Hansard

I absolutely agree. In many ways, the Scottish Parliament can show an example in the number of men who are highlighting that very fact—that the male of the species is the main perpetrator of violence against women and girls. That is recognised, and we must deal with it by changing attitudes.

Since the publication of our strategy, we have driven a step change in our approach to the issue. As I said, the First Minister has made it clear that it sits at the very heart of her personal and political mission.

Police Scotland is showing strong leadership in this area through the establishment of a national domestic abuse task force to target the most prolific perpetrators, and the disclosure scheme for domestic abuse has had an excellent start since it was rolled out across Scotland at the start of October. As of last week, 227 applications had been received. I believe that that level of applications demonstrates that people have confidence in the scheme and are engaging with Police Scotland and other relevant services. The fact that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has a dedicated national prosecutor for domestic abuse confirms its strong commitment to bringing perpetrators to justice.

In addition, the Scottish Government has recently introduced into Parliament a range of reforms to strengthen the law, including provisions that will, if they are approved by Parliament, create a new offence of sharing private, intimate images, and within the next few weeks we will consult on the exact wording of a specific offence to deal with those who subject their partners to coercive and controlling behaviour.

The Cabinet Secretary for Justice has made it clear that the Scottish Government is committed to developing a specific offence of domestic abuse. We consulted between March and June of this year, and the views that we received in response to that consultation revealed that although there was broad support for the principle of having a domestic abuse offence, there was no consensus on how such an offence should be developed.

In light of that, in this year’s programme for government we committed to consulting on a draft specific offence of domestic abuse. We consider that the right approach is to listen to key stakeholders and to take forward the development of such an important new offence, informed by their views, so that a consensus can be achieved. A draft offence will be shared with stakeholders in the next few weeks.

Funding is at record levels—this year alone, we are investing £11.8 million from the equality budget to support a range of projects and initiatives, and earlier this year the First Minister announced that an additional £20 million would be provided over the next three years from the justice portfolio. That funding will seek to enhance support for victims of violence and sexual assault, and to widen access to specialist advocacy and support services for the victims of crime. It also aims to improve education and information resources to help increase public understanding of such crimes, and to reinforce a zero-tolerance approach to domestic abuse and sexual crimes.

Part of that funding has already been put to good use. An additional £2.4 million has been allocated to our prosecutors and courts service. That funding will ensure that any cases that involve domestic abuse will be heard more quickly. Trial diets in such cases will be set within a 10 to 12-week period by the end of this year, which will reduce to eight to 10 weeks during 2016-17 and onwards. That will reduce the stress and inconvenience associated with waiting for trial diets to call in court.

More recently, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice announced that £1.85 million has been awarded to Rape Crisis Scotland over the next three years to allow the organisation to expand its advocacy services across the country and to extend its services to Orkney and Shetland. That specialised service does not currently exist in those islands but, as a result of the additional resource, Rape Crisis Scotland will be working in partnership with Women’s Aid Orkney and the Highland centre over the coming months to deliver and develop those services. Those are significant developments, real changes and a sign of our strong and enduring commitment to this agenda.

As a Government, we recognise that enhancing the justice system’s response to violence against women and girls is not enough. We need to do much more, and it is through the effective implementation of equally safe that we believe real change will be delivered in the long term. I am pleased to inform Parliament that the violence against women and girls joint strategic board, chaired by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners’ Rights, had its inaugural meeting earlier this month. The board has a prestigious cast of members, comprising senior leaders from across the public sector and third sector partners, alongside academic experts. The board will ensure that progress is driven from all sectors, that the work under equally safe is taken forward and that the key partners are held to account.

To take forward implementation, an action group on primary prevention has been established and met for the first time last month. I think that everybody will recognise that prevention has to be the way as we go forward. We have to prevent to start with, but for some time we will need to continue to support and fund the front-line services that are dealing with the very serious cases that come to them. However, prevention is what we are looking to for the future.

COSLA is leading a working group to improve the capability and capacity of mainstream and specialist services. At the same time, Scottish Women’s Aid is working with the Improvement Service and others to ensure that equally safe is underpinned by robust outcomes and indicators so that we know whether we are making progress. The justice expert group met at the end of September and will be working to submit an action plan.