Chamber and committees

It is the responsibility of the Scottish Police Authority and the Chief Constable to allocate resources across policing priorities, and to allocate officers to cases.

Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) provide a strong statutory framework to manage the risks posed by registered sex offenders with the greatest resources put towards those who present the highest risk to the public. Under MAPPA, Police, local authorities and other agencies work together to assess and monitor these individuals to reduce the risk they pose to the public. This includes proactive policing and zero tolerance of non-compliance which involves reporting cases to the Procurator Fiscal.

In 2021-22 the Scottish Government invested an additional £75.5 million in policing bringing the total policing budget to more than £1.3 billion, including £15 million one-off funding specifically to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the police budget. Police officer numbers in Scotland have been maintained and are favourable relative to elsewhere in the UK with around 32 officers per 10,000 population in Scotland compared to around 23 in England and Wales.

The Heat in Buildings Strategy sets out that, to meet our emissions reduction targets, by 2030 the vast majority of the 170,000 off-gas homes that currently use fossil fuel heating systems, as well as at least 1 million homes currently using mains gas, must convert to zero emissions heating. Together these amount to around half of domestic properties, on top of the 11% of homes that currently use zero emissions heat. In addition, the equivalent of 50,000 non-domestic buildings, around a quarter, must also switch from fossil fuels to zero emissions heating, which will bring the total using zero emissions heat to around three quarters.

Our existing commitments are therefore broadly equivalent to those recommended by Scottish Renewables in terms of numbers of heating system conversions. However, at this time we have not adopted these as specifically renewable heat targets, in order to accommodate other sources of decarbonised heat. We will review our provisional minimum renewable heat target of 22% in the Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan which we will publish for consultation in spring next year.

The Scottish Government since 2010 has provided funding to the Energy Saving Trust to deliver the Domestic chargepoint scheme, this scheme provides grant funding to support individuals across Scotland install electric vehicle home chargepoints.

To date Energy Saving Trust have provided 433 grants with a value of £137,423 to individuals across the Scottish Borders to install electric vehicle chargepoints.

The Scottish Government since 2010 has provided funding to the Energy Saving Trust to deliver the Low Carbon Transport Loan. In September 2020, this interest free loan scheme was extended to support individuals and businesses across Scotland purchase used electric vehicles.

As of 23 rd November 2021, 17 loans have been provided to individuals and businesses across the Scottish Borders to support the purchase of used electric vehicles to the value of £231,109.50

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

Education in all public sector prisons is delivered through a commercial contract with Fife College. As part of Fife College’s induction processes with those in custody, a screening tool is utilised. This screening tool gives an indication of the initial literacy levels of each prospective learner and therefore informs their individual learning plan.

All individuals are also routinely asked questions on admission to capture their level of English and this is recorded on SPS’ internal system. Individuals are asked to confirm whether they can understand, write, read and speak English.

The Waste (Scotland) Regulations require all schools in Scotland to take all practicable steps to recycle as much of its waste as possible. Provision of recycling facilities within state schools is the responsibility of Scotland’s local authorities. The regulations require waste producers, including schools, to separate and present for collection the key dry recyclables (glass, metal, plastic, paper and card) and food at source.

To support schools, Zero Waste Scotland has produced a Resource Efficiency Guide for Schools , which includes advice on waste management and potential initiatives to reduce waste and improve recycling.

As part of the Curriculum for Excellence, under the theme of Learning for Sustainability, many schools are engaging with the Eco-Schools Scotland programme . This is a seven step curricular-relevant programme to support schools in considering and tackling environmental issues. Schools must evidence their work through a focus on litter and waste minimisation plus two other Eco-Schools topics. Those schools who successfully complete the programme are awarded a Green Flag.

On 17 November, I announced the first of our landmark investments from the £70m Recycling Improvement Fund. The Fund was launched to support local authorities improve recycling infrastructure and maximise the quality and quantity of recycling, including help with aligning recycling collections to Household Recycling Charter’s supporting Code of Practice, to help make it easier for householders to recycle the right things and encourage high levels of citizen participation in waste prevention, recycling and reuse.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of reported incidents that may be homophobic in nature. Data is available on the number of police recorded hate crimes that include an aggravation for sexual orientation, the vast majority of which were found to be for prejudice towards the gay and lesbian community in 2018-19.

