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The Scottish Government is committed to working with local government to help improve the condition and safety of roads and footpaths in Scotland for all road users, including older people.

Ipsos Mori gathers road user’s views in the ‘Perceptions of the Trunk Road Network in Scotland’ survey on behalf of Transport Scotland. This includes questions relating to general satisfaction with condition of road surfaces and footways. In addition, specific questions are asked regarding satisfaction with the availability of footways, pedestrian crossing points, dropped kerbs and the provision of lighting on footways. In 2017, the majority of respondents were satisfied with all these aspects.

The results of these surveys support the overall Customer Care objective for the Trunk Road Network in Transport Scotland’s Performance Management Framework. In addition, the results inform where changes in budget allocations may help to achieve the desired performance.

Overall, Transport Scotland’s budget for maintenance of the trunk road network has increased by around £65 million to £433 million for 2018/19. Transport Scotland’s operating companies also have a contractual obligation to inspect the trunk road network at 7-day intervals to identify any defects that require prompt attention (Category 1 defects) because they present, or could present, an immediate hazard to road users.

In addition, walked detailed footway/cycleway inspections are also carried out at regular intervals (with frequencies based on the level of usage of the footway/cycleway). The surface of roads is also subject to an annual detailed inspection.

Transport Scotland also seeks to ensure that the design, construction, operation and maintenance of our trunk road infrastructure create an environment which can be used by everyone regardless of age or disability. In partnership with our colleagues in the Roads for All Forum, which includes representatives from a range of accessibility and disability groups, we have focused on delivering a trunk road network accessible to all. To this end we have set aside £2 million within the current financial year specifically to address barriers to accessibility on the trunk road network.

The first Scottish Older People's Assembly was held in October 2009, and the Scottish Government provided funding of £31,016.32 for it in 2009-10, and £30,000 per year between 2010-11 – 2013-14. In 2014-15 SOPA received £40,000, and between 2015-16 and 16-17 the Assembly received £65,000. Most recently SOPA has received £20,000 per year for the period 2016-17- 2018-19.

The Scottish Government is supportive of efforts to educate and promote women and girls' health and hygiene, including menstrual hygiene. Our International Development Fund and Climate Justice Fund have supported a number of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene projects. We are currently funding a nearly £1.4 million project with Scottish Water in Rwanda delivered by WaterAid. This includes directly supporting ten schools through the provision of inclusive toilets with menstrual hygiene management rooms, serving as a demonstration of best practice in the provision of inclusive sanitation services in schools.

Access to good quality housing is a priority for this Government. We firmly believe that everyone should have a home that meets their needs. Living in the right home with the right support can be the key to enabling people to live safely and independently at home.

Local authorities as strategic housing authority have the responsibility for assessing housing requirements in their area & setting out in their Local Housing Strategy & Strategic Housing Investment Plans how these requirements will be met.Our A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People Delivery Plan sets out a number of housing related actions that support this ambition, including ensuring each local authority sets a realistic target for delivery of wheelchair accessible housing, and reports annually on progress. We are currently refreshing the Local Housing Strategy guidance and will include this commitment within the revised guidance which we expect to publish later this year.

Most of the homes provided through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme will be delivered by housing associations and councils and will be sufficiently flexible to meet people’s varying needs. Latest available statistics show that 91% of homes built by housing associations and councils in 2016-17 met Housing for Varying Needs Standards. We will ensure that the grant subsidy arrangements for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme help provide specialist housing identified by local authorities as a priority.

The Scottish Government is also working with health and social care partnerships, disabled people’s organisations and the housing sector, to improve planning and delivery of adaptation services to ensure that people who would benefit from adaptations to their home can access these services when needed.

The recent implementation of the Scottish Government’s world-leading minimum unit pricing for alcohol will go a long way to tackle the high strength, low cost alcohol that causes so much damage to individuals, families and communities. Minimum unit pricing is a key measure in the Scottish Government’s alcohol strategy, Changing Scotland's Relationship with Alcohol: A Framework for Action which is well regarded internationally. Other measures in the Framework include a 2.6 per cent reduction in consumption due to the multi-buy discount ban; increased delivery of Alcohol Brief Interventions; legislation to ban irresponsible promotions; and the introduction of a lower drink drive limit.

The Scottish Government has invested over £746 million to tackle problem substance use since 2008 with the vast majority directly supporting local prevention, treatment and recovery services. In addition, a further £60 million is being provided for alcohol and drug treatment over the remaining lifetime of this Parliament to transform services and ensure they are focused on the patient, rather than the addiction.

We are in the process of refreshing our Framework and will consider what further action to take to reduce alcohol-related harm. Our forthcoming refreshed alcohol and drug treatment strategy will ensure that treatment and support services better meet the needs of those who are most at risk as a result of their substance use.

Alongside an increase in recent years in the number of prosecutions, the number of people convicted of rape and attempted rape remains at historically high levels. There were 98 convictions in 2016-17, compared to 49 in 2007-08. The conviction rate for rape and attempted rape is highly susceptible to annual fluctuations due to the relatively small number of cases prosecuted each year.

However, the conviction rate for rape continues to be low in comparison with other offences. This reflects in part the challenging evidential requirements of proving rape.

Steps have been taken to strengthen how our justice system deals with rape cases. That includes modernising the law around sexual crime through the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009; giving victims of sexual offences automatic access to measures, such as screens and video links, when giving evidence; and the creation by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service of the specialist National Sexual Crimes Unit to prosecute serious sexual offences.

