Equally Safe: consultation on legislation to improve forensic medical services for victims of rape and sexual assault

Chapter 6: Impact assessments

64. It has been mentioned that the Government proposes to carry out a Data Protection Impact Assessment and a Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment^[63], in the wider context of a human rights based approach to the development of legislation.

65. The Government also proposes to carry out the following further impact assessments:

• an Equality Impact Assessment^[64];
• a Fairer Scotland Assessment^[65]; and
• an Islands Impact Assessment^[66].

66. The Scottish Government intends to identify potential impacts of the proposals in the Chapters of this paper and consider what might be done to address potential negative impacts.

67. In terms of the Equality Impact Assessment, the United Nations has noted, "While gender-based violence can happen to anyone, anywhere, some women and girls are particularly vulnerable - for instance, young girls and older women, women who identify as lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex, migrants and refugees, indigenous women and ethnic minorities, or women and girls living with HIV and disabilities, and those living through humanitarian crises."^[67]. The Scottish Government would welcome views on potential impacts of the proposals in the Chapters of this paper on different groups including men and boys, and people who identify as non-binary (a gender identity that is neither female nor male).

Question 9:

Do you have any views on potential impacts of the proposals in the Chapters of this paper on equalities (the protected characteristics of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation)?

Question 10:

Do you have any views on potential impacts of the proposals in the Chapters of this paper on socio-economic equality (the Fairer Scotland Duty)?

Question 11:

Do you have any views on potential impacts of the proposals in the Chapters of this paper on people in rural or island communities?

Financial implications

68. When introducing primary legislation to the Scottish Parliament the Government is required to make best estimates of the administrative, compliance and other costs to which the provisions of legislation would give rise, best estimates of the timescales over which such costs would be expected to arise, and an indication of the margins of uncertainty in such estimates. This includes costs on NHS Scotland bodies.

69. The Scottish Government recently announced a funding commitment to support Health Boards to improve healthcare facilities for forensic medical examinations of £8.5 million over three years (financial years 2018-19 to 2020-21 includes £2.25 million in financial year 2018-19 previously announced). This funding is specifically to help deliver improvements to the physical environment for forensic medical examinations for victims of sexual crime and to build the capability and capacity of the available workforce. This funding has been provided to Health Boards with the agreement that services developed with these funds will continue to be delivered by the Health Board beyond the conclusion of funding in 2020-21. The CMO Taskforce has been tasked with working with Health Boards and wider Community Planning Partners to agree a preferred model for Scotland and from this to assess the resource implications required to meet the Healthcare Improvement Scotland National Standards in terms of premises, specialised equipment and a skilled and competent workforce. This process will be informed by detailed assessments against the National Standards which enable Health Boards to prepare a service Gap Analysis. This process will inform the level of additional investment required on a Health Board basis taking account of where there will be regional aspects of service delivery.

70. This is in addition to other funding to address gender based violence, for example Rape Crisis Centres will be given an additional £1.5 million over the same period – helping these services plan for the future and ensure that more people can receive access to the support they need.

Question 12:

Do you have any views on the financial implications of the proposals in this consultation paper for NHS Scotland and other bodies?

Final question

Question 13:

Finally, do you have any other comments that have not been captured in the responses to other questions you have provided?