Chamber and committees

The length of time taken for sexual offence cases to get to court is often too long. There has been a significant increase in the number of serious sexual offence cases. These now account for 75% of High Court cases; this indicates that more victims have the confidence to report these cases, and that is a positive development. The number of cases continues to increase.

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has reformed the way it deals with sexual offence cases. From April 2016, all High Court sexual offence prosecutions have been brought together under the same chain of command. Specialist sexual offence teams have been established within the Service to supplement the specialist work of Crown Counsel within the National Sexual Crimes Unit. This has resulted in significant improvements; and I anticipate that it will enable further improvements to be made.

The Service has more than halved the number of pre-petition cases since these changes were introduced.

The Scottish Government commissioned an independent National Scoping Exercise of Advocacy Services relating to the criminal justice system for victims of violence against women and girls in 2016 to identify the gaps in services for all victims of gender based violence. The research, led by the former Chief Executive of Scottish Women’s Aid, Lily Greenan, was published earlier this year and is at http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/08/9838 It found a perceived lack of advocacy services for children and young people in their own right and recognised that further work is needed in this area to fully understand what is being offered and by whom.

A working group has been set up, led by the Head of Service of ASSIST to develop recommendations on how criminal justice advocacy services for victims of violence against women and girls can be improved. In relation to cases under section 11 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, on matters such as contact and residence, there will be a consultation next year on the review of part 1 of the 1995 Act and the associated Family Justice Modernisation Strategy. This will consider how best to ensure that the welfare of the child is paramount in these cases.

The scheduling of court business is a matter for the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service acting in consultation with Sheriffs Principal, who have responsibility for the efficient disposal of court business.

In practice, Community Payback Order review hearings are generally scheduled, before the relevant sheriff, within existing general criminal business or remand courts and tend to be called early in the morning’s proceedings.

The Criminal Justice Social Work Report (CJSWR) is intended to assist the sentencing process and provide the court with detailed information on an individual’s personal situation.

The sentencer will take a number of factors into consideration when deciding which disposal is most appropriate in each case, including the CJSWR recommendations. Under the extended presumption, sentencers will retain the discretion to pass the most appropriate sentence based on the facts and circumstances of the specific case in front of them.

No decision has been made in relation to any required changes to social work reports as a result of increasing the presumption against short sentences – the extension to the presumption will not take place until the relevant provisions of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Bill are in force.

The Scottish Government will work with stakeholders to plan and prepare for the implementation of the extension of the presumption against short sentences to 12 months or less.

In accordance with the Terms of Reference for the Aberdeen to Central Belt Reference Group and the Memorandum of Understanding (for the additional investment for the Aberdeen City Deal), the Scottish Government ensures that all relevant parties are regularly apprised of the progress of the work undertaken by the group.

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.

Good progress has been made on the development of cross-border provisions which has involved close working with both Police Scotland and BTP. It is the intention of BTP and Police Scotland to jointly test the operation of these provisions in various operational scenarios.

An initial training needs analysis has been completed by Police Scotland and is being further developed. Detailed costings will form part of that further work.

The Scottish Government believes that the transfer falls within the exclusion in regulation 3(5) of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (TUPE) Regulations 2006, because it is a transfer of administrative functions between public authorities. Accordingly, it is not a relevant transfer for the purposes of the TUPE Regulations and those Regulations therefore would not apply.

The Policy Memorandum to the Railway Policing (Scotland) Bill explains that it is the Scottish Government's intention to abide by the Cabinet Office Statement of Practice on Staff Transfers in the Public Sector (COSOP). The Scottish Government has made clear that the principles that will be applied here are (i) the transfer (including terms of transfer) will be effected by legislation and (ii) the staff transferred will be treated no less favourably than they would have been had TUPE applied. The Joint Programme Board is now overseeing a range of work to put these principles into practice.

As set out in the update recently provided to the Justice Committee, our planning assumption is that officers will transfer to Police Scotland with their existing status as both constables and employees. This position was reflected in a letter sent by the BTP Authority to all officers in Scotland.