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: S6W-20469

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 07 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 13 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the (a) design capacity, (b) number of occupants and (c) occupancy rate was in each prison in July 2023.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The following table details the average occupancy, the design capacity and the average occupancy rate of each prison for July 2023:

Establishment	Average Occupancy	Design Capacity	Average Occupancy Rate
Addiewell	724	702	103%
Barlinnie	1379	987	140%
Stirling	62	100	62%
Dumfries	193	176	110%
Edinburgh	930	867	107%
Glenochil	739	668	111%
Grampian	454	552	82%
Greenock	227	224	101%
Inverness	116	93	125%
Kilmarnock	547	501	109%
Low Moss	798	784	102%
Open Estate	152	284	54%
Perth	678	631	107%
Polmont	280	758	37%
Shotts	536	537	99%
Bella	8	16	50%
Lillias	11	24	46%

Question reference: S6W-20468

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 07 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 13 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many prisoners are being held in (a) individual cells and (b) cells holding more than one person, and how many are being "doubled-up" in individual cells.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

On 7 August 2023 the prison population was 7859. A breakdown is provided below in relation to the accommodation the individuals were located in:

4800 people were accommodated alone in a cell intended to accommodate one person;
165 people were accommodated alone in a cell that is designed to be double occupancy;
1098 people were accommodated in a cell, or dormitory, intended for more than one person; and
1796 people were accommodated with another person in a cell intended for one person.

Question reference: S6W-20491

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 4 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been convicted of possession-only drug offences in each of the last five years.

A crime of drug possession may be disposed in criminal court or through direct measures such as a Fiscal Fine or Recorded Police Warning. The following tables provide the most recent five years of data for persons convicted in court, where main charge (Table 1) or given a non-court disposal (Table 2).

Data for 2020-21 are affected by the pandemic and subsequent court closures and should not be viewed as indicative of long term trends.

Table 1

Financial year	Total convicted
2016-17	4,389
2017-18	3,624
2018-19	3,407
2019-20	2,812
2020-21	1,278

Table 2

Financial year	Total NCDs issued
2016-17	11,493
2017-18	10,318
2018-19	11,085
2019-20	13,062
2020-21	12,969

Source: Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings database

The Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings database is not a live system and the latest available information is for the financial year 2020-21. Criminal proceedings data are published for financial years, i.e. from 1 April to 31 March. Therefore data for later years will not be available until the relevant publications are published. The Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2021-22 Statistical Bulletin is due to be published later this year. The dates of all Scottish Government Official and National Statistics publications are pre-announced, and the up to date list of future publications can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/ForthcomingPubs .

Question reference: S6W-20599

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 11 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 4 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many crimes were reported in each of the last five years, and of those, how many resulted in charges being brought by the procurator fiscal.

COPFS uses a live, operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical analysis, and the information within it is structured accordingly.

For the reasons above, we are not able to provide information about the total numbers of crimes reported or the charges brought by prosecutors. The following table sets out the number of accused in criminal reports received marked for court proceedings and the number of those accused receiving a direct measure as the first substantive marking. No action markings are included for comparison.

Year	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23
Number of accused in criminal reports received	185,068	184,297	174,752	160,893	156,487
Solemn	11,536	12,092	14,012	13,994	13,701
Summary	58,300	65,705	60,990	55,575	58,590
JP Court	27,180	26,556	14,552	12,664	13,082
Children’s Reporter	1,760	1,855	1,563	1,537	2,082
Warning letter	5,762	5,355	7,017	5,030	3,596
Combined Offer (Fiscal Fine + Compensation Order)	3,685	4,092	2,334	2,555	4,693
Compensation	799	718	1,123	592	750
Fiscal Fine	19,505	18,705	14,610	11,568	10,858
Fiscal Work Order	867	497	250	135	307
Road Traffic Fixed Penalty	17,280	19,710	23,999	24,331	22,566
Possible Diversion	3,218	3,515	4,383	4,741	4,624
No action	20,510	18,449	18,476	16,080	14,705
TOTAL	170,402	177,249	163,309	148,802	149,554

Notably, the total accused reported in each year will not necessarily tally with the number of accused marked in each year as not all accused reported in each year are marked in the same reporting year. In some cases, there may be a time lag between a case being reported and a case being marked which can straddle reporting years.

