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I am pleased to say that the Digital Evidence Sharing Capability, known as DESC, completed roll out across all Police Scotland divisions in September 2025. DESC provides a secure platform for collecting, storing, and sharing digital evidence, replacing outdated physical media.

DESC has stored over 400,000 pieces of evidence and saved an estimated 55,000 police officer hours, freeing officers for frontline duties. It enables faster case resolution, reduces the need for victims and witnesses to attend court, and improves justice outcomes. DESC is a UK first, delivered through collaboration with Scottish Government and justice partners.

The Fire and Rescue Unit is part of the Scottish Government Safer Communities Division. In common with all Scottish Government Divisions, strategic oversight is provided through Directors and Director Generals reporting to the Scottish Ministers.

The Scottish Government has the utmost sympathy for the women who may have been harmed by stilbestrol. However, Scottish Ministers have had no discussions with NHS England, NHS Wales and HSC Northern Ireland on this issue as the regulation for the licensing, safety and efficacy of medicines is reserved to the UK Government and is the responsibility of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Members of the Abortion Law Review Expert Group did not receive fees or honoraria for their work. Incidental travel for Expert Group members cost £272.39. No subsistence costs were incurred.

As you will already be aware, responsibility for the UK’s telecommunications network is reserved to the UK Government, with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology being the lead government department.

The move to digital-based services is an industry-led decision and process. The decision to upgrade the legacy PSTN network is driven by the increasing fragility of the 40-year old analogue landline technology and the increased difficulty in maintaining the current network, due to reduced availability of replacement parts and the reduction of expertise in these analogue systems.

Universal Service Obligations

It is worth noting that the PSTN migration does not affect the Universal Service Obligations set in the Electronic Communications (Universal Service) Order 2003, which require the designated providers to offer telephony services throughout the UK, and providers will remain bound by their existing statutory responsibilities.

Ofcom, the independent telecoms regulator, has issued guidance on how telecoms companies can fulfil their regulatory obligation to ensure that their VoIP customers have access to the emergency services in such circumstances. This guidance states that providers should have at least one solution available that enables access to emergency organisations for a minimum of one hour in the event of a power outage in the premises. The solution should be suitable for customers’ needs and should be offered free of charge to those who are at risk as they are dependent on their landline.

You can read Ofcom’s full guidance at the following links:

Guidance: Protecting access to emergency organisations when there is a power cut at the customer’s premises - Ofcom

Moving landline phones to digital technology: what you need to know - Ofcom

Customers who are not eligible for a free resilience solution should be able to request one but their provider may charge for it. Customers who are moving to VoIP services and are reliant on their landline should discuss their situation and requirements for a back-up solution with their provider before they are moved on to VoIP services.

Shared Rural Network

UK-wide initiatives will also bring coverage improvements in Scotland. The Shared Rural Network (SRN), led by the UK Government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and the UK’s main network operators (O2, EE, Vodafone and Three) will make significant investments in 4G coverage: up to £1Bn to increase 4G access on at least one network to 95% of the UK’s landmass (which equates to around 91% of Scotland’s geography). This is a substantial increase on coverage levels of around 44% when the programme commenced in 2020. Ofcom’s most recent Connected Nations 2025 report states that as of July 2025, 90% of Scotland’s landmass had access to at least one mobile operator.

SRN is structured around two distinct but complimentary projects: the operators worked collaboratively to improve partial not-spots- those areas where 4G is only available on one or two providers – collectively investing in excess of £500 million on a commercial basis. This Partial Not-Spot project completed last summer.

Building on this, the UK Government is funding a second phase which is currently working to address 'total not-spots', areas where there is no coverage from any network provider and no likelihood of commercial investment. Further information about SRN is available at Shared Rural Network, including a high level map showing which areas will benefit from new Total Not Spot masts. Initial locations for Total Not Spot masts met strong opposition from groups such as the National Trust for Scotland, Scottish Land and Estates, the John Muir Trust and others over concerns for the impact on sensitive ‘wilderness’ landscapes and biodiversity. We brokered discussion among the mobile industry, UK Government and representatives from these groups to identify a mutually agreeable compromise solution.