In April 2017, provisions contained in the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 came into effect, requiring judges to direct juries in certain sexual offence cases on how to consider evidence:

• relating to a delay by the victim in reporting the offence, and
• relating to a victim not putting up physical resistance to the perpetrator and/or the perpetrator not using physical force in carrying out the offence.

The judge must explain there may be good reasons why a victim may not report an offence immediately and good reasons why a victim may not physically resist their attacker, or why the perpetrator may not need to use physical force and that therefore it does not necessarily mean the allegation that the offence took place is false. This is intended to encourage juries to consider only relevant evidence in sexual offence cases, and not to be influenced by any pre-conceived ideas they may take into the jurors' room.

The fall in the conviction rate for sexual crime is likely to reflect, in part, the changing nature of sexual offence cases being reported by Police Scotland to COPFS for consideration of prosecution. Since 2007-08, there has been a reduction of two thirds in the number of prosecutions for prostitution-related offences, for which the conviction rate has tended to be higher, and a doubling in the number of prosecutions for rape and attempted rape, for which the conviction rate has historically been lower reflecting in part the challenging evidential requirements of proving rape and attempted rape.

COPFS take a rigorous approach to sexual offending. It has specialist units which deal with sexual offending and its prosecutors are experienced in the investigation, analysis and presentation of these cases and it should be noted that over 40% more people were convicted for sexual offences in Scottish courts in 2016-17 than in 2007-08.

Steps have been taken to strengthen how our justice system deals with sexual offence cases. That includes modernising the law around sexual crime through the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 and giving victims of sexual offences automatic access to measures, such as screens and video links, when giving evidence.

In April 2017, provisions contained in the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 came into effect, requiring judges to direct juries in certain sexual offence cases on how to consider evidence:

• relating to a delay by the victim in reporting the offence, and
• relating to a victim not putting up physical resistance to the perpetrator and/or the perpetrator not using physical force in carrying out the offence.

The judge must explain there may be good reasons why a victim may not report an offence immediately and good reasons why a victim may not physically resist their attacker, or why the perpetrator may not need to use physical force and that therefore it does not necessarily mean the allegation that the offence took place is false. This is intended to encourage juries to consider only relevant evidence in sexual offence cases, and not to be influenced by any pre-conceived ideas they may take into the jurors' room.

It is important to note that there is no direct relationship between the number of crimes recorded by the police and the number of follow-up actions taken by other agencies within the criminal justice system and therefore care should be taken when comparing recorded crime and criminal proceedings statistics.

For example, recorded crime statistics count crimes at the time that they come to the attention of Police Scotland, while criminal proceedings statistics report on cases which have concluded in court. This means that a crime may be recorded in one year and court proceedings concluded in a subsequent year. Furthermore, a person may be proceeded against for more than one crime involving more than one victim, meaning that a single conviction could be for several crimes. It is also possible that crimes recorded by the police may be altered in the course of judicial proceedings, for example, where a crime recorded by the police as rape results in a conviction for sexual assault.

However, we recognise that the number of people convicted for rape represents only a fraction of the number of alleged rapes reported to the police.

In November 2017, the Inspectorate of Prosecution in Scotland published its Thematic Review of the Investigation and Prosecution of Sexual Crimes which considered 643 cases where an accused appeared in court on a charge of a sexual crime and the case was identified as a potential High Court case (this would include, but would not be limited to, cases of rape and attempted rape). It found that around a third of these cases were discontinued and that the most common reasons were insufficient admissible evidence, disengagement of the victim and that there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.

We fully support the police, prosecutors and courts in holding perpetrators of sexual offences to account. We have modernised and strengthened the law around sexual crime through the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009, introducing a statutory definition of consent as "free agreement". And the introduction of statutory jury directions in certain sexual offence cases including for rape are designed to minimise the likelihood of any pre-conceived ideas jurors may have about how people react both during and in the aftermath of being sexually assaulted do not influence how jurors consider evidence in a specific case.

Police Scotland operate the National Rape Task Force using specially trained officers in 14 locally based Rape Investigation Units and the Crown Office operates the National Sexual Crime Unit. All cases of rape are tried in the High Court and presided over by Scotland's most senior and experienced judges.

The National Statistics on police recorded crime demonstrate that where sexual crimes are reported to the police, victims are disproportionately likely to be under the age of 18. Furthermore Scottish Government research published in 2017 identified that certain types of sexual offending (communicating indecently or cause to view sexual activity or images) are much more likely to have younger victims when committed online than when the offender and victim are in the same location.

We have and will continue to take action to tackle the sexual abuse of children, including development of the Scottish Government's National Action Plan on Internet Safety for Children and Young People. This was published in April 2017 and sets out a number of actions to improve internet safety. Its priorities include equipping children and young people to build their own personal resilience to stay safe online, supporting professionals and parents and carers and continuing to work with digital and social media providers to ensure children are not exposed to harm.

The Scottish Government also participates in the Executive Board of the UK Council for Child Internet safety and explore with social media providers how we can improve child internet safety in Scotland.

We have also invested in programmes that promote internet safety, including funding to Stop it Now Scotland! and to SACRO for their Challenging Harmful Online Images and Child Exploitation programme.

The Scottish Government established an expert group for preventing sexual offending involving children and young people and will bring together professional and academic expertise from across justice, education, child protection, health and the third sector to identify actions to better prevent sexual crime involving children and young people and mitigate the harm it causes. It will build on existing good work across Government and through partners.