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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: S6W-19957

Asked by: Russell Findlay, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 14 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 7 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many reported incidences of fire-raising of vehicles within the (a) Scottish Prison Service estate and (b) estate of Scotland's two privately operated prisons there have been in each of the last five years.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

In each five years, there have been a total of 8 incidences of fire-raising of vehicles, shown in the following table:

	Scottish Prison Service estate	Privately Operated prisons
2018 – 2019	1	0
2019 – 2020	1	0
2020 – 2021	4	0
2021 – 2022	0	1
2022 – 2023	0	1

SPS take incidents such as fire-raising of vehicles belonging to prison staff incredibly seriously. Where such incidents occur, these will be reported to Police Scotland for further investigation.

A series of protective measures are in place within establishments and will compliment any support offered by Police Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-19932

Asked by: Russell Findlay, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 7 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-08446 by Keith Brown on 20 May 2022, whether it plans to take HMP Kilmarnock back into public ownership regardless of the cost consultation exercise that it is carrying out.

The 25-year contract for HMP Kilmarnock under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) for a privately constructed and operationally managed prison expires on 16 March 2024. The decision to bring HMP Kilmarnock into public management and ownership and not to tender for a new private contract was taken in 2021. This is in line with Scottish Government policy that prisons should be owned and managed by the public sector, which has been in place since 2007.

Question reference: S6W-19958

Asked by: Russell Findlay, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 14 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 7 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken in response to reported incidences of fire-raising of vehicles belonging to prison service staff.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-19957 on 7 August 2023. 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

Question reference: S6W-19935

Asked by: Russell Findlay, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 7 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the total cost of Serco’s contract to run HMP Kilmarnock has been over the period that it has been active; what the cost has been in each financial year, and what the projected cost is for the 2023-24 financial year.

Kilmarnock Prison Services Ltd (KPSL) are contractually responsible for the design, construction, management and finance of the services at HMP Kilmarnock. KPSL subcontract this requirement to Serco Justice and Immigration.

The costs to provide the service, for each relevant financial year, are as follows.

Financial Year	Core Charges	Additional Places Purchased	Total
2000	£1,029,150	£0	£1,029,150
2001	£12,652,885	£81,753	£12,734,638
2002	£12,675,125	£102,061	£12,777,186
2003	£12,618,346	£112,914	£12,731,260
2004	£12,782,427	£592,042	£13,374,470
2005	£12,843,260	£557,209	£13,400,469
2006	£12,893,135	£607,969	£13,501,104
2007	£13,780,974	£590,952	£14,371,926
2008	£14,714,350	£1,041,519	£15,755,869
2009	£14,765,116	£1,205,540	£15,970,656
2010	£15,241,765	£170,735	£15,412,500
2011	£16,732,430	£394,848	£17,127,278
2012	£16,168,020	£1,257,986	£17,426,006
2013	£16,305,268	£1,012,111	£17,317,379
2014	£16,558,446	£0	£16,558,446
2015	£17,034,850	£0	£17,034,850
2016	£18,915,215	£0	£18,915,215
2017	£13,570,104	£0	£13,570,104
2018	£13,915,415	£0	£13,915,415
2019	£14,602,908	£0	£14,602,908
2020	£15,156,566	£1,330,768	£16,487,334
2021	£15,494,163	£291,281	£15,785,443
2022	£14,674,020	£176,130	£14,850,150
2023	£16,222,501	£226,974	£16,449,475
Total	£341,346,440	£9,752,793	£351,099,233
Service Credits 2000-2023			-£8,243,282
Net Payment			£342,855,950
Estimate 2024 Core Charges			£17,419,500

The budget for the financial year 1 April 2023 until contract expiry on 16 March 2024 is £17,419,500. This figure is based on SPS purchasing 548 Prisoner Places every day.