In addition to this, BT recently announced it would address mobile not-spots through further investment. In the past 12 months, they’ve improved mobile coverage in more than 500 areas across the UK. BT will look to extend coverage in a further 900 locations by 2024.

Although the telecommunications sector is reserved to the UK Government, we understand the importance of increasing telecoms resilience, particularly in rural areas, which is why we invested £28.75 million in our multi award winning Scottish 4G Infill Programme (S4GI) programme.

Through S4GI we built and activated 55 future-proofed masts across Scotland, from Shetland to the Scottish Borders, to improve mobile telecoms resilience by increasing the overall network coverage in Scotland. All 55 masts are now live. The Scottish Government remains in close contact with UK Government-led initiatives such as the Shared Rural Network and the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme, which will also increase access to 4G services in rural, remote and island areas across Scotland. Both programmes make full use of our S4GI infrastructure further enhancing the impact of our investment and ensuring programmes achieve mutual aims. We continue to seek opportunities for further alignment.

For customers who don’t or can’t yet access broadband at home, Openreach have introduced a new dedicated landline service as an interim solution. This won’t require any in-home changes and will continue to provide access to a powered line.

Civil Contingencies

As previously mentioned, the responsibility of both telecoms and energy resilience rests with the UK Government. Both telecoms outages as well as power outages, affecting telecoms, can and do happen anywhere, at any time for a variety of reasons including severe weather or technical failures.

The Scottish Government work closely with the responder community on a variety of risks including those relating to telecoms outages.

The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 places duties upon statutory responders to plan, co-operate, share information, assess risk, develop business continuity and warn and inform the public. The Scottish Government does not direct responders in how to fulfil their legislative duties under the act. However, resilience partnerships are formed by the statutory responder agencies who come together to prepare for civil emergencies.

The Scottish Government is also active in facilitating information briefing sessions between BT Openreach and Scottish Stakeholders including Regional Resilience Partnership members, to ensure they have the most up to date information to allow them to prepare for how their services will run when this telecoms switchover is completed.

Additionally, we continue to work with industry, UK Government, the regulator (Ofcom) and other devolved governments through the Electronic Communications – Resilience and Response Group (EC-RRG) whose aim is to develop and maintain cooperation between the Communications Sector and Government on issues regarding resilience and emergency planning.

As you will already be aware, responsibility for the UK’s telecommunications network is reserved to the UK Government, with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology being the lead government department.

The move to digital-based services is an industry-led decision and process. The decision to upgrade the legacy PSTN network is driven by the increasing fragility of the 40-year old analogue landline technology and the increased difficulty in maintaining the current network, due to reduced availability of replacement parts and the reduction of expertise in these analogue systems.

Critical Systems

The Scottish Government continue to work across the full range of SG Directorates to ensure all sectoral areas and their relevant stakeholders are informed and have plans in place to mitigate any potential impacts of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) switch off.

Additionally, we have ensured that external responder agencies and categorised responders are appropriately briefed on the potential impacts by facilitating information sessions with telecoms operators.

We continue to work with industry, UK Government, the regulator (Ofcom) and other devolved governments through the Electronic Communications – Resilience and Response Group (EC-RRG) whose aim is to develop and maintain cooperation between the Communications Sector and Government on issues regarding resilience and emergency planning.

Telecare

Since 2018 we have had a local government programme under way to navigate and support migration of the telecare provision to 140,000 citizens across Scotland, in advance of the PSTN migration from analogue to digital.

Telecare providers across local authorities and housing associations have made excellent progress with more than 60% of lines and equipment now being fully digital. All telecare providers are engaged with the national programme and progressing their individual update programmes. In addition to this, a national call handling platform for telecare is being deployed, using the latest digital and cloud technology. As of November 2025, 18 organisations with more than 90,000 connections in total are delivering call handling services through this solution. While there is currently no concern with the migration plans of any telecare provider, the Digital Telecare Programme remains alert to the potential risk to the individual telecare users, who are often considered very vulnerable. There is a raised risk profile for those telecare users in rural areas for whom SIM-enabled devices may not be an option for continued telecare service from January 2027. Early mitigation of this, or alternative solutions, are being explored continuously.