This note provides a further update on our petition. We comment on recent responses to the Committee, submitted by Police Scotland, the Scottish Government, the Crown Office and Prosecution Service (COPFS). We also comment on the Bryson case, and its implications…
Read More MBM note to the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee. 6 March 2023
On Wednesday 22 February, the Scottish Parliament's Criminal Justice Committee will take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice Keith Brown MSP and the Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service Teresa Medhurst. In anticipation of that session, we have…
Read More Briefing note on SPS Gender Identity and Gender Reassignment Policy
In December 2022, the Scottish Parliament's Finance and Public Administration Committee launched an inquiry into effective decision-making by the Scottish Government. More detail on the inquiry can be found here. Our submission to the Committee is shown below. 1. What…
Earlier this year, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) carried out an assessment of Scotland's 2022 census, which will allow the regulator to recommend whether the Census outputs should be designated as National Statistics when first released. As part of…
Read More Scotland 2022 census: Office for Statistics Regulation assessment
Following the conclusion of the oral evidence sessions on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, we wrote to the Equality, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee to provide supplementary material we hoped would be helpful to the Committee as it…
Read More MBM supplementary note on the Gender Recognition Reform Bill to EHRCJ Committee
"Think of it this way. If a GRC is a sort of key, and you are going to hand out lots more copies, to a more diverse group, the first job of legislators is to be really clear about what…
Our submission to the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill can be read below. A copy of the submission can also be downloaded here. About us MurrayBlackburnMackenzie (MBM) is a not-for-profit independent…
Our written evidence to the Scottish Parliament's Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee can be found here. Our submission highlights that: The equality impact assessment (EqIA) of the draft legislation has barely changed since the EqIA undertaken for the…
Read More MBM submission on Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill
We are pleased at the Committee’s decision to continue to work on the petition and gather further evidence. The petition raises substantive questions about the accuracy and reliability of criminal justice statistics, particularly in relation to serious sexual offending. It…
The response states that it is “for Police Scotland to determine how the sex of people charged or convicted of rape or attempted rape is recorded on the CHS”. Our petition asks that the Scottish Government require Police Scotland to…
Read More MBM response to Scottish Government submission on Petition 1876
