Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S5W-08041

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 23 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the publication in December 2015 of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 – Consultation Analysis Report, whether it plans to (a) increase the length of sentence that would qualify for "rehabilitation" under the act from 30 months and (b) lower the rehabilitation periods for (i) alternatives to prosecution, (ii) non-custodial sentences and (iii) custodial sentences, and, if so, when it plans to do this.

The Scottish Government remains committed to making appropriate reforms to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 in Scotland to ensure it strikes the correct balance between the rights of people not to disclose their previous offending behaviour and to move on with their lives while also ensuring the rights of the public to be protected are effectively maintained.

It is anticipated that reform of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 will be taken forward in this session of Parliament and specific proposals will be announced in due course.

Question reference: S5W-07189

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 13 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 10 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been released from prison in each of the last five years, broken down by the day of week of their release.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

The following table details the number of people who have been liberated from a Scottish Prison in each of the last 5 years, broken down by the day on which they were released from custody.

	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Monday	2032	1805	1738	1653	1469	186
Tuesday	1914	2062	1885	1743	1689	186
Wednesday	1981	1864	2038	1817	1742	190
Thursday	2107	1950	1844	2014	1678	185
Friday	4887	4621	4306	3971	4073	457

This data excludes Liberation to Court movements for untried prisoners and is based solely on Liberations of convicted prisoners.

The higher liberation numbers recorded on a Friday are attributed to the Prisoner and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993 which provides that where a prisoner’s release date falls on a weekend or public holiday it may be moved forward to avoid release on these days.

Question reference: S5W-07190

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 13 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by James Wolffe QC on 8 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what the average length of time is for the conclusion of a fatal accident inquiry for deaths in prison.

As the following table indicates in the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service's financial years (1 April to 31 March) from 2012-13, through to 2015-16, there were 17, 21, 17, and 8 “Death in prison” Fatal Accident Inquiries (FAIs) which concluded for those respective years. The average time taken to conclude those FAIs were 105, 81 , 63, and 65 weeks accordingly.

Average Weeks	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16
Petition Court for FAI calling	73	65	44	44
FAI commencing in Court	88	74	51	52
FAI concluding in Court	105	81	63	65
Deaths where Court not yet petitioned	0	1	10	13
Deaths where FAI commenced in Court	17	23	17	12
Deaths where FAI Concluded	17	21	17	8
Deaths where FAI not yet Concluded	0	3	10	17
Total Deaths in Prison	17	24	27	25

Question reference: S5W-06130

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 26 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government when the Scottish Crime Recording Board will publish its response to the research that it commissioned regarding the additional analysis of common assault offences, which it referred to in Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2015-16.

Question reference: S5W-06129

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 26 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish the minutes of the November 2016 meeting of the Scottish Crime Recording Board.

Rather than take formal minutes of each meeting, the Scottish Crime Recording Board publishes each meeting’s agenda, agreed actions and subsequent outcomes once they have been approved by members at the following meeting. On this basis, the actions and outcomes from the November 2016 meeting will be published shortly after the next meeting on 2 March 2017. In addition to this Scottish Government statisticians also keep users of police recorded crime statistics informed of Crime Board decisions through the Scotstat network (http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/scotstat) and the annual National Statistics bulletin on Police Recorded Crime.

Question reference: S5W-06127

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 26 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on recording common assaults as an offence rather than a crime, and whether it plans to change this practice.

The Scottish Government reports on recorded crime in the same way as previous administrations, with more serious criminal acts generally defined as crimes and other usually less serious criminal acts defined as offences. This distinction has applied to Scotland’s crime statistics since the 1920s and has no bearing on how the police will investigate an incident. Any change to the classification and counting rules for police recorded crime is a matter for the Scottish Crime Recording Board.

The Board recently considered new research into the nature of violence contained within police recorded common assault records, the findings of which were published within the 2015-16 Recorded Crime in Scotland bulletin. This found that common assault covers a wide range of actions – with around half involving no or very little injury to the victim.

Following the publication of this research, the Board agreed a follow-up action at its November 2016 meeting for each member to collect their wider organisation’s view of the current approach to grouping crimes and offences. A summary of these views will then be prepared for and considered at the next meeting in March.

Question reference: S5W-06128

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 26 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government when the Scottish Crime Recording Board will next meet and what issues will be discussed.

Question reference: S5T-00340

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 23 January 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to help victims of rape.

Question reference: S5W-05425

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 December 2016
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 21 December 2016

To ask the Scottish Government which of the projects reviewed by the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services in its report, Evaluation of Sixteen Women’s Community Justice Services in Scotland, have been mainstreamed.

Over 201314 and 201415 the Scottish Government provided a total of £3.1m grant funding to projects providing community-based services to women who offend, to support the creation or development of services in line with the recommendations of the Commission on Women Offenders (CWO). These were the sixteen projects reviewed in the IRISS report, which was funded by the Scottish Government.

The CWO report indicated that improved services could be delivered utilising existing resources, and need not require additional central funding. These grants were offered as one-off payments, made in response to improvement proposals presented by local justice stakeholders. It was made clear to both the projects and their local partners that this funding would be non-recurring, and that they would be responsible for securing funding beyond the scope of the initial grants. The projects were encouraged to seek a level of funding that they anticipated to be able to sustain at the conclusion of the grant period. To provide additional assistance, a further £640,000 was distributed by the Scottish Government in 2015-16 to twelve of the projects, to sustain them for a further year whilst they demonstrated their impact, and engaged with local funding providers.

There was no suggestion that the Scottish Government would provide ongoing funding, and any decisions on mainstreaming were and are the responsibility of local community justice bodies, with their partner organisations.

Question reference: S5W-05431

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 December 2016
Current Status: Answered by James Wolffe QC on 21 December 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what steps are in place to ensure that the family of a person who dies in prison is informed of the cause of death in a timely manner.

Following a death in custody Police Scotland will submit a report, known as a Sudden Death Report, to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. The Sudden Death Report will set out the circumstances of the death and will also contain details of the next of kin of the deceased so far as is known to the Scottish Prison Service.

A post mortem examination will be arranged to establish the cause of death and the next of kin will be advised of this and the outcome of the examination.

Once the death certificate is issued confirming the cause of death, the next of kin will be advised, told the cause of death and informed that the remains can be uplifted by the family’s undertaker. The undertaker will get the death certificate to allow registration of the death.

If the cause of death is undetermined pending further tests, these tests will be carried out and Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service will be advised of any amended cause of death. Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service will then write and advise both the Registers and the next of kin.

A Fatal Accident Inquiry is mandatory in the case of a death in custody.

Further information on this process and the timescales involved is publicly available in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service's Family Liaison Charter.