Chamber and committees

Returning Officers have a responsibility for protecting the integrity of electoral processes and the Electoral Commission regulates campaign materials. Police Scotland also have a role in safeguarding elections. To assist with this we intend to legislate to introduce digital imprints to ensure that all online materials can be traced to source in time for the 2021 Scottish Parliament election.

Foreign interference in elections is a matter of national security, which is a reserved subject matter. The Scottish Government takes part in the UK Government Defending Democracy Programme, which aims to protect and secure democratic processes, including cybersecurity and the preparedness of electoral events.

The remote voting web app was developed during the short summer recess and first used the week commencing 11 August.  It has been in place for 3 weeks of voting.  It was used for votes at Decision Time and in the second week for multiple Stage 3 votes during proceedings on two different Bills. There were no votes in the third week.

The voting web app has been designed to be as flexible as possible so that it can be used on any phone, tablet, laptop or PC, on WiFi, ethernet or 3G / 4G, and for this reason the authentication is rigorous and the design of the application has been through comprehensive security controls including ratification of the high-level design by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

Issues with the application appeared to be more prevalent during the Stage 3 votes conducted recently, and analysis is ongoing to establish the root cause and the issue is being managed using major incident procedures.

Areas of investigation include:

·        Detailed application analysis looking at server load, number of connections, backlog of queued calls to the application, and load testing.

·        Infrastructure review including investigation chamber Wi-Fi coverage, performance and loading of access points, as well as testing of WiFi in the extended area of the chamber to establish if devices are maintaining connections to access points out with the chamber, which would impact performance. 

The results of the investigations have already prompted some performance tuning in the voting app, specifically how it handles a large volume of connections and multiple votes in quick succession.  These changes have been deployed and successfully tested in a simulated stage 3 vote with SPS staff.

Other issues are being addressed as they are identified and once we are confident that all issues are resolved, the major incident will be closed.  As part of the major incident management processes a full technical report will be produced and considered by the SPCB.  This report will be made available to members.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-31520 on 2 September 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The current costs are within the forecast costs, I provided to Parliament in October last year and have been budgeted for. The Estimated costs (of £28 million covering both the Settlement Agreement and costs associated with the delay) are being managed centrally by the Scottish Government and will have no adverse impact for NHS Lothian services.

The reopening of indoor sport and leisure facilities such as swimming pools and gyms is 31 August with physical distancing and enhanced hygiene measures in place. The Scottish Government have produced new guidance for the opening of indoor sport and leisure facilities with physical distancing and hygiene measures. This new guidance, created in collaboration with the sport and leisure sector will provide staff and customers with the confidence that it’s safe to return. To view the guidance please visit the Scottish Government website .

Decisions on what sectors and activities to re-open on our route out of lockdown are guided by the principles set out in our Framework for Decision Making. Proposals are technically assessed using the best available evidence and analysis of their potential benefits and harms to health, the economy, and broader society to minimise overall harm and ensure transmission of the virus continues to be suppressed. This assessment process includes oversight of the assessed health risks in different settings by the Chief Medical Officer and input from the other Chief Clinicians as appropriate.

As well as this advice, we also need to weigh up the competing claims of different sectors of society such as schools reopening and their associated benefits to broader health and well-being, the economy and broader society. As you will be aware, the First Minister is undertaking reviews every three weeks, with the latest review and publication of our route was published on 20 August. This confirmed that the re-opening of gyms would be brought forward to 31 August.

The Scottish Government believes that the reopening of schools had to be the priority, given their critical importance to the life and wellbeing of our children and young people. The reopening was contingent upon there being low community transmission of the virus. However, the virus has not gone away, and the scientific advice is that the more activities that are allowed to operate, the more contact and mixing will occur, and with that comes additional risk. The reopening of schools is a new development, and with each new development the Scottish Government will look at the impact, and monitor progress very closely. That is why the decision was taken to avoid the cumulative impact of restarting extracurricular activities, until such time as the impact of school reopening had been able to be assessed. This is in line with the published guidance on physical distancing in schools produced by the Covid-19 Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children’s Issues which states “ Where incremental changes can be made and the impacts of these monitored, that would be recommended .”

Scottish Government have supported health boards to redesign the way they offer services through the introduction of technology assisted appointments such as NHS Near Me. In some circumstances a face to face assessment will still be required. This is therefore a matter for individual health boards to consider the urgency of the assessment and whether it could be undertaken remotely, balancing against the risk of a face-to-face assessment.

For children, Scottish Governments reopening of schools guidance advises that movement between schools should be kept to a minimum until further notice.

The guidance recognises the importance of holistic support for children and young people and the requirement to meet their needs, and advises that every effort should be made to meet these needs through lower risk methods such as digital or virtual means. It is therefore up to individuals schools to consider the urgency of the assessment and whether it could be undertaken remotely in assessing the risk of a face-to-face assessment.

The average total turnaround time (ie, time taken from taking of swab to reporting of result) in local health boards is just under 23 hours.

For testing carried out by the UK Government, the vast majority of test results are sent automatically within 48 hours, or 72 hours for home tests. We do not hold data on average turnaround times for tests carried out through the UK Government testing programme.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-30555 on 30 July 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .