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The pay and conditions of police staff, including custody staff, are a matter for the Scottish Police Authority. SPA and Police Scotland have been taking forward an extensive programme of work to harmonise staff pay and conditions and I understand negotiations with the relevant unions have been positive and are at an advanced stage.

Prisoners in Scotland are not paid by external employers (as happens in England and Wales) and receive earnings at a range of between £5 and £33 per week, with the majority being paid at the lower end of this scale. We have no plans to use money deducted from prisoners’ earnings to contribute toward a fund for victims of crime.

The information available is provided in the following tables. A breakdown by the type of emergency worker is only available where the actual charge contains reference to the specific type of emergency worker involved.

The following table shows numbers of entrants on primary teaching initial education courses from academic year 2014-15 to 2017-18.

We estimate that up to 11,000 additional staff (headcount) will be required to deliver the expansion to 1140 hours from 2020, based on local authority returns submitted in March 2018. This total includes managers, practitioners, specialists and auxiliary staff, although the majority of additional staff required will be at the practitioner grade.

As part of our continued activity to prevent knife crime particularly in schools, I was pleased to launch the national tour of the No Knives Better Lives Balisong play on 24 October in Stewarton Academy, East Ayrshire. We have provided additional funding for the delivery of this unique and powerful play and aim to have it seen in schools across all local authorities by the end of March 2019.

The Justice Committee’s Inquiry into the Use of Remand in Scotland , published on 24 June 2018, made a number of recommendations including on approaches to reducing the use of remand and alternatives to remand.

The Scottish Government shares the Committee’s view on the value of bail support and supervision. These programmes are aimed at people who would otherwise be held on remand and allow them to be monitored and supervised in the community. Unlike remand, this allows families to stay together and does not adversely impact on employment opportunities or stable housing, which is proven to reduce reoffending.

We have committed through our Programme for Government to issue revised guidance and provide additional funding for supervised and supported bail to ensure that remand is only used where necessary and appropriate.

This additional funding, which will be demand led, will help build capacity and improve the consistent availability for these services when bail and remand decisions are being considered by the court.

The law is clear in that the presumption is in favour of bail unless the court considers remand is necessary for, amongst other reasons, risks to public safety.

Decisions on whether or not to remand an accused person in custody, or grant bail, are a matter for the court within the overall legal framework agreed by parliament.

Education-based initiatives have been central to the Scottish Government’s approach to tackling sectarianism. Since 2012 we have invested an unprecedented total of £13.5 million in delivering a wide range of activities across a variety of formal and informal settings. This has included the development of Scotland’s first national education resource on tackling sectarianism: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/learning-resources/Tackling%20sectarianism:%20An%20overview%20of%20resources .

Due to budget cuts imposed on the Scottish Government the funding for tackling sectarianism reduced between 2016-17 and 2017-18, however, between 2017-18 and 2018-19 we provided a real terms increase of 3% to tackle sectarianism.

In 2018-19, all nine organisations are education based with five directly working in schools and one directly working in workplaces and one offering training within workplaces, totalling £330,000.

In 2017-18, all ten organisations were education based with five directly working in schools and one directly working in workplaces and two developing a toolkit for training in workplaces, totalling £315,000.

In 2016-17, nineteen organisations were education based with nine directly working in or with schools and one directly working in workplaces, totalling £471,156.

Details of the funded projects can be found in the following tables.

2018/19

The Scottish Government’s shift towards more community sentencing has helped bring Scotland’s reconviction rates to a 19-year low.

Local authorities are responsible for delivering community sentences, including ensuring Community Payback Orders (CPOs) are commenced within recommended timescales and completed. The Scottish Government is funding criminal justice social work at record levels, which supports local authorities to deliver robust and effective community sentences. In 2018-19, we increased the additional funding allocated to local authorities for community sentences from £4 million to £5.5 million.

Completion rates for CPOs have increased from 62% in 2006-07 to 67% in 2016-17. The Scottish Government is working with local authorities and partners including Social Work Scotland, Community Justice Scotland and the Care Inspectorate to support further improvements. For example, we have asked the Care Inspectorate to lead on scrutiny and assurance activity of community justice and criminal justice social work in Scotland. Inspections will focus on criminal justice social work services, with an emphasis on CPOs.

The National Outcomes and Standards for Social Work Services in the Criminal Justice System: Community Payback Orders contains guidance on procedures and practice in the implementation of CPOs. The Scottish Government is currently updating this guidance, in collaboration with practitioners and other key stakeholders, in particular in relation to breach and compliance. The revised guidance will be published by early 2019.

Analysis of Criminal Justice Social Work statistics informs the Scottish Government’s engagement with local authorities on performance, and local community justice partnerships help drive improvements in local authority areas. In addition, Community Justice Scotland will lay an annual report in Parliament on the delivery of CPOs across Scotland, based on local authority returns.

The Independent Review commenced in September. The Independent Review has confirmed that several introductory meetings have been held with leaders and senior representatives of key organisations. The Lord Advocate and I have also met with Dame Elish Angiolini DBE QC. We understand that investigative meetings with operational staff are now being scheduled and a call for evidence to the public will be published shortly, to enable the wider public to participate.