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In her role as Chair of the Working Group, Baroness Kennedy was paid £109,117.20.

Publication costs associated with Working Group totalled £8,182.18, and a further £600 was spent on venue hire for the Report findings launch.

Aside from Baroness Kennedy’s fee, members or advisors of the Working Group were not remunerated.

An open and transparent criminal justice system is important to allow for justice to be delivered and seen to be delivered so communities can have confidence in how offending behaviour is being dealt with. However, there can be areas of the operation of the criminal justice system where it is considered appropriate to allow certain individuals to remain anonymous to protect their dignity and privacy while still ensuring justice is able to be delivered.

The issue of anonymity in respect of domestic abuse criminal cases has been raised in the past with the Scottish Government. In considering whether victims of domestic abuse should receive anonymity, a key consideration has been that if anonymity is afforded to victims then, given the nature of domestic abuse, it may be that anonymity would be required for the accused too. This is because identification of the accused may reveal the identity of the victim. This inherently creates a challenging scenario within which to develop anonymity protections.

While the Scottish Government has no current plans in this area, we keep all policy relating to anonymity within the justice system under review.

The Scottish Government, along with the other UK nations, relies on advice about screening programmes from the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), an independent expert advisory group.

We welcome research on the further improvements that can be made to our screening programmes. The UK National Screening Committee is reviewing this evidence as it becomes available. Should a recommendation be made to introduce changes to the screening programme, the organisations that oversee screening will advise Scottish Ministers on how to take that recommendation forward.

Dualling of the A9 will improve connectivity of the Highlands with the Central Belt of Scotland, reducing journey times and improving journey time reliability. Whilst dualling of the A9 between Perth and Inverness is likely to support delivery of some of the projects identified in the Project Willow report, where those entail transportation of materials by road to or from the Highlands, it is unlikely that dualling would be necessary for delivery of those projects.

All public bodies, including Police Scotland and the Scottish Prison Service, are expected to comply with the Equality Act 2010 and other relevant legislation.

Compliance with the Act is a matter for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The EHRC operates independently and cannot be directed by Scottish Ministers.

The EHRC publishes statutory Codes of Practice and associated guidance on the Equality Act 2010 to assist bodies to better understand and comply with their legal obligations under the Act.

The data for 2024-25 is not yet available; the Mental Welfare Commission is currently in the process of extracting and validating this data. It will be included in the Commission’s Mental Health Act Monitoring report 2024-25 which is due to be published this Autumn.

Project Willow sets out a truly transformative future for Grangemouth and will be possible if the public and private sectors work together. The current 10 year Deal was signed in November 2024, so our focus is on delivering the Growth Deal, which commits £50 million of Scottish Government funding over ten years to projects in the area. The Deal will complement the aims of Project Willow and we will work with partners to progress both the Deal and Project Willow. As previously stated, there are no plans for a further Deal.

The total cost of work considering and progressing misogyny legislation by the Scottish Government was £143,668.13. This includes:

• The fee paid to Baroness Helena Kennedy KC in her role as Chair of the Independent Working Group on Misogyny and Criminal Justice in Scotland;
• Costs associated with Working Group;
• Publication of the Scottish Government consultation paper on draft legislation to implement the Working Group’s recommendations;
• Analysis of the responses received to the consultation; and
• Publication of consultation analysis.

This does not include the cost of time spent by Scottish Government civil servants as the work was carried out by staff working on a range of different areas including but not limited to misogyny legislative policy. As such, it is not possible to quantify the cost of staff time involved.

The citation of witnesses is a matter for the independent Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. The Scottish Government is, however, supporting justice partners to drive reforms to improve our criminal justice system to make it more efficient and ensure that it works better for everyone.

That will include reducing the number of police witnesses who are required to attend court and reducing the length of time that cases take. It will also mean enabling more cases to be concluded earlier, and fewer victims and civil witnesses needing to come to court.

Two key programmes being rolled out across Scotland are the judicially led summary case management programme, which provides a new approach to summary criminal cases, and the digital evidence sharing capability programme, which allows digital evidence to be shared at the earliest opportunity including the evidence from Body Worn Video technology which is being rolled out by Police Scotland this year. It is anticipated that combined these will deliver benefits for both civil and professional witnesses.

Information on Care at Home hours is not held centrally. Instead, Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) submit data to Public Health Scotland (PHS), detailing the number of hours of Care at Home services received. This data is published annually and can be accessed via the following link: Dashboard - Care at Home Hours Planned/Received.

The Scottish Government does not centrally hold information on assessed needs. In addition to the annual data, HSCPs also provide PHS with a weekly snapshot of the current demand for Care at Home services. This includes information on the total number of care hours people are waiting to receive following an assessment of their needs. This data is available at: Dashboard - People requiring a social care assessment and care at home services.