Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act and Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Act criminal offences data: FOI Review

Information requested

Original request 202500453640

1. Since coming into effect, the number of people, by month, convicted of a criminal offence under the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act.

• Of these, the number of who received a custodial sentence.
• Of these, the number who received a community sentence.
• Of these, the number who were fined, total value of fines dispensed, and largest single fine issued.

2. Since coming into effect, the number of people, by month, convicted of a criminal offence under the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Act.

• Of these, the number of who received a custodial sentence.
• Of these, the number who received a community sentence.
• Of these, the number who were fined, total value of fines dispensed, and largest single fine issued.

Response

I have now completed my review of our response to your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) for a review of the claim that the Scottish Government does not hold the information originally requested, as has been claimed by application of 17(1) of FOISA.

I have concluded that the original decision should be confirmed, without modifications.

It may be helpful for you to know that the Scottish Government receives Criminal History System (CHS) data. The CHS is an administrative system used and maintained by Police Scotland. They are responsible for managing its operation and own the majority of the data. It is not designed for statistical purposes. Due to this, we wait for a year after the end of the financial year we are planning to publish in order to ensure that as many relevant cases have been included in the data as possible. An annual extract is then produced and the results are published which can then be used for data requests. At present we do not have a complete year of data after the end of financial year 2023-24 and therefore work has not yet started on processing of the 2023-24 annual extract.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.