Chamber and committees

Since 2016, all media training has been carried out internally by staff in the Scottish Government Communications Division at no additional cost. Through the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, all requests for information related to media training, including expenditure, are published on the Scottish Government’s website. Executive Agencies are responsible for their own training provision and information is not held centrally.

Enforcement of road traffic offences is the independent responsibility of Police Scotland. Alongside general enforcement activity by Police Scotland, there is also the operation of safety cameras in some stretches of trunk roads.

The Scottish Safety Camera Programme supports enforcement through national operational prioritisation and deployment of safety camera resources in accordance with the Scottish Safety Camera Programme Handbook. Safety Camera enforcement locations can be found at Safety Camera Locations — Police Scotland Safety Cameras.

Average speed cameras on the A90 became operational over a 51 mile stretch between Dundee-Stonehaven in Oct 2017, including 15 cameras in each direction. Prior to their installation 3 in 5 drivers were exceeding the speed limit on the A90, that is now 1 in 100.

The delivery of a national thrombectomy service has already received over £38m of investment. Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary and Galloway Community Hospital are both now able to refer suitable patients for thrombectomy procedures.

We have recently provided funding for thrombectomy nurse posts in spoke sites with high rates of ischaemic stroke, including in NHS Dumfries and Galloway, and this will support maximising access to thrombectomy across Scotland.

Work is ongoing to establish how the £16 million funding announced in the Scottish budget, once scrutinised by the Scottish Parliament, will be best used to maximise the number of patients able to benefit from thrombectomy.

Since April 2023, the Scottish Government has published the median journey time from offence date to verdict date, and the median times for each of the stages the criminal justice system, including the median police known to Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) report. The most recent data covering 2023-24 is reported in the Journey times in the Scottish Criminal Justice System: 2023-24 bulletin. The bulletin provides the median police known to COPFS report by crime type for the main 5 crime groups.

The median police known to COPFS report for speeding offences can be extracted from the data used to compile the Journey times in the Scottish Criminal Justice System interactive dashboard, an interactive tool which complements the information available in the published bulletin. The median police known to COPFS report times for speeding offences have been extracted and are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Median police known to COPFS report time for speeding offences.

Road studs (cat's eyes) are inspected 6 monthly on all Trunk Roads within the North East Unit, including the A90. This is in addition to safety inspections.

The master of the vessel convicted of fishing in the South Aran Marine Protected Area was initially offered a £10,000 Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN), the maximum permitted under the FPN scheme. This consisted of £4,000 for the "access offence" and £6,000 for the value of the catch, as determined when the catch was inspected by Marine Directorate Officers at the time of landing. The FPN was not paid and the case was reported the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service and the case went to trial where the master was fined £4175 by the Sheriff.

The catch consisted of 914kg of king scallops, which was sold to a merchant. The merchant provided the Marine Directorate with a salenote stating the value of the catch was £4548.50. The value of the catch would have been paid to the owner of the vessel.

Further details of the FPN are available - Marine compliance: fixed penalty notices - gov.scot

Scottish Government does not collect this data.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-34287 on 27 January 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

There are a total of 24,910 cat's eyes (road studs) on the A90. Of these 24, 273 are located north of Dundee and 637 south of Dundee.

The rise in reported number of uterine cancer diagnoses can largely be attributed to an increasing ageing population and is in-line with a long-term trend of increasing number of uterine cancer diagnoses over time. It is encouraging to see that the majority of cases diagnosed in Scotland (64%) were found at the earliest stage (Stage I) where there is a greater chance of positive outcomes.

Obesity is one of the single largest modifiable risk factors for uterine cancer. We have published our Diet and Healthy Weight Delivery Plan setting out ambitious and wide-ranging actions to deliver our vision of a Scotland where everyone eats well and has a healthy weight, reducing their cancer risk.