Questions and answers

Question reference: S5W-23377

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 7 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on the number of people from ethnic minorities who have been convicted and recorded as having reoffended in each of the last five years, also broken down by ethnicity.

Question reference: S5W-23376

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 7 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the average length of sentence has been for a convicted person from an ethnic minority in each of the last five years, also broken down by ethnicity.

Question reference: S5W-22903

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 7 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on people from ethnic minorities' (a) confidence in the police and (b) fear of crime, broken down by ethnicity.

Confidence in the police

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) collects data on the public’s perceptions of the police through a range of questions. These cover aspects such as the perceived effectiveness of the police, how engaged the police are with communities and whether the police treat people fairly. The highest level question exploring confidence in the police asks people ‘how good a job’ they think the police are doing – with ‘excellent’ and ‘good’ results usually combined to show positive perceptions. Results from this question from the 2017-18 SCJS are shown in Table 1.

SCJS results are not released for groups where the underlying sample size is less than 50. As such, some groups must be aggregated in order to provide results by ethnicity – although where possible more detailed breakdowns are provided. Survey results are estimates with associated margins of error, rather than precise values. Generally where sample sizes are smaller the margin of error around results is larger. Statistical tests are used to assess whether apparent differences between results are statistically significant.

Looking at ‘excellent’ and ‘good’ responses combined, the SCJS finds:

Adults in the ‘White – Other’ group (and ‘White Polish’ and ‘All other white’ sub-groups) were more likely to say the police were doing an excellent or good job in 2017-18 than ‘White Scottish’ adults.

The results for all other groups were no different to the figure for ‘White Scottish’ adults – any apparent differences shown in Table 1 are not statistically significant.

Table 1: Adults views on how good a job the police are doing (% of adults)

	Excellent / Good	Excellent	Good	Fair	Poor	Very poor	Don’t Know / Refused	Sample size
White – Scottish	55%	10%	46%	33%	7%	2%	3%	4199

White - Other British	60%	8%	51%	29%	5%	2%	5%	725

White – Other (i and ii combined)	68%	13%	56%	18%	7%	0%	6%	343
(i) White Polish	72%	9%	63%	17%	4%	0%	7%	92
(ii) All other white groups	67%	14%	53%	19%	8%	1%	6%	251

Minority Ethnic (iii and iv combined)	60%	14%	45%	29%	6%	0%	5%	197
(iii) Asian	62%	11%	51%	28%	8%	0%	3%	105
(iv) All other ethnic groups	56%	19%	37%	32%	3%	0%	9%	92

Total	57%	10%	47%	31%	7%	2%	3%	5475

Source: Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, 2017-18

1. Figures may not sum to 100% due to rounding.

2. The ‘All other white groups’ sub-group contains: people who identify as Irish, Gypsy/Traveller or ‘any other white ethnic group’.

3. The ‘All other ethnic groups’ sub-group contains adults who identify as having a mixed or multiple ethnic background and adults who describe their ethnicity as: African, Caribbean or Black, Arab or ‘other’ (i.e. their ethnicity is not listed in the pre-defined answer options).

The Scottish Surveys Core Questions (SSCQ) combines data on selected questions included in three of the Scottish Government’s main household surveys to provide a larger overall sample size and facilitate more detailed breakdowns of results for population sub-groups. Between 2012 and 2017 the SSCQ included the SCJS questions on confidence in the effectiveness of the police. The most recent SSCQ results (including ethnicity breakdowns) can be found in the 2017 SSCQ report: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-surveys-core-questions-2017/ .

Fear of crime

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) collects data on the public’s perceptions of and worry about crime through a range of questions. One question asks respondents how safe they feel walking alone in their local area after dark – this is often referred to as providing evidence on fear of crime, but also captures wider feelings of safety in the neighbourhood.

Results from this question from the 2017-18 SCJS are shown in Table 2.

SCJS results are not released for groups where the underlying sample size is less than 50. As such, some groups must be aggregated in order to provide results by ethnicity – although where possible more detailed breakdowns are provided. Survey results are estimates with associated margins of error, rather than precise values. Generally where sample sizes are smaller the margin of error around results is larger. Statistical tests are used to assess whether apparent differences between results are statistically significant.

Looking at ‘very safe’ and ‘fairly safe’ responses combined, the SCJS finds:

Adults in the ‘White Other British’ and ‘All Other White’ groups were more likely to feel safe walking alone in their local area after dark in 2017-18 than ‘White Scottish’ adults.

The results for all other groups were no different to the figure for ‘White Scottish’ adults – any apparent differences shown in Table 2 are not statistically significant.

Table 2: How safe adults feel walking alone in their local area after dark (% of adults)

	Very / fairly safe	Very / fairly unsafe	Don’t Know / Refused	Sample size
White – Scottish	76%	23%	1%	4199

White - Other British	83%	15%	1%	725

White – Other (i and ii combined)	81%	19%	0%	343
(i) White Polish	77%	23%	0%	92
(ii) All other white groups	82%	17%	0%	251

Minority Ethnic (iii and iv combined)	73%	26%	1%	197
(iii) Asian	68%	30%	1%	105
(iv) All other ethnic groups	79%	20%	1%	92

Total	77%	22%	1%	5475

Source: Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, 2017-18

1. Figures may not sum to 100% due to rounding.

2. The ‘All other white groups’ sub-group contains: people who identify as Irish, Gypsy/Traveller or ‘any other white ethnic group’.

