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Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S5W-23157

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 29 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been (a) charged and (b) convicted under sections 28 to 31 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 in each year since its commencement.

Sections 28 to 31 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 commenced on 13th December 2010. Section 29 relates to the recording of aggravators and is not an offence in itself so there are no charges or convictions under this section of the Act.

(a) Information on the number of people charged is not held centrally. The Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service have provided the following table.

Charges reported to COPFS under Sections 28-31 of Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010

Charge Description	Financial Year Reported
Charge Description	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18
S28(1)	11	101	112	108	157	101	97	48
S30(1)(A)	-	*	*	14	*	30	*	20
S30(1)(A) & S30(2)	-	-	-	*	*	*	-	-
S30(1)(B) & 30(2)	-	*	-	-	-	-	-	*
S30(1)(B)	-	9	14	20	29	9	17	5
S31(1)(A) & B(I)	-	-	*	*	-	*	*	*
S31(1)(A) & B(II)	-	-	-	6	*	*	-	*
Grand Total	11	113	141	151	212	147	125	79

* = data suppressed

COPFS does not normally disclose statistical information for data entries of fewer than 5 to ensure it meets its obligations under the Data Protection Act 2018. As such, where the number of charges is fewer than 5, these figures have been replaced with an asterisk. In some cases it may be necessary to apply a further suppression to a figure equal to or higher than 5 to prevent other suppressed data being deduced through subtraction. This applies to all data published by COPFS where Data Protection considerations apply.

(b) Information on people convicted in Scottish courts is provided in the following table.

People convicted of offences under Sections 28-31 of Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, where main charge

Main charge	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18
Total convicted	-	-	-	3	2	6	4	4
S 28(1)	-	-	-	2	1	3	3	2
S 30(1)(A)	-	-	-	1	1	3	1	1
S 31(1)(A) & B(I)	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1

Source: Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings database

Please note that there should be no direct comparison between the two sets of data, where SG data is based on number of people prosecuted at disposal date based on the main charge, COPFS data is based on actual charges reported as at report date.

Question reference: S5W-23155

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 29 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken to divert individuals from serious organised crime in (a) schools, (b) communities and (c) prisons since June 2015; how it has evaluated this activity’s effectiveness, and what the result of this evaluation was.

The Scottish Government and its partners on the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce have supported a wide range of activities in schools, communities and prisons since June 2015. These activities include The Slide education resource about a young person's involvement with drugs and the Team Building and Leadership course for young offenders at HMYOI Polmont which encourages participants to reflect on their behaviours and attitudes. These activities are delivered by partners and overseen by the Divert subgroup whose chair reports on progress to the Taskforce.

Question reference: S5W-23156

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 29 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has surveyed awareness of serious organised crime in the private, public and third sectors since June 2015, and whether it will provide the data from any such surveys.

The Scottish Government published a report on public perceptions of organised crime in Scotland on 4 June 2018, a copy of which can be found on the Scottish Government's website at https://www.gov.scot/publications/public-perceptions-organised-crime-scotland/ . The Scottish Government also published research commissioned on behalf of the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce into community experiences of serious organised crime in Scotland on the same date. A copy of this report can be found on the Scottish Government website at https://www.gov.scot/publications/community-experiences-serious-organised-crime-scotland/ .

Question reference: S5W-23154

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 28 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many credit unions have received anti-money laundering training from the Scottish Business Resilience Centre since June 2015.

Since June 2015 there have been 14 specific training sessions on Anti-Money Laundering delivered by the Scottish Business Resilience Centre to six credit unions. This training is offered to other credit unions via the Association of British Credit Unions.

The specific Anti-Money Laundering training includes:

What is money laundering?
The 3 stages of money laundering
Legislation
Statutory defence
Seeking consent related to suspicious activity
Identifying suspicious activity
Know your customer
Be aware of legitimate income
Questioning provenance of cash and credits

The Scottish Business Resilience Centre is currently actively engaged with seven significantly sized stand-alone credit unions as well as the Scottish League of Credit Unions which has circa 30 individual credit unions as members. Through this engagement the SBRC provides them with general business resilience and security advice as well as staff and board training in relation to Anti-Money Laundering, cyber security and vulnerable customers. Training sessions are provided to the individual credit unions at least once per year and the League receives a series of workshops from the Scottish Business Resilience Centre which are delivered to their members at their six monthly conference.

Question reference: S5W-23146

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 28 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether the Scottish Police Authority met its commitment to move 100 officers from support roles to frontline in 2018-19, and, if not, how many officers were moved.

The Scottish Government does not collect data on the number of police officers in support roles. The deployment of police officers is a matter for the Chief Constable and it is for the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) to hold the Chief Constable to account for policing in Scotland.

Following the publication of the SPA's 2026 Strategy, the Scottish Government made it clear that decisions to slow police officer recruitment must not be taken until there is evidence that increases in operational policing capacity have been delivered. The Scottish Government therefore asked HMICS to work with the SPA and Police Scotland to provide scrutiny and assurance around the delivery of increased operational capacity. The Chief Constable will continue to review Police Scotland’s capacity and capability in the context of any new and emerging threats and he has recently reported the return of 360 officers to their usual duties, following their work in the Brexit ‘national reserve’.

The Scottish Government has been clear that costs relating to EU exit should not have a detrimental impact on Scotland’s public finances and we have written to the Chancellor outlining that any additional costs related to the policing of Brexit should fall to the UK Government.

Question reference: S5O-03297

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it has taken to reduce the amount of meat containing nitrites being served in hospitals.

Question reference: S5W-23059

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-22756 by Ash Denham on 7 May 2019, in light of the confirmation that the Scottish Prison Service has the capacity to use mobile phone detection technology that can pinpoint phone signals to specific cells, whether it will confirm if it uses this and, if so, how often it is deployed; what proportion of the prison estate uses it and what analysis it has carried out of its effectiveness.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. His response is as follows:

SPS has the capability to deploy mobile detection technology across all Scottish prisons in order to identify the illicit use of personal communication devices. To specify details on the frequency or locations of deployment would not be in the interests of security.

SPS Security & Technology Group meet on a quarterly basis to review all security equipment and to ensure continued effectiveness. This group also considers the suitability of any emerging technology available elsewhere.

Question reference: S5T-01646

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 May 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to prison officers balloting on industrial action.

Question reference: S5O-03239

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on when it will bring forward measures to improve the input that victims and their families have into the temporary release process.

Question reference: S5W-22756

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Ash Denham on 7 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether the Scottish Prison Service uses mobile detection technology that allows officers to pinpoint mobile phone signals to specific cells.