VoiceAbility has received a total of 673 referrals, leading to 463 people receiving the appropriate advocacy support when accessing and applying for Social Security Scotland benefits. Of those 673 referrals, 23 were directly referred by Social Security Scotland. This figure does not include support provided as a result of indirect referrals or signposting from Social Security Scotland, which cannot be quantified.

The advocacy service is independent from Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland. As such, VoiceAbility offer a number of direct referral routes including self-referral, being referred by a friend or family member or being referred by other support organisations.

The Scottish Government is committed to tackling gender based violence and ensuring that all victims and survivors can access the help and support they need at a time they need it.

During the United Nations 16 days of activism to end gender-based violence, the Scottish Government held a spotlight event with key partners, focussed on gender based violence and mental health. These important discussions will help further our understanding of issues faced by women and girls affected by GBV and will help inform on-going policy development, including the refreshed Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy, accompanying delivery plan, our Workforce Action Plan and the new national Specification for Psychological Therapies and Interventions.

We know that some psychological interventions, including counselling, are delivered by partner organisations, including small, local community grassroots groups and organisations . Therefore, in 2021-22 we have invested £21m in our Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults. We have provided a further £15m in 2022-23.

Since 2018, the Scottish Government has invested over £5 million in a National Trauma Training Programme (NTTP), including a total of £3.2 million of funding distributed to all local authorities in 2021-22 and 2022-23 to work with community planning partners to further progress trauma-informed services, systems and workforces.

Our internationally recognised Equally Safe strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls (VAWG) emphasises the importance of challenging the underpinning attitudes and victim blaming culture which enable such violence to take place. That is why through our Delivering Equally Safe Fund we support a range of projects which promote culture and behaviour change. This includes over £800,000 split between; White Ribbon Scotland to engage men as allies and change-makers; Zero Tolerance to develop professional skills in policy, practice and wider public campaigning; and Engender to explore primary prevention policy approaches.

As set out in the Programme for Government we will consult on draft laws to give effect to recommendations for criminal law reform contained in Baroness Kennedy’s Report, Misogyny, A Human Rights Issue , with a view to introducing legislation later in this Parliament. This sends a strong message that these behaviours are not, and will not be, accepted.

Education plays a key role in challenging attitudes, including victim blaming. That is why we fund and support education-based programmes and initiatives aimed at preventing gender-based violence such as the Equally Safe at School project, Mentors in Violence peer education programme and the Gender-Based Violence in Schools Working Group.

We also support campaigns and work by partners, such as Police Scotland’s “Don’t be that Guy” campaign as positive contributions which encourage men to take responsibility and challenges the notion that it is the responsibility of women and girls to protect themselves from male violence.

Our Delivering Equally Safe fund is providing £19m per year to support third sector organisations and public bodies to contribute to the objectives, priorities and outcomes of our Equally Safe Strategy. We recently published the first six-month report which outlines the impact that DES funded organisations are making. The report noted that almost 20,000 survivors were provided with emotional and practical support by DES funded projects and 22,500 people engaged in education and awareness raising sessions in its first six months. We have undertaken a range of activities to increase awareness of the work under Equally Safe highlighting through social media, mainstream news, radio and TV channels.

Further information on our 6-month reports and further reports which demonstrate specific themes that link to the Equally Safe strategy can be found at @DESFund and @ScotFairer Twitter handles.

Throughout 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, we have been utilising social and mainstream media outlets to add our voices to public messaging of key partners and stakeholders. Additionally, through parliamentary debates and our National Summit on violence against women and girls we are making our message clear: violence against women and girls has a devastating impact on individuals and society, and this is an issue for every day of the year not just these 16 days. We will continue to build on the momentum of 16 days and raise awareness of our Equally Safe strategy into 2023.

We also know the power of public awareness campaigns and have previously delivered successful public campaigns on specific issues, such as our campaign for coercive and controlling behaviour, and we will continue to consider opportunities to develop any necessary further campaigns.

As I said in the recent debate on violence against women and girls, when women do need recourse to the Justice system, it is equally important that we respond effectively, competently and with compassion and understanding.

We are clear that the justice system must do more to ensure that women and girls who have experienced any form of gender-based violence have the confidence to come forward, and are supported to report these terrible crimes.

Our Equally Safe Strategy sets out a vision to prevent violence from occurring in the first place, build the capability and capacity of support services, and strengthen the justice response to victims and perpetrators.

Our Justice Vision, prioritises the experience women and girls have of the justice system. We know the justice journey can be deeply traumatising, and it is extremely important for this to minimised, in order to support recovery.

That’s why we are proposing the Criminal Justice Reform Bill. The Bill will be informed by responses to a recent public consultation on improving victims’ experiences of the justice system that takes forward the work of the Victims Taskforce and recommendations from Lady Dorrian’s Review on Improving the Management of Sexual Offence Cases.

Through the Women’s Justice Leadership Panel, we are also discussing all aspects of the justice system to consider the experience and unique needs of women, and what changes may need to be embedded within our criminal justice processes.

Social Security Scotland carefully considers the information on counter fraud activity that can be placed into the public domain to ensure that any information released does not undermine the ability of Social Security Scotland to prevent and detect crime. We consider that releasing figures for referrals to the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal could be prejudicial to ongoing investigations.

Social Security Scotland regularly publishes information on detected suspected fraud in its Annual Report and Accounts. The most recent Annual Report and Accounts covering the period 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022, were laid before the Scottish Parliament on 7 November 2022 and were also published on Social Security Scotland’s website: Social Security Scotland - Annual Report 2021-2022 .

The Scottish Welfare Fund is a key priority for the Scottish Government, which is why we instructed an Independent Review within the first year of this Parliament.

The Review is a substantial and comprehensive exercise to examine purpose, funding levels, Local Authority administration, accessibility and promotion.

As set out in correspondence to the Social Justice and Social Security Committee on 14 November 2022, the Review continues to progress on schedule with the final report due to be published in early 2023.

The Scottish Government will provide an update to Parliament following publication of the report.