- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 22 February 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 2 March 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how it allocated the £2 million of capital funding given to victim and witness support organisations in 2020-21, and what information it has regarding how this money was spent.
Answer
The victim support budget has provided substantial investment, via health boards, to support forensic medical services, with £2 million per year over 3 years since 2018-19. In 2020-21, funding was provided to further improve health boards’ forensic medical services, including to enhance existing, or to create new, healthcare facilities and to build workforce capacity. More specifically, this funding has contributed to a new forensic medical examination suite in the Borders General Hospital and has supported the recruitment and retention of Gender-Based Violence leads, forensically trained nurses and other essential workforce positions across all 14 territorial boards.
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 22 February 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 March 2021
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish follow-up modelling of the number of trials in backlog, in light of the announcement that court business will be restricted until the end of March 2021.
Answer
The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) publishes, on a monthly basis, a workbook that details the throughput of criminal cases and the forecast of outstanding scheduled trials in the High Court, Sheriff Court and Justice of Peace Court. This shows the impact of court restrictions and can be accessed at the following link https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/about-the-scottish-court-service/scs-news/2021/02/16/monthly-information-on-criminal-case-throughput-for-january-2021
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 18 February 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 1 March 2021
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has offered Scottish Prison Service (SPS) staff regular COVID-19 testing on any occasion prior to the pilot testing that is to begin at SPS sites, as a result of the enhanced asymptomatic testing programme.
Answer
SPS staff have previously had access to tests while asymptomatic through their Health Board if it was required.
In addition SPS staff, as members of the public, have been able to access testing when they are symptomatic and as keyworkers, SPS staff have been able to gain priority access to symptomatic testing in times of high demand through the key worker portal.
In response to multi-agency arrangements during outbreaks at HMPs Addiewell, Dumfries and Kilmarnock in February and in HMP Barlinnie in November 2020, mobile testing units were deployed by local health boards for SPS staff and the prison population.
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 February 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 1 March 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how many applications for support from Victim Surcharge Fund have been received from victim support organisations; what the total value is of these; how many (a) have been approved, (b) have been rejected and (c) are yet to be processed; how much it has paid out so far, and what the expected total payment from the fund is.
Answer
The closing date for applications to the Victim Surcharge Fund from victim support organisations was 12 February 2021. Five applications have been received.
More detailed information, including amounts awarded to successful applicants, will be available once the applications have been assessed and awards have been made. I also refer to the previous answer given to PQ S5W-34365 on 1 February 2021, that stated awards will be made before the end of March 2021.
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
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 February 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 1 March 2021
To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it is no longer planning to publish a tracker monitoring the implementation of the recommendations of the Independent Review of Complaints Handling, Investigations and Misconduct Issues in Relation to Policing, which was led by Dame Elish Angiolini.
Answer
As I informed the Justice Sub-committee on 15 February 2021, I fully recognise the importance of transparency and am committed to sharing information on progress in a way that is meaningful and accessible to a range of audiences. A list of all 111 recommendations with a box to be ticked on completion would not give an accurate picture of the work underway as progress may be more nuanced than a binary tick box could convey.
Instead, a progress report will be published on the Scottish Government's website regularly with progress reported under thematic headings to provide an overall picture of developments. The report will also ensure it is easy to identify and audit the ownership and progress for each recommendation set out in Dame Elish Angiolini’s report. The report will show which partner is responsible for each recommendations and what progress has been made. What is proposed therefore will fulfil the desire for transparency which an action tracker could provide but will in addition provide narrative, context and additional information.
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 11 February 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Ash Denham on 25 February 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) legal aid firms and (b) law centres it estimates will apply for the Coronavirus Resilience and Recovery Fund for Legal Aid, and what the expected average payment will be.
Answer
The Scottish Government recognise the important role of legal aid providers in supporting their clients and the justice system in Scotland, and also recognise that some will have encountered financial difficulties as a consequence of the Coronavirus pandemic.
That is why we are making up to £9 million available up to 31 March 2021 to legal aid businesses and law centres who have had an exceptional reduction in new cases starting because of the restrictions in place. Further information on the fund, including criteria can be found at - https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-resilience
-and-recovery-fund-for-legal-aid/
The Scottish Government expects all firms and law centres who may be eligible to apply, will do so. The Fund opened for applications on 10 February and as at 17 February the Scottish Legal Aid Board has received 119 applications.
