Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

There is no single and specific retention period for road traffic offence data held by Police Scotland. Retention depends on the type of offence and the policing purpose. Police Scotland applies their formal Records Retention Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), with crime and offence records retained according to risk-based retention rules.

The planning system allows for a statutory right of appeal to be made by the person or organisation who made the application. There is no third party right of appeal to challenge the merits of a planning decision or action. There is recourse to raise a challenge against a planning decision on a point of law through the courts.

Amendments proposing third party rights of appeal were considered, and rejected, by the Scottish Parliament during its consideration of the Planning (Scotland) Bill, passed by the Parliament in 2019. The Scottish Government has no plans to review rights of appeal at the current time.

The deployment of resources is a matter for the Chief Constable based on operational priorities. This is also very clearly set out in the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012.

The consideration to use data acquired by Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology in combination with facial recognition and other biometric technologies would be an operational matter for Police Scotland, under the scrutiny of the Scottish Police Authority.

Equally Safe, Scotland’s strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls (VAWG), recognises that technology can be used to directly track, monitor, and facilitate violence against women and girls. While Equally Safe does not refer specifically to Automatic Number Plate Recognition, it acknowledges the wider risks associated with the misuse of technology and recognises that action to address VAWG must take account of these evolving risks.

The deployment of resources is a matter for the Chief Constable based on operational priorities.

Any assessment made for the potential for Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology (ANPR) to be combined with biometric enabled technology and/or artificial intelligence would be an operational matter for the owner of such technology.

Our Major Projects Office will be designed to accelerate progress on nationally and strategically significant investment and private capital projects, unblocking barriers to project delivery and unlocking private investment across strategic sectors including housing and energy. It will help contribute to a transformational change in economic performance across Scotland by unlocking significant strategic developments across Scotland to bring jobs and economic growth.

It will begin to be operationalised by the end of 2026, with work underway to developing its remit, governance arrangements, and operating model. Ministerial responsibility for the Major Projects Office will be in the Economy, Tourism and Transport portfolio.

Spent convictions are excluded in a level 1 disclosure in Scotland therefore no legislative changes are required to achieve this policy.

The changes made to disclosure in England and Wales through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 relate to the periods of time before a conviction becomes spent. Changes to the length of time before a conviction becomes spent were legislated for in Scotland through the Management of Offenders (Scotland) Act 2019 and came into force in August 2020. Scottish Government guidance was published to help individuals understand what the reforms meant for them and their individual circumstances.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

To help ensure that the integrity and impartiality of the consenting process is maintained, it would not be appropriate for Ministers to comment on or debate the merits of a decision once it has been issued.