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The Scottish Government is undertaking a systematic evidence review specifically on the impacts of criminalisation of the purchase of sexual services alongside a desk-based review of published research evidence on prostitution in Scotland and to summarise up to date evidence on the scale and nature of prostitution in Scotland. We can confirm that organisations representing and supporting those involved in prostitution including men and women will be contacted for their input at an early stage as part of this work.

I met with the Leader of Aberdeen City Council at the teachers’ summit held on 30 September 2015 in Aberdeen. I discussed with her and other local authority leaders from the north of Scotland issues relating to the recruitment and retention of teachers.

The government is already providing an additional £10 million on top of the existing £41 million to help all local authorities to maintain existing teacher numbers, and Aberdeen City Council has been allocated an appropriate share of that funding. We provided funding for the University of Aberdeen and its partner local authorities to develop and deliver a part-time distance learning initial teacher education programme, and Aberdeen City Council have employees on the programme training to be teachers. We have increased the numbers of student places in Initial Teacher Education and allocated extra places to the University of Aberdeen and the University of the Highlands and Islands. And we have recently launched a national promotional campaign to encourage even more talented young people to become teachers.

There are a number of ways in which home buyers are protected.

First of all, fraud is a criminal offence.

Secondly, the Keeper of the Registers takes a number of steps to combat fraud. Although the keeper is not usually the target of fraudulent acts, the land register can be used to legitimise fraudulent applications.

The risk of fraud can never fully be eliminated. However, the keeper has a designated fraud officer and has adopted a number of operational measures in an attempt to reduce the risk of fraudulent deeds entering the register. The fraud officer works closely with bodies such as Police Scotland and the Council of Mortgage Lenders to assist with the early detection of fraudulent schemes and provides internal training to raise staff awareness of types of fraud. The fraud officer is the referral point for suspicious applications.

Solicitors act as gatekeepers for applications to register a deed in the land register and therefore have a key role to play in the prevention of this type of fraud. The Scottish Government and Registers of Scotland expect solicitors to adhere to professional standards set by the Law Society of Scotland.

Thirdly, the Land Registration etc. (Scotland) Act 2012 made it an offence for any party submitting an application to the keeper to knowingly or recklessly include materially false or misleading statements or to fail to disclose material information in such an application. The offence provision is designed to deter criminals from using the land register to validate illegitimate and criminal transactions.

Finally, the 2012 Act also provides for a new statutory system of caveats. A caveat on a title sheet will effectively warn any party of ongoing litigation, including actions which may involve an allegation of fraud.

The Scottish Government and Registers of Scotland fully recognise the need to be vigilant in this area. We have no current plans to introduce further measures but the government will continue to discuss with the Law Society of Scotland and others any steps that can be taken to improve the conveyancing process generally.

With regards to time limits, specifically under section 32(1) of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007, the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) makes rules as to its own practice and procedure (although Scottish Ministers, along with others including the Lord President are consulted prior to the rules being made). In accordance with Schedule 3 of the Act, the SLCC may include provision for fixing time limits for the making of complaints.

We are currently working with the SLCC to identify whether any changes are required to the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007 that would lead to improvements in its complaints handling, which would require to be taken forward in a future legislative programme.

Therefore, the setting of time limits is primarily a matter for the SLCC and there would be no requirement to amend or update the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007 to achieve this.

Local authorities have powers under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006 to issue work notices and maintenance orders on owners in blocks of flats. When owners are unable or unwilling to comply with a notice or order the local authority can carry out work itself and recover costs from owners. The local authority has power under section 186 of the Act to make inquiries necessary to assist it in exercising these powers. It would be for the local authority to decide who it considers to be the owner of the property for the purpose of serving a notice. Section 64 of the Act provides a right of appeal to the Sheriff for anyone who is aggrieved by the local authority’s decision to serve a notice or order.

There is no such general provision where a condition is attached to planning permission for a satellite dish requiring the removal of a redundant dish, enforcement of such a condition would be matter for the planning authority. The permitted development rights for certain changes to the exterior of dwelling houses and flats, which could include satellite dishes, do not include such a condition.

These matters have arisen as part of regular discourse with the Law Society of Scotland. I most recently met with the Law Society of Scotland on 3 September 2015 as part of my quarterly meetings with them. At this meeting, I emphasised the need to resolve quickly the cases in Aberdeen and Happy Valley, West Lothian which were the subject of the report by former Sheriff Principal Bowen to the society on consumer protection in conveyancing: http://www.lawscot.org.uk/media/439009/Law-Society-report-Consumer-Protections-in-Conveyancing-Cases.pdf

The Scottish Government will continue to discuss with the society and others what changes should be made generally to conveyancing following the recommendations in Sheriff Principal Bowen’s report and with particular focus on preventing any similar case arising in future and, if they do, seeing them resolved more effectively.

The Scottish Government answered a similar question S4W-22567 on 2 October 2014.

We do not hold the information requested. However, there is published statistical information on criminal proceedings in Scotland:

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/PubCriminalProceedings

I will write to the member with more details of statistical information on criminal offences relating to fraud.

Registers of Scotland are responsible for the registering of dispositions. However, Registers of Scotland would only know if a fraudulent deed had been registered if the fraud comes to light.

Some deeds are registered in the Land Register and others in the Register of Sasines (though the Register of Sasines is being closed and all dispositions must now be registered in the Land Register).

In the Land Register, a party affected by fraud can apply for rectification of the register. However, the Keeper of the Registers does not catalogue the applications for rectifications in such a way as to allow her to identify the number of rectifications sought as a consequence of fraud.

In the Register of Sasines, a fraudulent deed can be reduced by a decree of reduction granted by the courts. These decrees may be recorded in the Sasines but that is not obligatory. A search of the Sasines to examine decrees of reduction granted by the courts following the recording of a fraudulent deed would be time-consuming. In any event, any such search would not give a definitive answer given that some fraud may be undetected and, in other cases, the decree of reduction may not have been recorded.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The usual position when property in a block of flats is damaged by property owned by somebody else is to seek recompense from the owner of the property that has caused the damage. Section 18 of the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 provides that owners of flats in tenements have a duty to obtain insurance against risks prescribed in regulations made by the Scottish Ministers. These regulations are at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/2007/16/contents/made. If there is a dispute about liability because there is a dispute about ownership of the property that caused the damage, the first step would usually be for the parties involved to discuss to see if they can reach an agreement on liability. The 2004 Act makes provision on liability or continuing liability in certain circumstances: for example, section 28(2) makes provision on what ‘owner’ means. In some cases, alternative dispute resolution such as mediation or arbitration may help to resolve any dispute. If agreement cannot be reached, it would be open to one or more of the parties to raise an action in court to resolve the matter.