Chamber and committees

The Lord Advocate provided specific parameters, which were set out in a statement on 3 November 2021, it stipulated in order for a new proposal to be considered it would need to be precise, detailed and specific, which was underpinned by evidence and supported by those who would be responsible for policing such a facility, and by Police Scotland.

The current proposal, as developed by Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership, is only for a site within Glasgow.

The proposal for a SDCF which could operate within current legislation, and which would suit the parameters set out by the Lord Advocate in November 2021, was shared with COPFS on 22 June 2022.

This was a proposal developed by Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership and Scottish Government facilitated that development.

The Scottish Government facilitated discussions between Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership and Police Scotland, both of whom input into the proposal, which was developed by Glasgow HSCP, for a Safer Drug Consumption Facility prior to it being sent to COPFS.

The Medicines Act 1986 is governed by the UK Parliament. This means that any legislative changes in relation to the act are fully reserved to the UK Government and its ministers.

However, continuing the work done to make naloxone more widely available during the COVID-19 pandemic, Scottish Government officials are engaged with both COPFS and colleagues in the UK Office for Health Improvement and Disparities to ensure that those changes remain in place in Scotland. Following the 2021 consultation carried out by the UK Government into expanding the access to naloxone, Scottish Government officials are working with UK Government colleagues to push for amendments in current legislation at a UK level to ensure those changes introduced in Scotland are made permanent.

As of the morning of 1 August 2023 there were 2,275 people on remand. The following table shows the average (median) and longest (maximum) continuous time (expressed in days) spent on remand, by ethnic grouping.

The start date of this collection imposes an upper limit on the continuous time to date spent on remand of 1,225 days. Less than five individuals were at that limit, held under the Extradition Act 2003 (S8).

The following table shows the average (median) and longest continuous time (expressed in days) spent on remand before transition to the sentenced population or departure, in 2020-21 and 2021-22. Data for 2022-23 is not yet available.

Table 1: Average (median) and Longest (Maximum) Number of Days Spent of Remand

The intention is that fares policy will be reviewed through the Fair Fares Review and Islands Connectivity Plan. Decisions will be taken on implementation in due course.

Some work had commenced with the commercial operator to consider potential options to put in place a compliant RET scheme, although this work has not progressed as quickly as we would have hoped due to other priorities in supporting ferry services.

Applying RET fares on Scottish Government funded services to the Northern Isles routes has previously been considered as potential high risk of distorting the Pentland Firth market and open to challenge. Further discussion and agreement with commercial operators would be required for this to be a viable option.

The spending on RET is not recorded separately. Since the start of new Clyde & Hebrides Ferry Service contract in 2016, Transport Scotland pays CalMac Ferries Limited, as the operator, a monthly grant payment which covers costs to operate the network as a whole. This is not broken down by individual routes. Previous evaluations have suggested that RET fares save users around £25m per year compared to pre-RET fares.

Transport Scotland is considering future ferry fares policy as part of the Islands Connectivity Plan alongside our wider Fair Fares Review, which will report by the end of 2023 and recommend a package of measures which can be considered for implementation from 2024-25 and onwards to address the wider issues of cost and availability across all modes of public transport.

Meantime, we are continuing to take action on ferry fares with fares on the Northern Isles and Clyde & Hebrides ferry networks to remain frozen until the end of March 2024.

Any introduction of new RET measures on lifeline ferry services in Scotland would now need to comply with the requirements of the Subsidy Control Act 2022 and there have been extensive discussions on the Subsidy Control Act 2022 but no separate specific discussions on RET with the UK Government.

The capital funding provided by the Scottish Government to individual local authorities is included in the Local Government Finance Circulars.

Local government finance circulars - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Local authorities in Scotland also have a statutory power to borrow for their own capital expenditure and a duty to determine and keep under review the maximum amount which it can afford to allocate to capital spending.

Capital spending by local authority is included in the Scottish Local Government Finance Statistics (SLGFS). SLGFS is an annual publication that provides a comprehensive overview of financial activity of Scottish local authorities based on authorities audited accounts.

Local government finance statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .