Question reference: S5W-25060
- Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 2 September 2019
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Current status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 17 September 2019
Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to reinstate the recording of crime data by the sex of the offender.
Answer
The Scottish Government has not made any changes to the recording of sex or gender within data on police recorded crime or criminal proceedings.
The National Statistics on crimes recorded by the police do not include any demographic information on perpetrators, whereas those on criminal proceedings show convictions split by male/female. This reflects the information provided to the Scottish Government by the relevant criminal justice agencies (Police Scotland, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service).
As recently announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People (in a statement to parliament on the 20th June), the Chief Statistician will lead a working group on the recording of sex and gender in data. This working group will consider what guidance should be offered to public bodies on the collection of data on sex and gender – including what form of data collection and disaggregation is most appropriate in different circumstances.
Going forward, the statisticians responsible for crime and other Justice-related statistics will reflect on any new guidance produced by the working group – and will work with data suppliers to investigate whether any changes in approach will enhance the value of this information to users.