage of the full business case for Digital Front Door, therefore we do not yet have an agreed longer-term budget. Once it has been approved and a minimum viable product (MVP) has been produced this will inform future costs of a national roll out for Digital Front Door.

The New Scots Partnership staffing costs came to £87,333 between January to March 2024. The following table provides a further breakdown on how this funding was spent.

The Scottish Government committed £16,000 to the New Scots welcome video project December 2021 to March 2022. We do not currently plan to publish a further breakdown of cost.

The Office of the Chief Statistician published guidance for public bodies in Scotland on the collection of data on sex and gender in 2021. This guidance recommends that statistics producers should collect data that best serves the needs of users in their specific context, an approach with aligns with the guidance published by the Office for Statistics Regulation in 2024.