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The decision by the SPS to suspend their Throughcare Support Service (TSS) is an operational matter, and rightly a decision for SPS management to make – and not for Scottish Ministers to direct. The response from the Interim Chief Executive of the SPS in the answer to S5W-33096 indicates that the SPS will keep the issue of throughcare support under consideration as part of recovery from COVID, but has not set a timescale.

Whilst the SPS do not have Throughcare Support Officers in place, work to support individuals in preparing for their release does continue, whether that be through Personal Officers, Link Centres, facilitating access by a range of partners, data sharing, and effective release management. SPS have established weekly reports to each local authority in Scotland detailing new entrants and scheduled releases from prison, to help local services plan activities to support to prison leavers.

This Government has maintained substantial annual funding to third sector throughcare services across Scotland, and increased investment in these services to £3.7m in 2020-21, which has supported the expansion of the offer of New Routes throughcare service to eligible male prisoners of all ages. These services are continuing to work in partnership with the SPS to offer prisoners voluntary throughcare support, and are working flexibly to continue to offer support to individuals in the community despite COVID.

Furthermore, prisoners released from long sentences or with specific post-release orders are placed under supervision of Criminal Justice Social Work, and all short sentence prisoners are entitled to request voluntary throughcare support from their local authority up to 12 months after their release.

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

SPS currently publishes a daily update on our website which includes:

• The number of people who are self-isolating in our prisons;
• The number of prisons that this total is held across; and
• The number of people in our care who have tested positive for COVID-19.

SPS also publishes a weekly update of this data. This is published on a Monday, and details the position of the previous Friday. This data is broken down to establishment level. Information on the impact of COVID on staffing levels is also provided as part of this weekly update.

The reason for the difference in the figures is because a large number of people were self-isolating as a precautionary measure at HMP Barlinnie on Friday 13 November came out of isolation over the weekend and therefore the number on Monday 17 November was significantly reduced.

The COPFS Victims Right to Review Annual Report 2019-20 was published on the COPFS website on 27 November 2020.

The Report can be accessed at the following link: https://www.copfs.gov.uk/images/Documents/Statistics/COPFS_Performance/Victims%20Right%20to%20Review%20Annual%20Report%202019%2020%20Nov%2020.pdf

The Lord Advocate and I met with victim support organisations on 28 th July
2020 to discuss a number of issues, including the Victim Notification Scheme.
A summary of this discussion is captured in a follow-up letter we issued to
victim support organisations on 1 st September 2020 and which has been
published on the Scottish Government's website https://www.gov.scot/binaries
/content/documents/govscot/publications/minutes/2020/11/victims-taskforce-
papers-september-2020/documents/paper-two-joint-letter-from-cabinet-
secretary-justice-and-lord-advocate-to-victim-support-organisations/paper-two
-joint-letter-from-cabinet-secretary-justice-and-lord-advocate-to-victim-support-organisations/govscot%3Adocument/Victims%2BTaskforce%2B-%2B
Secretariat%2B-%2B7th%2BMeeting%2B-%2B2020-09-09%2B-%2BPaper%
2B2%2B-%2BJoint%2Bletter%2Bto%2BVictim%2BSupport%2BOrganisations.
pdf .

I am committed to bringing all relevant partners together to discuss the Victim
Notification Scheme and determine where improvements could be made.

Scottish Government officials also hosted a session on 7 October 2020 to discuss
lessons learned from the early release of short-term prisoners under The Release
of Prisoners (Coronavirus) (Scotland) Regulations 2020. Topics discussed
included information sharing between partners and the Victim Notification Scheme.
The session included representatives from Victim Support Scotland, the Scottish
Prison Service and other third sector and statutory justice partners.

After the necessary secondary legislation was laid in Parliament, the Scottish Government issued a press release on 24 August 2020 stating Part 2 of the Management of Offenders (Scotland) Act 2019 will come into force on 30 November 2020. This news release publicised new guidance for the disclosure reforms which was published on the same day. Attached is a link to that press release for information. https://www.gov.scot/news/criminal-disclosure-reforms/

As I have explained previously in Parliament, commencement of Part 2 of the 2019 Act was always going to take some time due to, for example, significant changes being required to be made to Disclosure Scotland’s IT systems as well as relevant staff having to be trained. In addition, Covid-19 resulted in commencement plans having to be re-arranged due to Disclosure Scotland activating their business continuity plan and prioritising their safeguarding work.

Part 2 of the 2019 Act is being commenced 16 months after Royal Assent was received for the 2019 Act (30 July 2019 to 30 November 2020). Equivalent changes in legislation for England and Wales were commenced 22 months after Royal Assent was received for their legislation.

By commencing Part 2 of the 2019 Act on 30 November 2020, this helps ensure employers, insurance companies and other organisations have enough time to understand the recently published guidance and ask any questions they may have. This timescale also helps ensure affected individuals are also aware of what the changes mean for them.

The Scottish Government ran a multi-platform, multi-media “What did you do today” campaign which featured a Paramedic as well as other Allied Health Professionals, Nursing, Midwifery and Healthcare Scientists between November 2019 and January 2020. The campaign was run to target and encourage school leavers to take up careers in health. The campaign links to other information already available on the NHS Careers, student awards agency and UCAS websites.

Marketing of degree courses is undertaken by the University offering the course.

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

We recognise the benefits that the Throughcare Support Service (TSS) brought to those in our care and we are committed to exploring what any future throughcare support will look like as part of our recovery from COVID.

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

SPS’ Annual Report and Accounts were signed on 2 October 2020. Audit Scotland will lay the accounts before Parliament when they have been cleared by the Auditor General and they will then be published on the SPS website.

The papers from the last meeting of the Victims Taskforce, on 9 September 2020, were published on the Scottish Government website on 4 November. These are available at http://www.gov.scot/groups/victims-taskforce/ .

The Expert Reference Group on COVID-19 and Ethnicity (ERG) was set up at pace in June 2020, in response to emerging evidence that people from some Minority Ethnic backgrounds may be disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, both in terms of adverse health outcomes and in a wider context, including economically. The ERG was convened to consider and inform these issues, ensuring that the Scottish Government had an accurate understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on Minority Ethnic communities in Scotland, and that our policy responses reflected this.

The ERG’s membership consists of academics and other expert advisers alongside Scottish Government officials, working to contribute to the Scottish Government’s emerging approach, and advise on proposed actions to mitigate the harms felt by Minority Ethnic communities in relation to COVID-19.

Detailed Terms of Reference for the ERG have been in draft since shortly after its launch, based on the broad remit set out above. Cementing the Terms has been an iterative and collaborative piece of work, with the agreement of ERG members playing the central role; this is an ongoing process. However, this has not prevented the ERG from delivering a set of challenging and wide-ranging recommendations to the Scottish Government, which we intend to provide a cross-portfolio response to in the near future.

The Scottish Government is conscious that the members of the ERG have volunteered a significant amount of their time to contribute to this vital work, and we are very thankful for that contribution.