Chamber and committees

Police Scotland are publishing weekly updates on the use of coronavirus legislation, including Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) issued and other intervention activity. Between Friday 27 March and Wednesday 3 June, a total of 3,213 FPNs were issued and 238 arrests were made. Individuals may have been issued with multiple FPNs or arrested more than once during this period.” Police Scotland have stated that these powers will be used as a last resort and only where people are defying very clear and sensible advice, which is designed to protect them from harm [1] . This information is drawn from Police Scotland’s ‘Coronavirus Interventions’ application, which relies on manual input from police officers. Due to this manual input, these figures are indicative only, and should not be considered Official Police Statistics.

More information on enforcement activity by Police Scotland in relation to the coronavirus legislation can be found at the following link:

https://www.scotland.police.uk/about-us/covid-19-policescotlandresponse/enforcement-and-response-data

In due course and as standard practice, the Official Statistics produced by the Scottish Government on Recorded Crime [2] and Criminal Proceedings [3] will ultimately provide users with information on both the number of crimes recorded in relation to the new powers, and the number of FPNs issued. Further updates on developments with our Official Statistics can be received by signing up to the SCOTSTAT network [4] .

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of businesses that have been prosecuted under coronavirus legislation, you may wish to contact Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal service for further information.

[1] https://www.scotland.police.uk/about-us/covid-19-policescotlandresponse/new-police-powers?version=1

[2] https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2018-19/

[3] https://www.gov.scot/publications/criminal-proceedings-scotland-2018-19/

[4] https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/scotstat