Chamber and committees

Scottish Government and Education Scotland are currently developing options for a National Digital Academy. Details of timescales and funding will be available when these are complete.

The National e-Learning offer (a range of live, recorded and supported resources, funded by the Scottish Government and delivered in partnership with Education Scotland, ADES, the 6 regional improvement collaboratives, and EIS) continues to be delivered.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. The member may wish to contact the British Transport Police.

Data on crime and anti-social behaviour incidents on the rail network is available on the British Transport Police website: British Transport Police - Crime information for the rail network in England, Scotland and Wales (btp.police.uk) .

Information on the percentage of plastic collected and recycled in Scotland, and outwith Scotland is available from SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency) via its ‘waste from all sources’ data reporting tool: https://informatics.sepa.org.uk/WasteAllSources/

A total of 13,697 accused were reported to COPFS for the period 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2023 with charge(s) which fall within the Scottish Government Classification of "Drugs – Supply, and where it can be identified that cannabis was the relevant controlled drug.

This can be broken down as follows:

Historic Environment Scotland (HES) is the lead public body on the investigation of, care for and promotion of Scotland's historic environment. HES published retrofit guidance for traditional buildings in November 2021 at Guide to Energy Retrofit of Traditional Buildings | Hist Env Scotland (historicenvironment.scot) . The Scottish Government values their technical expertise and regularly relies on their work and input to help define the approach to retrofitting traditional and listed buildings.

For example, following a series of stakeholder workshops held in 2021, an expert Tenements Short Life Working Group was formed. A specific workshop looking at traditional and protected buildings was undertaken as part of this process and Historic Environment Scotland were a key participant in this group A. The Final Report and Recommendations of the Tenements Short Life Working Group will be published shortly.

We are committed to continuing to work closely with HES to shape our future proposals on a Heat in Buildings Standard to ensure the best outcome for traditional and protected homes and buildings and the people who live and use them.

Police Scotland consider they would be able to effectively police the proposed site in Glasgow. Police Scotland have operational independence and how any facility might be policed is a matter for them, however it has been of the utmost importance to me to ensure that Police Scotland retain the operational ability to effectively police the facility and ensure that the wider community, those operating the site and those using the facility can be kept safe.

Further to the Deputy First Minister’s statement in Parliament on 31 October and the subsequent session of First Minister’s Questions on 2 November, this written answer sets out further clarification of the timeline of requests made for documentation relating to Module 2A of the Inquiry, which is concerned with decision making in Scotland. The excerpts from Rule 9 requests below have been produced with the agreement of the Inquiry and Scottish Ministers are grateful to them for their permission to do so.

Accordingly, we set out below further details of the sequence of requests which have been made. For the avoidance of doubt, when the passages below refer to WhatsApp messages, this includes all messages sent by way of similar informal messaging systems.

• On 4 November 2022, the Inquiry sent to the Scottish Government an initial draft request under Rule 9 of the Inquiry Rules 2006 which included the following question asking about the extent to which there was informal or private communication about significant decision-making, including for example whether there were WhatsApp groups (or other forms of group chats) which key decision-makers used to communicate about such decisions or to make such decisions:

“ To what extent was there informal or private communication about significant decision-making? For example, were there WhatsApp groups (or other forms of group chats) which key decision-makers used to communicate about such decisions or to make such decisions?”

• On 2 February 2023 the Inquiry sent a final version of the Rule 9 Request referred to above. This included requests for key communications and significant correspondence, including WhatsApp messages, relating to a range of different issues including, for instance, key meetings concerning the pandemic response in Scotland, messages about key decisions or by which such decisions were taken, meetings with the UK Government and messages about decision making relating to non-pharmaceutical interventions.

• In addition to requests for WhatsApps being made in specific contexts, the following request was made at paragraph 22:

“To what extent was there informal or private communication about significant decision-making? For example, were there WhatsApp groups (or other forms of group chats) which key decision-makers used to communicate about such decisions or to make such decisions? Please provide any communications relating to key decisions, including internal and external emails, text messages or WhatsApp messages (on Scottish Government and private or personal devices), held by the Scottish Government.”

