The Scottish Government does not hold this information as this is a matter for the Chief Constable.

I am pleased that Police Scotland has invested £17 million to enhance welfare provision. This included a new 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme, direct access to occupational health services and a greater focus on mental health. This highlights the priority that Police Scotland places on supporting the health and wellbeing of the workforce, supported by a Health and Wellbeing Action Plan to underpin delivery.

The deployment and management of police officers are matters for the Chief Constable.

The Scottish Government is investing a record £1.64 billion in policing in 2025-26, an increase of almost £90 million of additional funding from the 2024-25 budget. Our investment in policing has enabled Police Scotland to undertake the highest level of recruitment since its inception in the last financial year. Around 1,370 new officers have joined since the start of 2024 including a further 100 new recruits on 7 July.

Police Scotland’s three-year Business Plan 2024-2027 sets out an ambitious programme of workforce modernisation which aims to bring frontline policing to its strongest possible position.

The welfare of officers within Police Scotland are a matter for the Chief Constable.

Post-traumatic support is offered to all officers and staff who are directly involved in potentially traumatic incidents. I am aware that on 29 May Police Scotland indicated to the SPA People Committee that it will undertake an in-depth review of its support provisions in relation to trauma.

I discussed the issue of post-traumatic support with the Scottish Police Federation on 11 June. On 25 June I passed on the concerns raised to Police Scotland who advised that they would be engaging further with SPF on this issue.

Section 298 of the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 establishes a legal obligation which applies at both at an organisational level to Police Scotland, and to the individual officer carrying out a place of safety removal. The constable who took the person to the place of safety is to, as soon as is practicable, inform the local authority in whose area the place of safety is situated and inform the nearest relative of the person who has been removed. They should also inform the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland within 14 days. Police Scotland, as a corporate body, has a duty to ensure policies, procedures and training enables officers to comply with the duties in Section 298.

The Mental Welfare Commission, as the body who monitor the use of the 2003 Act, are best placed to explore why this data may be missing and to work with Police Scotland to improve compliance. My officials meet regularly with the Commission and will work with them to resolve this issue.

There are 360 secondary schools in Scotland recorded in the 2024 school census. The following is a table of how many of these are currently signed up to ESAS, broken down by local authority area.

Defining an issue is a vital first step towards creating a shared understanding of the problem. This lays the foundation for ensuring our collective response is more effective and leads to better outcomes for victim-survivors. This is particularly important in relation to honour-based abuse which has been misunderstood by professionals, meaning it is often not recognised and the required support to survivors not offered.

We have developed a policy definition of honour-based abuse that will provide staff responding to survivors with a consistent understanding of honour-based across different sectors. To do so, we undertook a literature review and worked with specialist organisations and academics in the Addressing Violence Against Minority Ethnic Women and Girls Network, and mainstream services including Social Work Scotland, Police Scotland, COPFS, NHS Scotland and local authorities to inform our work. We are currently working with these partners to explore practical ways the definition can be applied across services.

Developing a statutory definition will require extremely careful consideration and consultation to ensure it captures the complexities of honour-based abuse and aligns with legal frameworks. We will continue to work with our experts and partners to work through these challenges thoughtfully and ensure that our approach to addressing honour-based abuse, including a statutory definition if necessary, is robust and effective.

We have undertaken a literature review and engaged with a range of specialist organisations to understand the issue and what is required to address it. We are currently developing a policy definition of extended family abuse, including exploring how it interacts with intimate partner abuse and honour based abuse and other forms of VAWG.

We will continue to work with specialist organisations and academics in the Addressing Violence Against Minority Ethnic Women and Girls Network, and mainstream services including Social Work Scotland, Police Scotland, COPFS, NHS Scotland and local authorities to inform our work. We will share the draft policy definition with partners in Autumn 2025.

Our Equally Safe Strategy Delivery Plan committed to develop a campaign to work with men and boys to recognise that we need to challenge misogyny to pave the way for the effective dismantling of the gender-based structures and attitudes which enable and support violence against women and girls. We recognise that men and boys need to be part of the solution.

Officials have undertaken extensive desk research and insight discovery work to support the development of a campaign to tackle this issue. This work has been supported by an investment of £35,000 to date and further investment planned this year to develop, produce and launch the activity in the first quarter of 2026. We will work closely with our partners in the statutory and third sectors throughout the campaign development.

We are working closely with the Mhor Collective and specialist violence against women and girls (VAWG) services, to identify the digital inclusion needs of women and girls who have experienced technology-facilitated VAWG and improve the support that is available to them.

We have established a VAWG Digital Inclusion Network, made up of specialist violence against women and girls (VAWG) services to consider how we can improve access to information and advice for survivors of technology-facilitated VAWG. This includes developing and sharing appropriate resources with the organisations supporting survivors and building the digital skills and confidence of staff and volunteers working in those organisations. We are funding the Mhor Collective, who have a long track record of digital inclusion work, to lead this work.

Recognising the barriers that exist for certain groups, we are considering the digital inclusion needs of minority ethnic women and girls, women involved in commercial sexual exploitation and women in rural and remote areas.

Abuse, violence or harassment of any kind, particularly violence against women and girls (VAWG), should not be tolerated in our society. We are taking forward a range of actions in schools to address VAWG and sexual harassment.

Our Equally Safe strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls emphasises the importance of challenging the underpinning attitudes which enable such violence to take place, including in education settings.

In March 2024 we published a national framework for schools to help tackle gender-based violence. It provides guidance on how schools can address the underlying causes of gender-based violence, and ensure appropriate action is taken in response to specific incidents.

To further support schools, we fund Rape Crisis Scotland to run Equally Safe at Schools, a programme which helps build a positive culture in which staff feel more confident and skilled in responding to incidents and disclosures of sexual harassment and students are empowered to seek help if needed. Alongside this, we also fund the Rape Crisis Prevention Programme to provide training for pupils on issues related to misogyny and violence. We also fund Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) Programme which is a peer education programme which works to tackle gender stereotyping and attitudes that condone violence against women and girls.

Relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education is an integral part of the health and wellbeing area of the school curriculum in Scotland. RSHP education focuses on equipping children and young people with the knowledge, skills and values to make informed and positive choices about forming relationships. This includes understanding of issues like consent, appropriate relationships and boundaries, which can play a crucial role in helping to reduce instances of gender based violence.

We have also supported Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) to develop their new Digital Discourse Initiative, which is a free online resource for teachers and educators designed to equip children and young people with skills to navigate digital media and counter the impacts of disinformation and online hate. The resource features a detailed case analysis about the so-called ‘Manosophere’ and the promotion of radical misogyny online from Zero Tolerance, the charity working to end men’s violence against women.