3. The ‘All other ethnic groups’ sub-group contains adults who identify as having a mixed or multiple ethnic background and adults who describe their ethnicity as: African, Caribbean or Black, Arab or ‘other’ (i.e. their ethnicity is not listed in the pre-defined answer options).

Question reference: S5W-23378

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 7 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many people from ethnic minorities in police custody have been recorded as having (a) self-harmed, (b) been assaulted, (c) been identified as having assaulted other prisoners, (d) been involved in violence involving other prisoners and (e) died by suicide in each of the last five years, also broken down by ethnicity.

Question reference: S5W-22904

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 7 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many people from ethnic minorities have been recorded as having been (a) arrested, (b) stopped and searched, (c) prosecuted and (i) convicted and (ii) not convicted and (d) on remand in each of the last five years, also broken down by ethnicity.

Question reference: S5W-23186

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Ash Denham on 29 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many dog control notices have been issued in each of the last five years in (a) Scotland and (b) the Glasgow local authority area under section 1 of the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010.

The requested information is set out in the following table. Each year covers the period from 27 February to 26 February of the following year.

Number of Dog Control Notices Issued Per Year
Local Authority	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	Total
Aberdeen City	5	8	6	1	6	26
Aberdeenshire	10	4	11	10	26	61
Angus	2	2	2	11	19	36
Argyll & Bute	9	16	17	24	20	86
Clackmannanshire	0	0	3	1	5	9
Comhairle nan Eilean Sair	3	5	4	2	2	16
Dumfries & Galloway	14	7	28	17	18	84
Dundee City	4	15	15	17	31	82
East Ayrshire	4	0	5	2	1	12
East Dunbartonshire	5	5	0	1	3	14
East Lothian	17	11	7	4	2	41
East Renfrewshire	0	0	0	0	2	2
City of Edinburgh	5	17	14	5	0	41
Falkirk	14	4	19	4	7	48
Fife	48	57	44	56	59	264
City of Glasgow *	0	1	0	-	-	1
Highland	14	23	30	29	14	110
Inverclyde	0	1	0	1	0	2
Midlothian	4	13	7	10	17	51
Moray	2	2	4	3	3	14
North Ayrshire	2	7	4	9	20	42
North Lanarkshire	0	0	1	3	7	11
Orkney	1	4	8	2	2	17
Perth & Kinross	10	9	11	10	14	54
Renfrewshire	26	21	15	20	19	101
Scottish Borders	10	11	1	15	3	40
Shetland Islands	0	0	0	0	2	2
South Ayrshire	0	0	3	6	5	14
South Lanarkshire	3	11	3	2	5	24
Stirling	6	2	8	4	13	33
West Dunbartonshire	0	1	4	4	8	17
West Lothian	26	20	16	17	6	85
TOTAL	244	277	290	290	339	1440

* City of Glasgow Council - Figures for 2016-17 and 2017-18 were request but no reply was received.

Question reference: S5W-23071

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 29 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will bring payments under the Scottish Infected Blood Support Scheme in line with those in England, and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.

Overall funding for infected blood support in Scotland remains proportionately higher than in England on a population basis and our support is based on recommendations agreed with Scottish stakeholders through both the Financial Review Group in 2015 and the Clinical Review on the impacts of chronic hepatitis c in 2018. Funding for the Scottish Infected Blood Support Scheme (SIBSS) was also significantly increased in December 2018 in response to the recommendations made by the Clinical Review.

While payments for some groups may appear to be higher for those on the English Infected Blood Support Scheme (EIBSS), in some areas SIBSS payments remain higher and so we would not wish to consider parity with the English scheme if that means that some SIBSS beneficiaries lose out financially. For example, those SIBSS beneficiaries with chronic hepatitis c have all received an additional £30,000 lump sum payment, with those with chronic hepatitis c and also HIV having received an additional £50,000 lump sum. Neither EIBSS beneficiaries nor those on the Welsh or Northern Irish schemes have received these payments. In addition, widows, widowers or partners of those who have died who are registered with EIBSS are only entitled to means tested payments if they are on a low income, whereas widows, widowers and partners registered with SIBSS receive higher levels of payments which are not means tested. They receive the full amount of annual payment their spouse or partner would have been receiving if they were alive for the first twelve months after their death and, from then on, 75% of what they would have been receiving.

The Scottish Government will keep payments in Scotland under review at this stage and plans to meet Ministers from the Department of Health and Social Care and the Welsh Government and officials from the Northern Irish administration to discuss what may be possible to achieve greater parity across the UK in the longer term.

Question reference: S5O-03312

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S5O-03276

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 May 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether the number of pupils with additional support needs who have a coordinated support plan in place is increasing.

Question reference: S5W-22700

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 2 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-22097 by Clare Haughey on 26 March 2019, how many of the new mental health workers are employed by each NHS board, broken down by job title.

The Scottish Government does not have the level of detail requested.

It should be noted that the recruitment of the additional mental health workers is being carried out by Integration Authorities (IAs) who have devolved responsibility for health and social care. Although NHS Boards are members of IAs, not all of the additional workers will therefore be employed by them.

IAs do however have a responsibility to report on this additional workforce and as advised previously through S5W-22097, a further update on the progress being made with this commitment will be available in May 2019 via the following link https://www.gov.scot/publications/mental-health-workers-quarterly-performance-reports/ .

Chamber and committees