The Scottish Government published a study on the characteristics of police recorded Hate Crime in February 2021. The table below shows the number of sexual orientation aggravated hate crimes recorded by Police Scotland from 2014-15 to 2019-20, for (a) North Ayrshire, (b) Inverclyde and (c) Scotland. The number of hate crimes with a sexual orientation aggravation presented below is higher than the figures provided in the aforementioned study. This is because the table also includes hate crimes that have multiple aggravations (one of which is sexual orientation).

The study also looked in more detail at the prejudice shown by perpetrators. In the vast majority (94%) of sexual orientation aggravated hate crimes in 2018-19 the perpetrator showed prejudice towards the gay and lesbian community. In over two-thirds (69%) of crimes the words used or actions taken by the perpetrator showed a prejudice towards the gay community, with a further quarter (25%) showing prejudice towards the lesbian community. In 2018-19, the study showed that 39% of sexual orientation aggravated hate crimes had a Police Officer as a victim. Due to the sampling design, information at local authority level is unable to be calculated.

A second study into the characteristics of police recorded hate crime is due to be published in 2022. This will provide the same type of detailed disaggregated data and information on police recorded hate crimes for the year 2020-21.

(a) As per the guidance on Discretionary Housing Payments and the guidance on the GOV.UK webpage, anyone receiving Industrial Injuries Benefit (and equivalent payments made as part of a War Disablement Pension or the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme) are exempt from the benefit cap. Therefore, all local authorities should disregard this payment as income when assessing applications for housing related benefits.

(b) The Council Tax Reduction Regulations instruct that armed forces independence payments should be fully disregarded as income in the calculation of council tax reduction. Therefore, all local authorities should disregard these payments as income in relation to applications for council tax reduction.

The central register of interests is not published.     The register is updated as and when new interests emerge and on an annual basis Group Heads are requested to review entries on the register for their staff to ensure that it remains accurate.   However, the SPCB recognises that transparency is important to ensure confidence in the process for managing conflicts of interest for SPS staff.  Officials are currently reviewing the Code of Conduct and as part of this review the SPCB will consider whether publication of all or part of the register of interests is appropriate.  The SPCB has requested advice from officials to assist it with its consideration of this matter.  

The process for declaring an interest is outlined in the SPCB staff conduct rules. 

The purpose of the Code of Conduct is to set out standards of behaviour required of SPCB staff.  The Code of Conduct is a tool for ensuring that SPCB staff meet their contractual obligations and for enabling managers to manage staff conduct.

All staff are required under the Code of Conduct to inform their Head of Office/Group if they have a private interest which may impact on the conduct of their duties. The responsibility rests with the individual member of staff who must declare all interests of a personal, financial, political or professional nature which may compromise or be reasonably perceived to compromise that person’s ability to perform their role in an impartial or objective manner.  

The Code of Conduct requires managers and staff to take steps to mitigate for the risk of a potential conflict of interest so that it, or the perception of a conflict, can be removed.  Management action can include requiring the member of staff to withdraw from the work where the conflict has or may arise, referring decisions to others or requiring the member of staff to withdraw from the activity giving rise to the actual, potential or perceived conflict.

The People and Culture Office maintains a central record of interests.  This is a live register which is updated regularly.   This means that new interests can be added as and when they arise, and interests can be removed as they cease to be relevant.   For example, when a member of staff ceases to carry out an activity which gave rise to a potential conflict of interest the activity is removed from the register.  

The SPCB is aware that there is an increased level of scrutiny of standards in public life and that transparency is important to give re-assurance.  The current arrangements, including the central register of interests, have been in place since 2010.  The SPCB is currently reviewing the Code of Conduct and has asked officials to provide advice on this matter.  

The SPCB will publish the outcome of its review in line with the SPCB’s Publication Scheme and will notify the Member when it has done so.