• Similar Rule 9 requests were received from the Inquiry in February and March 2023 seeking evidence, including WhatsApp messages, from Scottish Government Directorates.

• The Scottish Government submitted draft responses to the Inquiry relating to these requests throughout Spring 2023. In those responses it made clear that all key decisions and decision making were recorded on the Scottish Government corporate record. No WhatsApp messages were submitted as part of those responses.
• These draft responses were finalised at the Inquiry’s request at the end of June 2023 and have now been disclosed to the Inquiry’s core participants.
• Based on its review of these responses, the Inquiry considered that further information was required in relation to the use of WhatsApps in response to the requests set out above, and thus a further specific rule 9 request was issued to the Scottish Government on 22 June 2023 seeking details of its policies relating to the use of informal messaging for the conduct of government business.

This request sought specific information about the use of WhatsApp groups concerned with the Covid-19 response, including those used for coordination, logistics, ad hoc or day-to-day communications, as well as those that discussed decision making or policy. It asked for the names of any such groups, their members, their roles, the date range of their activity, and the quantity of messages per group, as well as an indication of the topic(s) of those messages. Draft responses were submitted on 29 August and a further revised version on 11 October 2023. The final response will shortly be processed by the Inquiry.

• Once such information concerning the use of such groups had been provided, the Inquiry asked in September 2023 to be provided with the messages contained within those groups.
• In July and August 2023, a significant number of Rule 9 requests were sent to individual Ministers, former Ministers and civil servants all requesting evidence concerning WhatsApp and informal communications with Cabinet Secretaries, Ministers, senior civil servants or advisers (whether on Government issued or personal devices) and asking for copies of such messages to be provided.
• The Scottish Government considers that given the large amount of sensitive and personal information contained within the WhatsApp messages and other informal messaging supplied to it, in order to comply with its data protection obligations there requires to be a clear legal basis for the transfer of such data to the Inquiry (bearing in mind that the High Court case of Cabinet Office v Chair of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry [2023] EWHC 1702 (Admin) on 6 July 2023, made it clear that it is for the Inquiry to determine the relevance of material that it has requested). Scottish Government therefore requested on 5 October 2023 that the Inquiry issue a notice under Section 21 of the Inquiries Act 2005, requiring the Scottish Government to supply such information that it holds, thus providing that clear legal basis.
• The Inquiry issued this Section 21 Notice on Monday 30 October, setting a deadline of Monday 6 November for the information to be supplied. The Scottish Government complied with this deadline and released all such messages it held to the Inquiry on 6 November.

We hope that this further detail, including the further detail on requests made by the Inquiry, will clarify the timeline of events in question.

The Civil Contingencies Act (2004) places a statutory duty on responders to cooperate and share information.

There are several technical layers of fallback capabilities in place for communication during circumstances that challenge the usual methods of communication. However, work continues to review current arrangements and ensure they are resilient to a wide range of risks. The existing resilient telecommunications plan for Scotland is currently under review, led by Police Scotland.

Bereaved families should not have to wait to receive final confirmation of the cause of death and it is imperative that information about their loved one is provided as soon as possible. As the Lord Advocate noted in her response to S6W-21281, there have been delays in reporting post-mortem results, which is unacceptable. She also recognised that collaborative work has been done to resolve the delays, and that significant progress is expected within the next few weeks.

The Lord Advocate has responsibility for the investigation of all sudden, suspicious, accidental and unexplained deaths in Scotland – including providing bereaved families with the final confirmation of the cause of death of a loved one following receipt of the post mortem report. The Lord Advocate set out her position on post-mortem toxicology delays in her answer to question S6W-21281.

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

The Scottish Government does not designate assistance centres or make decisions regarding the pre-positioning of generator capacity.

These issues are rightly for the front line responders, principally Local Authorities, to consider following any emergency. In the Scottish Government's June 2022 update to the Storm Arwen Review, we noted that "All LRPs (principally via Local Authorities) have a wide range of pre-identified rest or assistance centres, with associated arrangements for activation.”