From Safer Communities and Justice Statistics Monthly Data Report: March 2026 published today, the above and : Number of victims of homicide at the lowest level since 1976. There were 45 homicide victims recorded by the police in Scotland in 2024-25, a 21% decrease from 2023-24 and a 24% decrease from 2015-16. https://www.gov.scot/publications/safer-communities-and-justice-statistics-monthly-data-report-march-2026/pages/statistics-on-crime-in-general/ In the year ending March 2025, there were 522 victims of homicide in England and Wales – https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2025 All things being equal, with 11 times the population, you’d expect there to have been around 495 homicides in England and Wales but there were 522, 5.4% more. Remember, only … Continue reading Number of victims of homicide at the lowest level since 1976

From Safer Communities and Justice Statistics Monthly Data Report: March 2026 published today: Public perception that the crime rate in their local area had decreased or stayed the same over the last couple of years has increased since 2008/09. The SCJS found that almost three quarters (72%) of adults in 2024-25 said that the crime rate in their local area had decreased or stayed the same over the last couple of years. This is higher than the 60% in 2008/09 but unchanged since 2023/24. Most adults feel safe walking alone after dark. The SCJS found that three quarters (75%) of adults said … Continue reading Scots feel safer, feel crime has fallen, as it has, and has affected hospitals less

From Safer Communities and Justice Statistics Monthly Data Report: March 2026 published today, the above and : Number of fires fell 5% in the last year. In 2024-25, there were 22,925 fires in Scotland, down 5% on 2023-24 and the lowest in the last ten years. There were 36 fire fatalities in 2024-25, down from 42 in 2023-24 and the second lowest in the last decade. The number of deliberate building fires has fallen over the last year while the number of deliberate road vehicle fires increased over the same period. There were 290 deliberate building fires in 2025-26 Q1, down from … Continue reading Fires fall dramatically to lowest in 10 years

As the Daily Recortd, today, has Housing emergency ‘going from bad to worse’ after Mairi McAllan given top job, do we care who said that? Nope, we barely care enough to respond but just in case you know someone still reading it, the facts: McAllan became Cabinet Secrtetary on 11 June 2025 and on the 30th September 2025, this from Housing Statistics for Scotland Quarterly Update: New Housebuilding and Affordable Housing Supply to end June 2025: For 2025, the SNP Government funded 5 313 new affordable home starts, down from a peak of 11 158 in 2021 but above the level … Continue reading After Mairi McAllan given top job, Scotland still builds twice as many affordable homes as last Scottish Labour government did, beats 110 000 target by an extra 30 000 and watches on as UK Labour slashes its target for England by more than a third

Many thanks to NHS FOR YES! for alerting me to this. From the above research paper published online today, in the June 2026 edition of the, peer-reviewed, Health Policy journal the following key points on the relative access of the poor to hip and knee replacement. In the UK, where healthcare is a devolved matter, England and Scotland have different policies to reduce waiting lists for elective surgery. England is redirecting NHS funding to the private sector using commercial contracts, Scotland is expanding in-house capacity. The poor have greater need and less access to hip and knee replacement surgery. From 1997/98 to … Continue reading The poor have greater need and less access to hip and knee replacement surgery but inequality of access has grown at two and a half times the rate in two-tier NHS England than in Scotland