Chamber and committees

COPFS uses a live, operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical analysis. This question as currently framed cannot be readily answered by COPFS.

SEPA, as Scotland’s hydrometric and flood warning authority, and a civil contingency category one responder, provides a range of real time data including Floodline flood alerts and warnings; rainfall data at over 250 locations and water level data at over 400 locations in Scotland. Through an on-going technology improvement programme, SEPA has increased the timeliness of rainfall and water level real time data.

SEPA continues to develop its data and explore how its use may be expanded including sharing data through Application Programming Interfaces for organisations to ingest into their own websites or systems; prioritising data by internet searches during major flood incidents; and exploring how to better integrate flood warning and water levels information and to simplify real time access to the information.

The National Flood Resilience Strategy demonstrates our commitment to improving flood resilience through the use of data. It sets out that we will work with partners to review how we can improve the presentation and use of data to drive flood resilient activity. We will also look how to best use data to raise community awareness of current and future flood exposure to inform decision making and support communities on their climate adaptation journeys and explore how developing new datasets may help improve decision making.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-32136 on 18 December 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found athttps://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

The Scottish Public Finance Manual (SPFM) is issued by the Scottish Ministers to provide guidance on the proper handling and reporting of public funds.

Under the terms of SPFM, the Scottish Government and SEPA operate a joint Framework agreement. Sections 25-26 and Sections 32-34 of that agreement details SEPA’s duties to develop Corporate and annual business plans, which include reporting on key performance targets.

This is readily accessible on the SEPA website here: SEPA Framework | Beta | SEPA | Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

As SEPA are directly responsible for its day-to-day operations, I have asked Nicole Paterson, Chief Executive of SEPA to respond. Her response is as follows:

SEPA plan the work it will deliver each year and regularly monitor, review and report on performance in a variety of formats.

The automated customer hub enables greater data insights for regular and accurate performance reporting. KPIs include first call resolution, average handling time, call abandoned, time spent customer facing as percentage of rota, forecast and adherence time and customer satisfaction.

As SEPA are directly responsible for its day-to-day operations, I have asked Nicole Paterson, Chief Executive of SEPA to respond. Her response is as follows:

As part of the early implementation of the enhanced out-of-hours service, SEPA successfully managed 182 calls that were received outside of working hours during the first four weeks of operation. This included 24 emergency service calls and 158 general inquiries, with a total of 21 calls requiring escalation, all of which were resolved promptly.

SEPA will continue to monitor call performance and customer experience through continuous engagement and involvement of the customer hub team and colleagues across the service, and through customer feedback surveys. A customer experience manager with significant experience of managing contact centres has been appointed to ensure the effective planning and performance management of SEPA’s customer service.

In the last 5 years, almost 100,000 charges have been reported to the Aberdeen Office of COPFS.

COPFS uses a live, operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical analysis. Any data sought in the requested period would encompass convictions for cases reported out with that period. As such, any figures would not accurately reflect numbers of convictions in respect of the cases reported in that period.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-32136 on 18 December 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found athttps://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

SEPA’s 24-hour availability to the Scottish public remains fully in place, ensuring 24-7 coverage for critical support for Scotland’s communities and environment. Where appropriate, this includes direct access to a SEPA employee to ensure a timely and effective response.