Question reference: S6W-19934

Asked by: Russell Findlay, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 7 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the £540.8 million combined revenue and capital expenditure that it plans to spend on the Scottish Prison Service, broken down by each individual prison.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The following table provides a breakdown of the £540.8 million combined revenue and capital expenditure broken down into prisons:

SPS Budget 23-24

ESTABLISHMENTS:
Barlinnie	31,837,204
Dumfries	7,894,850
Greenock	10,002,423
Low Moss	19,588,811
Shotts	19,206,262
Edinburgh	25,409,513
Glenochil	21,049,160
Inverness	6,048,759
Perth	19,027,948
Polmont	21,750,779
Grampian	17,312,256
Castle Huntly	6,814,047
Stirling	9,736,600
CCU Bella	1,928,179
CCU Lilias	1,958,057
Establishment Total	219,564,848

Private Prisons	90,528,000

HQ (Note 1)	88,507,152	Note 1: Includes budgets that will be allocated to Establishments at Spring Budget Revision (SBR).

Total Resource Budget	398,600,000

Capital Budget
Prison Replacement Programme	84,900,000
Digital Capital spend	1,750,000
Estates Infrastructure Works	10,350,000
Total Capital Budget	97,000,000

Depreciation Total (Note 2)	46,348,000	Note 2: Depreciation costs for SPS Assets held centrally

TOTAL SPS Budget 23/24	541,948,000

Question reference: S6W-19933

Asked by: Russell Findlay, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 7 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-08446 by Keith Brown on 20 May 2022, when the cost consultation exercise in relation to taking HMP Kilmarnock back into public ownership will be completed.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) is developing the operating cost of HMP Kilmarnock post transfer, with initial outcomes expected by the end of September 2023, and final submissions being provided within the usual budget planning process at the end of the calendar year.

SPS is working to agree proposals for a transitional operating model, and a target operating model, which is to be adopted within the first year of the prison transferring to the public sector.

Question reference: S6W-19937

Asked by: Russell Findlay, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 1 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many reported cases of sexual offending, other than rape, in each of the last five years have been subject to a diversion from prosecution.

COPFS uses a live, operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical analysis, and the information within it is structured accordingly. Due to the breadth of conduct which is covered by the term “sexual offending” and the operational nature the COPFS case management system, the requested dataset is not available.

Question reference: S6W-19936

Asked by: Russell Findlay, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 1 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many reported cases of rape in each of the last five years have been subject to a diversion from prosecution.

1. Diversion is a process by which prosecutors are able to refer a case to social work or other identified agency as a means of addressing the underlying causes of offending when this is deemed the most appropriate course of action.

2. Such intervention can be particularly effective in cases of children’s offending, changing the direction of young lives for the better and is consistent with the obligations on the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

3. I have ordered a review of how prosecutors deal with diversion from prosecution in cases of serious sexual offences such as rape. The review is timely in ensuring we are continuing to consider the rights of both accused and complainers particularly where they are children.

4. COPFS uses a live, operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical analysis, and the information within it is structured accordingly.

5. Due to the way that decisions on diversions are recorded on this database, in order to provide an accurate response to the question regarding rape cases, a manual check of the relevant cases has been undertaken.

6. Based on the results of those manual checks, the following table has been compiled. It includes numbers of cases in which the accused was offered diversion and following that offer, the diversion was considered completed, or is still considered ongoing.

7. The overall numbers of cases containing an allegation of rape (which have not been checked) are provided as a point of comparison.

Year	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	Total
Number of rape cases where diversion marked as completed or ongoing	1	3	14	14	16	48
Total number of rape cases reported to COPFS	687	741	741	688	698	3,555

8. Of these 48 cases, only 4 related to individuals who were over the age of 18 at the time of the offending.

Question reference: S6W-19490

Asked by: Russell Findlay, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 25 July 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what incident led to the reported possession of a firearm in a prison being documented in its recorded crime statistics 2022-23.

There were no incidents of someone being found in possession of a firearm within a prison in 2022-23. When the Recorded Crime in Scotland Statistics 2022-23 were originally published on the 20th June they showed one such case. However, Police Scotland identified an administrative error, whereby this crime should have instead been classified as bringing drugs into a prison. The above statistics were revised to reflect this and re-published on the 1st July 2023.

Question reference: S6O-02445

Asked by: Russell Findlay, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 June 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the independent review into the planning for Dargavel Primary School.