Note: whilst the number of reported cases has decreased in the past five years, there has been an increase in the number of complex investigations and trials requiring teams of highly skilled prosecutors spending more time on each case. Sexual crime makes up almost 70% of cases in the High Court whilst the number of charges reported to COPFS with a domestic abuse identifier increased by 7% between 2019-20 and 2021-22. It is anticipated that cases involving violence against women and children, sexual crime and domestic abuse will form a substantial part of our caseload for some years to come and COPFS is committed to rising to meet these challenges and continuously improving the levels of service we provide to the public.

Question reference: S6W-20598

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 11 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 4 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion, in percentage terms, of the total crimes reported resulted in charges being brought by the procurator fiscal, in each of the last five years.

COPFS uses a live, operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to the Procurator Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical analysis, and the information within it is structured accordingly.

The COPFS systems do not count “crimes” per se. The information we can provide is based on the total number of accused reported in criminal cases to prosecutors. Any questions relating to the overall level of reported crime should be directed to Police Scotland.

Thereafter, prosecutors do not “bring charges” per se. Where there is sufficient admissible and credible information, as set out in the Prosecution Code, prosecutors will decide what action, if any, is appropriate in the public interest. Prosecutorial action is not limited to court proceedings but includes a range of direct measures, e.g., Warning Letter, Fiscal Fine, referral to the Children’s Reporter etc.

The information provided is therefore based on the first substantive marking decision in relation to the individual accused in reported cases.

The following table sets out information relating to prosecutorial action taken as a percentage of the total number of accused receiving a first substantive marking. The numbers are broken down to show the proportion of accused marked for court proceedings and the proportion of accused receiving a direct measure. No action markings are included for comparison.

Year	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23
Solemn	6.8%	6.8%	8.6%	9.4%	9.2%
Summary	34.2%	37.1%	37.3%	37.3%	39.2%
JP	16.0%	15.0%	8.9%	8.5%	8.7%
Children’s Reporter	1.0%	1.0%	1.0%	1.0%	1.4%
Warning letter	3.4%	3.0%	4.3%	3.4%	2.4%
Combined Offer (Fiscal Fine + Compensation Order)	2.2%	2.3%	1.4%	1.7%	3.1%
Compensation	0.5%	0.4%	0.7%	0.4%	0.5%
Fiscal Fine	11.4%	10.6%	8.9%	7.8%	7.3%
Fiscal Work Order	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
Road Traffic Fixed Penalty	10.1%	11.1%	14.7%	16.4%	15.1%
Possible Diversion	1.9%	2.0%	2.7%	3.2%	3.1%
No Action	12.0%	10.4%	11.3%	10.8%	9.8%
COURT PROCEEDINGS TOTAL	56.9%	58.9%	54.8%	55.3%	57.1%
DIRECT MEASURES TOTAL	31.0%	30.7%	33.8%	33.9%	33.1%

Question reference: S6W-20489

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 31 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to its report, A Caring, Compassionate and Human Rights Informed Drug Policy for Scotland, which are the further changes to drugs policy “not dependent on constitutional change” that it has identified.

The Scottish Government committed an additional £250 million in the term of this parliament to deliver the national mission on drugs. We also committed in January 2023 to delivering a cross government plan that addresses the systemic stigma that keeps people from seeking support as well as a number of initiatives designed to make it easier for people who use drugs to access all the services they might need to improve their lives.

Question reference: S6W-20399

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 31 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many households have received Private Rented Sector Landlord Loan funding for energy efficiency measures in each of the last five years, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S6W-20400

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 31 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many households have received Private Rented Sector Landlord Loan funding for secondary improvements in each of the last five years, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S6W-20481

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 31 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has undertaken any research into regulated markets for the reduction of harm and the safe control of substances.

The Scottish Government, in preparation for it's Paper " A caring compassionate and Human Rights Informed Drug Policy for Scotland" published on July 7th 2023, researched a wide range of sources and consulted with a number of international partners to learn what other models of drug policy exist and what the evidence is for their efficacy. This included administrations who have fully or partially regulated their markets for drugs. We will continue to learn from best practice around the world to ensure Scottish Government Policies are based on the best evidence available.

Question reference: S6W-20402

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 31 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding has been distributed through the Private Rented Sector Landlord Loan scheme for secondary improvements in each of the last five years, broken down by local authority area.