Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-007334 on 25 March 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

Women are encouraged to contact their GP practice if they have any worries about possible ovarian cancer symptoms every time cancer symptoms are referred to, including on our public facing website (getcheckedearly.org).

Research is currently being undertaken to better understand the possible barriers and levers to early diagnosis that any new Detect Cancer Early campaigns should focus on. These results are anticipated in April.

Since 2015 we have committed over £500,000 in funding to the Scottish Huntington’s Association (SHA) towards the development of the national care framework for Huntington’s Disease (HD) and in funding towards the organisation’s specialist support services and initiatives to raise awareness of the condition.

I was pleased to meet with the SHA on 10 November 2021 to discuss motion S6M-00923, the progress on the Framework for HD and to understand the provision of specialist services in Scotland. We will continue to work with NHS, third sector partners and people affected by Huntington’s Disease to drive up standards of care.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of reported incidents of online scams, though estimates are available on the volume of police recorded fraud that was cyber-enabled over 2018-19 to 2020-21 (see the following table). Further detail is available in Table A12 of the 2020-21 recorded crime National Statistics .

As with other types of crime, not all cases of fraud are reported to the police, and cyber-enabled fraud can potentially encompass a wide range of incident types.

At least part of the increase in 2020-21 may be due to the significant impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and government instructions to limit social contact. For example, in their ‘ Crime in England and Wales : year ending March 2021’ release, the Office for National Statistics noted that an increase in fraud and computer misuse offences could reflect perpetrators taking advantage of behavioural changes during the pandemic, such as increased online shopping.

Furthermore, a procedural change was made to the recording of international crime in 2020-21, whereby cases carried out by a perpetrator who was likely to be outside the UK are now included. This change resulted in an estimated 900 additional crimes of cyber-enabled fraud being recorded in the latest year. Estimates for 2021-22 will be published later in the year as part of the 2021-22 recorded crime National Statistics.

Police recorded fraud in Scotland that was estimated to be cyber-enabled.

This data is not centrally available.

PHS are developing a patient level dataset, Child, Adolescent and Psychological Therapies National Dataset (CAPTND) and the Scottish Government has commissioned Directors of eHealth in NHS Boards, working with others, including PHS , to work to improve the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) digital infrastructure. This will enable the recording and extraction of the full CAMHS and Psychological Therapies (PT) National Dataset (CAPTND), which will allow improved reporting on patient characteristics.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. While we provide guidance for NHS Boards on the management of maternity and neonatal services during COVID-19 to aid local service planning, NHS Boards are responsible for undertaking local risk assessments to evaluate whether antenatal sessions can take place virtually or in person.

Local authorities are responsible for assessing and evidencing housing need and demand, and setting out through local housing strategies and local development plans the housing requirements for their area. The Scottish Government continues to collaborate with a wide range of housing delivery partners to ensure the delivery of more high quality homes to meet the need of communities across Scotland.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of reported incidents of door-to-door scams. Some information is available from a 2018-19 study into police recorded fraud in Scotland, the findings of which were presented within the Recorded crime in Scotland 2018-19 National Statistics .

This study suggested that ‘fraudulent selling’ accounts for approximately 12% of fraud crimes, equivalent to 1,160 crimes. This typically relates to where a victim has paid for a service or product (either in person or through the internet) that the perpetrator has no intention of providing. This could include through online transactions, or payments to bogus workmen. Further analysis of this group suggests that an estimated 270 crimes of recorded fraud (or 3% of all fraud) involved a perpetrator knocking on the victim’s door, taking money and not providing a service.

The National Referral Mechanism is the UK-wide framework for identifying victims of human
trafficking and exploitation and ensuring they receive appropriate support. The NRM is
operated by the Single Competent Authority and Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority
within the Home Office.

NRM data can be accessed via the Modern Slavery: National Referral Mechanism statistics which
contains records back to 2013.

In terms of police recorded crime statistics, there is no single crime of slavery. However multiple
types of crime involve, or can involve, slavery. A list of these is provided below. Further information
on slavery related activity is also available from the Anti-Slavery Commissioner, within their
Annual Report . The data the Scottish Government receives from Police Scotland is a general count
of the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police, split by local authority. We do not receive
further details on the characteristics of these cases, including the number of victims.

Slavery or forced labour

Human organ offences

Immoral traffic

Procuration (excluding homosexual offences)

Procuration (homosexual offences)

Breach of trafficking and exploitation order

Most of these crime types fall under the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015.
This came into effect on 31 May 2016, with the first recorded crimes falling in the 2016-17 recording
year (see Table One below). Prior to this act there were no straightforward means to track crimes of
slavery.

Table 2 shows the number of Immoral traffic and Procuration-based crimes recorded in Scotland since
1999 (both of which are classified as crimes associated with prostitution). It should be noted that the
same crimes are shown in Tables 1 and 2 for Immoral traffic over 2016-17 to 2020-21. This is because
the data we hold does not identify which crimes of Immoral traffic relate to the Human Trafficking and
Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015, and which relate to earlier legislation.

Table 1 – Recorded crimes under the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015,
Scotland, 2016-17 to 2020-21

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-07353 on 25 March 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .