Seòmar agus comataidhean

As the Deputy First Minister noted in his appearance at the Finance and Public Administration Committee meeting on 4 October 2022, decisions in respect of amendments to the rates or bands for LBTT are to be taken as part of the Scottish Budget. This ensures that any prospective decisions are taken with all the relevant data and evidence in hand, while also supporting the principles of tax certainty and stability.

This information is not held centrally; it is a matter for the individual Health Boards.

Unboxed was a major UK-wide programme celebrating creativity and innovation, featuring ten large-scale commissioned projects designed to reach millions on-line and in person, bring people together and showcase the Four Nation's creativity.

Scottish Ministers appointed EventScotland as the Strategic Delivery Body for the commission and delivery of the Scottish UNBOXED project, Dandelion, which was funded by the Scottish Government through EventScotland.

The detailed external evaluation of all ten of the Unboxed programme, including Dandelion, is due to be published in Spring 2023. In the interim, the latest details are set out below under the relevant headings.

(a) attendance figures for Dandelion projects

Live events and hands-on schools activities

The following table shows the engagement figures to date for Dandelion, involving over 1,000 events at over 500 locations across Scotland.

The proposal for a time-limited pilot of single judge rape trials as recommended by the Lady Dorrian Review continues to be considered. Stakeholders have been engaged through a short life Working Group which brought together partners from across the justice system to give detailed consideration to proposals for implementing any pilot. Broader views on the proposal have also been sought through recent public consultation.

An independent analysis of the consultation responses and the Working Group’s findings will be published in December 2022. This material will be considered along with responses to the earlier consultation on Not Proven and associated reforms. To ensure the package of reforms maintains balance in the system and supports complainers to give their best evidence, the potential reforms will be considered together.

The Scottish Government has no plans to develop a strategic housing land availability assessment (SHLAA) for Scotland. SHLAA is part of the English planning system for housing, as expected by the English National Planning Policy Framework.

Scotland has its own planning policy and processes relating to housing. The Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 and National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) set out new processes for Local Development Plans (LDPs) and policy for new homes in Scotland.

Our Revised Draft NPF4, if approved by the Scottish Parliament, will expect deliverable land to be allocated to meet the 10 year Local Housing Land Requirement in locations that create quality places for people to live. In addition, areas that may be suitable for new homes beyond 10 years are also to be identified. LDP delivery programmes will be expected to establish a housing land pipeline for the Local Housing Land Requirement. The annual housing land audit will sit alongside the delivery programme and will monitor the delivery of housing land.

Draft LDP Guidance has been consulted on, and is in the process of being finalised. This will include further information on how NPF4 housing policy is implemented in LDPs. We will provide updated guidance on housing land audits to support NPF4 housing policy.

Between 14 January 2022 and 17 February 2022 the role of Chair of the Board Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) was publicly advertised. Two candidates applied but were not successful.

Following the unsuccessful public recruitment exercise, a recruitment agency was engaged via the framework agreement with the Crown Commercial Service. Three potential candidates were invited for formal interview. The formal interviews tested strong leadership, change management, knowledge of the Public Sector, governance, analysis and decision making as well as communication, networking, influencing, mediation and conflict resolution skills. A recommendation was made to Ministers based on the ranking at formal interview and a formal offer of appointment was made to the highest ranking candidate assessed against the stated criteria.

The issue of body-worn cameras is a policy and operational decision for Police Scotland, acting under the oversight of the Scottish Police Authority.

Police Scotland have advised they have developed an initial business case for Body Worn Video which has been considered and approved by the SPA Resources Committee. Police Scotland will undertake a full procurement exercise in 2023 which will provide more clarity on costs – both upfront purchase costs and ongoing costs.

The Scottish Government would expect Police Scotland to achieve best value through all its procurement activity.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-11301 on 21 October 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

Our Delivering Equally Safe fund is providing £19m per year to support third sector organisations and public bodies to contribute to the objectives, priorities and outcomes of our Equally Safe Strategy. We recently published the first six-month report which outlines the impact that DES funded organisations are making. The report noted that almost 20,000 survivors were provided with emotional and practical support by DES funded projects and 22,500 people engaged in education and awareness raising sessions in its first six months. We have undertaken a range of activities to increase awareness of the work under Equally Safe highlighting through social media, mainstream news, radio and TV channels.

Further information on our 6-month reports and further reports which demonstrate specific themes that link to the Equally Safe strategy can be found at @DESFund and @ScotFairer Twitter handles.

Throughout 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, we have been utilising social and mainstream media outlets to add our voices to public messaging of key partners and stakeholders. Additionally, through parliamentary debates and our National Summit on violence against women and girls we are making our message clear: violence against women and girls has a devastating impact on individuals and society, and this is an issue for every day of the year not just these 16 days. We will continue to build on the momentum of 16 days and raise awareness of our Equally Safe strategy into 2023.

We also know the power of public awareness campaigns and have previously delivered successful public campaigns on specific issues, such as our campaign for coercive and controlling behaviour, and we will continue to consider opportunities to develop any necessary further campaigns.

The Lady Dorrian Review Governance Group has met on six occasions since it was established in December 2021 facilitating cross justice sector consideration of the Review's recommendations. The Governance Group established four working groups to conduct detailed consideration of a number of recommendations made by the Review. Three of the working groups have now concluded and their findings have been considered and endorsed by the Governance Group. The findings and recommendations of those working groups will be published in December 2022.