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-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-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: 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: 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.

Question reference: S5W-05430

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 20 December 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many deaths in prisons there have been in each of the last five years, and in how many cases the cause of death has been recorded as “undetermined”.

Question reference: S5W-05426

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 December 2016
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 20 December 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on its senior (a) civil service and (b) agency posts being filled on an interim basis by staff hired through agencies or third-party employers; how many positions are currently filled in this manner, and have been in each of the last five years, broken down by the (i) position filled and (ii) name of the agency or third party-employer; what criteria are used to determine whether such an appointment is necessary; what role its (A) Director-General, Finance and (B) finance directorate have in the process, and whether the final decision on each is subject to ministerial approval and if so, whether it will provide details of which ministers have approved these.

Senior Civil Service posts in Scottish Government core departments and agencies are filled though a variety of recruitment methods including permanent recruitment, fixed term appointments, inward secondment arrangements and service level agreements. However in July 2015 the Deputy Director, Internal Audit role was filled on a temporary, part time basis, following a tendering process using the UK Crown Commercial Service ConsultancyOne contract for internal audit services. The contract included the delivery of a strategic review of Internal Audit services and was concluded in June. The senior roles in Internal Audit have now been filled following internal promotion exercises.