As grants will be awarded based partly on information which we do not hold, but which will be provided to us by firms and law centres as part of the application process, at this stage, we cannot estimate what an average payment will be.
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 December 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 23 February 2021
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish its plan to vaccinate people (a) overall and (b) in high-risk groups against COVID-19 in the NHS Grampian region, and what the timescale will be.
Answer
The Scottish Government has published its Deployment Plan which sets out how we will work as fast as supplies allow to vaccinate everyone over the age of 18 and those aged 16 and 17 who are frontline health and social care workers, young carers or have underlying health conditions.
As of 14 February, 122,856 individuals had received their first vaccination in the Grampian area which is 25.33% of the population.
Weekly updates are published by Public Health Scotland providing more detailed breakdowns by groups vaccinated and geography: https://publichealthscotland.scot/our-areas-of-work/covid-19/covid-19-data-andintelligence/covid-19-weekly-report-for-scotland/
The Scottish Government now publishes daily updates of the cumulative number of people receiving their vaccination:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronaviruscovid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/.
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 05 February 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 16 February 2021
To ask the Scottish Government when it will implement qualified one-way costs shifting, which was legislated for under the Civil Litigation (Expenses and Group Proceedings) (Scotland) Act 2018, and what preparations it has made for any increase in cases raised by pursuer solicitor firms where cases have been held back due to any delay in implementation.
Answer
Qualified one-way costs shifting (QOCS) will be commenced as soon as possible.
Commencement needs to aligned with the production of court rules which are drafted independently of the Scottish Government by the Scottish Civil Justice Council. We are working closely with SCJC to ensure a smooth introduction and simultaneous commencement of the substantive provision in the Civil Litigation (Expenses and Group Proceedings) (Scotland) Act 2018 with the relevant rules of court.
It will be for the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service to ensure operational readiness for the introduction of QOCS and they will be fully sighted on the commencement arrangements
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 January 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 3 February 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what work has been completed to date on developing questionnaires to capture information about the experiences of witnesses, including children, at court; whether it considers it currently satisfies the reporting requirement of section 14 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 and, if not, when it anticipates being able to do so.
Answer
Section 14 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 requires the Scottish Ministers to place before Parliament a report on various matters relating to the operation of the Act during the first 3 years after commencement. This includes a requirement to provide information about the experience of witnesses, including child witnesses, in court cases prosecuted under section 1 of that Act, or where a 'domestic abuse aggravation' under section 1 of the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 has been libelled.
Work is underway to develop a research programme to gather information on the experiences of witnesses, including children, at court to satisfy this element of the reporting requirement contained at section 14 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018. This research will be undertaken within the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic and will therefore seek to account for the practical and ethical issues inherent with this type of research during this difficult period whilst still satisfying the reporting requirement. The research is likely to involve a range of methods in order to meet the research aims.
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 21 January 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 3 February 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that, because of financial issues, Police Scotland might have to reduce numbers by around 4,000 officers and/or move them to civilian roles, and whether it will consider increasing Police Scotland's funding to prevent this.
Answer
Police Scotland’s Strategic Workforce Plan was presented at the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) Board meeting on 22 January 2021. This plan has been developed to ensure that the service is best placed to meet changing demands, and enable Police Scotland to identify the officer, staff and skills profile needed to best serve Scotland’s communities.
The recruitment of Police Officers is a matter for the Chief Constable of Police Scotland, who has recently stated that there are currently no plans to reduce police officer numbers. There are currently 17,249 police officers (as at 30 September 2020), significantly above the level inherited in 2007.
As announced in the Scottish Budget on 28 January 2021, the Scottish Government’s total budget for policing in 2021-22 will be over £1.3 billion. The SPA budget will increase by a total of £75.5m, a 6.1% increase compared to 2020-21. This will eliminate the structural deficit in Police Scotland’s budget and deliver a sustainable policing budget position. The allocation of this budget to policing priorities is a matter for the SPA and the Chief Constable.