Chamber and committees

The act of spiking is utterly abhorrent and we remain absolutely committed to working with partners to tackle all forms of violence against women.

The Scottish Government has taken a proactive approach to understand the prevalence and address concerns about the incidence of reported spiking in Scotland.

Since November 2021, several roundtable meetings have taken place to bring together partners from across the justice system including policing, victims organisations and prosecution in addition to representatives from colleges and universities, community safety and night-time economy sector. These meetings have been designed to discuss the range of initiatives and information available on spiking. Information is available on the safer.scot website, to inform and support the public around the subject of spiking. This is being updated on a quarterly basis.

Analysis of spiking incidents by Police Scotland is undertaken on a weekly basis to ensure national oversight is maintained and understanding evolves. The Scottish Government is kept informed about any changes in the prevalence of spiking. The number of reported incidents related to spiking are published annually within the National Statistics bulletin on crimes and offences recorded by the police in Scotland.

Spiking can be prosecuted under the common law offence of drugging, which is a broad offence covering all types of drink spiking. Another common law offence which may be relevant depending on the individual facts and circumstances of each case is assault. There is also a more specific statutory offence contained in section 11 of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 called administering a substance for sexual purposes. This provides it is an offence for a person to intentionally administer a substance, or cause a substance to be taken by another person, without the other person knowing, and without any reasonable belief that the other person knows, for a sexual purpose. A sexual purpose is for the purpose of stupefying or overpowering someone, so as to enable any person to engage in a sexual activity which involves the person who administered the substance.

We have no plans at this time to create a specific criminal offence of spiking however we keep all laws under review.

The impact of digital technology on the health and care workforce has been considered in several reports, such as the Topol Review commissioned by NHS England The Topol Review — NHS Health Education England (hee.nhs.uk) .

In general terms, digital technology can support the workforce in the delivery of care, free up capacity reducing the administrative burden and open up opportunities for new models of care and new ways of working. The workforce already works in the digital age, and digital technology will continue to augment and enhance the person-centred nature of health and social care services.

The number of people who have purchased a property via the Open Market Shared Equity (OMSE) scheme each year since its launch is set out in the following below:

The Scottish Government has taken a proactive approach to understand the prevalence, raise awareness and address concerns about the incidence of reported spiking in Scotland.

Several roundtable meetings have taken place to help steer the joint Scottish Government and public sector response to the act of spiking. These meetings have been designed to discuss the range of initiatives and information available on spiking. Significant work was undertaken to raise awareness and heighten vigilance in the run up to the return to college and university campuses. Information has also been made available on the safer.scot website, to inform and support the public around the subject of spiking. This has been promoted through the roundtable membership and by the representative organisations and sectors.

Furthermore, Police Scotland has prioritised its response to incidents of spiking. A comprehensive Investigative Strategy has been developed and circulated to provide guidance and direction to staff responding to and investigating incidents of spiking. A Detective Superintendent has national investigative oversight and Senior Investigating Officers have been appointed within each policing division to lead on all spiking related investigations locally.

Scottish Government is involved in the Accelerated National Implementation Adoption pathway. Set up to greater facilitate a company’s idea through to implementation.

The Scottish Government held several roundtable meetings to bring together partners including representatives from the major events sector to discuss the prevalence of spiking and a range of initiatives and information available on spiking, which they are adopting.

With concerts, festivals and other events resuming following the pandemic, Police Scotland have been working with partners to identify appropriate vehicles for the delivery of the key messaging. For example, as an interim measure and in advance of the Harry Styles concert at Ibrox Stadium, Glasgow on 11 June 2022, an overview of ByStander theory was provided to the event organiser for inclusion in Steward’s briefings, in lieu of being able to facilitate a full ByStander awareness session. Feedback from this approach was very positive and Police Scotland rolled this out nationally for Event Policing Leads in advance of a number of events scheduled over the summer 2022 period.

We have also worked with members of the roundtable to bring together the range of initiatives and key messaging on safer.scot to reassure the public that there is a coordinated response to the dangers of spiking, in whatever form it might take.

Several roundtable meetings have taken place to help steer the joint Scottish Government and public sector response to the act of spiking. These meetings have been designed to discuss the range of initiatives and information available on spiking.

Roundtable discussions have and will continue to include the consideration of spiking test kits. It was discussed that strips vary widely in terms of what they can test for and are not a reliable diagnostic tool.

Key outcomes from roundtable discussions focussed on messaging, training and prevention, with the Violence Reduction Unit supporting Police Scotland and businesses within the night-time economy sector to continue roll out of the bystander training to raise awareness for staff to help keep people safe.

The Scottish Government supports, and participates in, The Life Sciences Scotland Industry Leadership Group - Life Sciences Scotland . This includes a specific sub-group focusing on Digital and Data, chaired by the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (the DHI). The DHI are funded by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Funding Council to act as the interface between academia, industry and our health & care services around digital health and care and run several innovation clusters on our behalf. See Innovation Clusters | Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (dhi-scotland.com) for information.

Analysis of spiking incidents is undertaken by Police Scotland on a weekly basis to ensure national oversight is maintained and understanding evolves. The Scottish Government is kept informed about any changes in the prevalence of spiking.

Most recently, a report by Police Scotland from 7 December 2022 indicated that in mid-October 2021, Police Scotland noted a significant increase in the number of reported crimes relating to spiking. This pattern continued for an initial 8 week period, peaking at almost 60 in the first week of November 2021. After this initial period, reports of spiking decreased quickly and amounted to single figure weekly reporting by mid-December 2021. A slight increase was noted in the second half of January and into February 2022 however levels have since reduced, returning to an average of 6 reports per week since mid-December 2021 until 30 October 2022. The report showed that between 1 October 2021 and 30 October 2022, there were 601 recorded crimes relating to Spiking.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. This is a matter for NHS Education for Scotland (NES).