Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has suggested that there are other ways for community interests to be represented on public boards. From your experience, is that assertion correct?

SEPA’s reliance on targeted enforcement campaigns, rather than checking the robustness of individual systems, is concerning. I wonder whether we should write to the Scottish Government to ask how it believes householders who fail to meet their responsibility for waste-water discharge can be held to account in practice.

As it is a new petition, we should write to stakeholders to seek their views on the action that is called for in the petition. We should ask specifically what the causes may be for the decline in applicants to nursing and midwifery courses. Those stakeholders could include the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the Royal College of Nursing and the National Union of Students.

I think that we should close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders, on the basis that Police Scotland has a comprehensive standard operating procedure in relation to vehicle pursuit and remains committed to tackling the theft and reckless use of motorcycles, with road policing and locally based initiative teams and response, community and criminal investigation department officers continuing their efforts to identify offenders, prevent and deter further incidents, and engage with communities. In addition, the Scottish Government has previously stated that judges are best placed to decide on the appropriate sentence for each offender and considers that mandatory sentencing removes discretion from the courts. Finally, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service is not aware of any evidence that cases involving the theft of a motorcycle are taking any longer to prosecute than other cases.

Thanks. That was very helpful.

So, to paraphrase, you feel that community interests would be best represented by having a community board member in the room, rather than feeding into some process after which others then decide on the community interest. Is that correct?

I am keen to establish whether there is a general issue or a specific issue in relation to the recording of crimes and the related data and databases. It is my understanding that, even though we have a single police force, police officers often record details of a crime in different ways, particularly when it comes down to the granularity, and that there is not even a central database that covers all the recorded data that is universally shared across Scotland. The committee might choose to find out why that is the case, but do you have any insights into that?

Thanks.

You made a point earlier about recorded crime. We know that recorded crimes of shoplifting, for instance, represent a minority of actual shoplifting. Has any work been conducted to see how recorded and actual crime matches up in this area?

I want to get a feel for the situations where we see violence occur and the types of behaviours that we see in those situations. Do such incidents vary geographically or by age—we have touched on that—or indeed by gender? Kirkton in Dundee has been beset by violence and antisocial behaviour. We have seen that on fireworks nights, but it is on-going and staff at the Asda in Kirkton, for example, have been traumatised by children as young as six coming into their store, causing issues and terrifying lots of people. Historically, there was more of a gang culture in Dundee, and youths would fight across different schemes. In that context, do you have a bigger picture about what is going on and where, across Scotland?