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As stated in the Programme for Government 2019-2020, the Victims Taskforce will be directly informed by a Victims Sounding Board and victim reference groups.

Rape Crisis Scotland has established a survivor reference group, which met for the first time in April, and published an initial report on their website. Victim Support Scotland has also established a victim reference group, via a series of one to one meetings and conversations with individual victims and family members. Some members of this group would prefer to continue to be involved on a one to one or virtual basis. Those members who wish to meet in person did so for the first time in August. Victim support organisations are working together to identify individuals from these reference groups and other existing networks to form a sounding board.

Updates on the Victims Taskforce engagement mechanisms can be found amongst the Taskforce papers at https://www.gov.scot/groups/victims-taskforce/ .

The delivery of police ICT projects, is a matter for the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) and the Chief Constable.

Police Scotland is investing £3.9m in a national computer network to improve service and efficiency across Scotland. This will deliver increased network performance, stability and capability by removing legacy network services. This is currently being rolled out across the country.

While Audit Scotland found that recommended good practice was followed in the planning and procurement of the i6 programme, Police Scotland has learned lessons from this and from other projects, as outlined in the Audit Scotland report: Principles for a digital future: Lessons learned from public sector ICT project . These lessons have been built into Police Scotland’s outline business case for the development of Digital, Data and ICT (DDICT) capabilities. The agreement reached with the provider of i6 ensured that there was no financial detriment to Police Scotland or to the public purse.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the transformation of policing as outlined in the ten year policing strategy, Serving A Changing Scotland . Improved DDICT capability is key to this. To support this, we have continued police reform funding, with £28.6 million available in the current financial year.

The 2019-20 policing budget also includes a 52% increase in the capital allocation. In addition we have ensured that policing will benefit from being able to reclaim VAT of around £25 million a year, previously paid to the UK Government, bringing Police Scotland into line with every other police service in the UK.

This funding is supporting the development of a new national computer network, the rationalisation of core ICT systems and the roll out of mobile devices to police officers across Scotland.

We continue to press the UK Government to refund the £125 million paid by Police Scotland in VAT between 2013 and 2018.

We are working with Young Scot and third sector partners to co-design an online resource for young people on gender-based violence. Young Scot hosts up to date material on a range of subjects, developed for and by young people aged 11 to 25.

The online resource will complement other work we are undertaking to improve young people’s knowledge and awareness of gender-based violence. These include the Equally Safe at School project which works with pupils and staff to address issues of gender inequality in their school. We are also funding the increased coverage of the Rape Crisis Scotland national sexual violence prevention programme to each local authority.

We are working with all of the criminal justice bodies and the Victims Organisation Collaboration Forum Scotland (VOCFS) which is chaired by Victim Support Scotland, to facilitate engagement on the development of the annual standards of service for victims and witnesses.

This work is overseen by the Victims Taskforce and includes attendance of the justice bodies at VOCFS meetings to discuss progress against the current standards and seek suggestions directly from VOCFS members on key issues the standards should focus on in the following year.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) Youth Volunteer Scheme (YVS) has replaced the cadet scheme. There are currently five legacy young firefighter programmes operating across the SFRS which will transition to the new YVS from mid November 2019. The SFRS YVS creates opportunities to improve life chances and empower young people to work together for a safer Scotland.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-24741 on 6 September 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

At the end of 2018, the Scottish Government committed over two million pounds of capital and associated revenue costs to enable the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service to provide new and upgraded state of the art evidence suites to allow children and vulnerable witnesses to give their evidence in criminal trials in a safe, sensitive and secure environment. It is anticipated that the new facilities in Glasgow will be operational from October 2019, in Inverness by March 2020 when the new Justice Centre is due to open, and the upgraded facilities in Edinburgh and Aberdeen by March 2020.

As the First Minister set out in Programme for Government we will introduce a Defamation and Malicious Publication Bill this parliamentary year. The Bill will take forward the recommendations of the Scottish Law Commission and will simplify and modernise the law of defamation. The reforms will ensure that a more appropriate balance is struck between protecting reputation and freedom of expression. Amongst other changes, the Bill will recognise a defence of publication on a matter of public interest and ensure that no proceedings can be brought where a defamatory statement is made only to the person who is the subject of it.

On 13 June 2019 I announced to the Scottish Parliament Justice Sub-Committee on Policing my intention to form an independently-chaired reference group to scope the possible legal and ethical issues arising from emerging technological developments in policing. I can confirm that preparatory work is currently being undertaken including consideration of the terms of reference and membership. I will provide an update on progress to the sub-committee in due course.

Ring-fenced Criminal Justice Social Work funding is in addition to increases to revenue funding of local authorities and has increased by 7.3% compared with 2015-16 while the number of Community Payback Orders has reduced by 8.3% nationally, broadly reflecting reductions in court volumes.

The £9.5 million additional funding invested in community justice services, such as community sentences and electronic monitoring, takes the total allocation to over £100 million.

The impact of the extended presumption against short sentences and related evidence will inform budget considerations and discussions with COSLA around Criminal Justice Social Work funding.