Faith bod yn fwyfodd, iawn. Fyfodd i gael y 29 eidg maen nhw am BBC αυτadau a'w gydweithiau. Mae newid i gael y cymryd hef rebound hwnnw sydd ei wneud. Felly,'r very good morning and welcome members, welcome to the 29th meeting of the Committee of Justice that has been called. First item is for the committee to decide whether to take item seven in private. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Our next item of business is the conclusion of our evidence taking I refer members to papers 1 and 2. I welcome to the meeting this morning, Keith Brown, Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans, Mr Neil Renwick, director of justice and Mr Donald McIlver, director of safer communities with the Scottish Government. Welcome to you all. I'll just get under way and invite the Cabinet Secretary to make a short opening statement and then we'll move to questions. Thank you, convener. As you know earlier this month in his statements on the emergency budget review, the Deputy First Minister set out very clearly the nature of the financial challenge that we face. The drivers of that challenge are well known, including Brexit, the on-going impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, rising energy prices and high rates of inflation, I think 41 high year yearly rate for inflation. And these pressures are impacting on households and on our vital public services. Many of those pressures were evident when the resource spending review and the update to the capital spending review were published in May and have become even more pronounced over the subsequent months. Inflation means that our budget has already fallen by 10 per cent in real terms between this year and last and the announcements in the UK autumn statement do very little to address the damage that this has done to the Scottish budget. Despite those pressures and the necessary realignment of our spending plans, we have worked this year to continue to support front line justice services and that includes support for the on-going process of recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic with the number of outstanding trials reduced by over 10,000 between January and September this year and in fact those have been reduced even further since by around 12,000 down to around 31,000. And we're building on the success of the new digital approaches developed during the pandemic, for example the new digital evidence sharing capability will enable evidence to be shared more efficiently and swiftly helping cases to resolve earlier. We've also continued to modernise the prison estate with the opening of two new innovative community custody units for women in Glasgow and Dundee, reflecting our commitment to trauma informed approaches to rehabilitation. Crucially in the context of the cost crisis, we are supporting justice organisations to offer pay settlements well above the levels projected when our budgets were set at the start of the year. This is particularly significant and challenging for the justice portfolio given the high proportion of our portfolio spending over 70 per cent, which is committed to staffing costs. The resource spending review numbers for next year are not final budget allocations. Those will be set by the Deputy First Minister next month, but it would not be honest or beneficial to our justice services to pretend that exceptionally difficult choices will not have to be made across all portfolios, including justice in the final budget allocations. The funding outlined by the UK Government over the coming two years falls well short of the combined impact of Covid recovery, energy cost and inflation. We will inevitably need to match our plans with the available resources. However, as far as is possible, my aims for the budget process remain those set out in our justice vision published this year. Those aims include that we should continue the progress of Covid recovery in our courts, in particular for the most serious cases in our solemn courts, that we ensure trauma informed approaches for victims and witnesses, drawing on innovative recommendations such as those set out by Lady Dorian, and that we support our police and fire services to continue to deliver vital public services as they also modernise and adapt to changing demands. We also support the work of our legal, professional and third sector services and that we invest in our prisons to support rehabilitation as well as effective community justice services, including alternatives to custodial sentences and remand. However, members of the committee will recognise that we will need to respond to those priorities within an increasingly tight financial context that is likely to last for an extended period. With that, we are happy to answer any questions that the committee has part of its pre-budget scrutiny and to consider those issues in the on-going budget process. As usual, I will pick up and open with a very general question, if I may. You spoke about exceptionally difficult choices that will need to be made in this next forthcoming year. I just wondered if there is any scope for deviation from the totals that have been announced in the resource spending review and, obviously, with the emergency budget. If there have been discussions about whether there is scope for some sort of deviation around the budget that has been allocated so far, just to clarify what you mean, as between different portfolios, is that what you mean? I suppose that within justice, yes. Potentially, yes. Potentially, yes. The resource spending review was based on information coming from the UK Government. It was to try and give some kind of path towards the next few years to give some context. However, the budget itself is separate but related to that process. As between portfolios and within portfolios, it is possible to change those naturally enough. That is, if you like, part of the process that we are currently undergoing, the discussions with police, with fire, with the prison service. That process is on-going now, so it is not fixed in stone as per the RSR. I suppose that the other one is just leading on from that then. Obviously, one of the—in addition to moving and adjusting figures, if you like—one of the things that I am quite interested in is opportunities for efficiency savings and new ways of working. If you could expand a little bit on what opportunities there are within the constraints of a very difficult budget for that to be very much part of individual portfolios thinking in terms of their budgets? It will be in different parts of the portfolio, but I mentioned already in my opening statement some of the digital innovations that we have had and are looking to expand on. However, I do think that it will also be necessarily the case that we will have to look to further public sector reform in order to try to fit in with those financial constraints that I have mentioned. I know that I had discussions with the chief constable as recently as yesterday and with other services that they are actively considering things that may help with public sector reform things that are necessary to do anyway. I would say first of all that the experience of fire and police in particular in terms of public sector reform—I think that that is an excellent example of public sector reform. It is a difficult decision to take around 10 years ago. There were difficult periods afterwards if you think of the establishment of the police and fire boards. I think, in my view, and having served on a police joint police committee in a local authority, the level of scrutiny of the police is far greater than ever before. They have already established very substantial public sector reform, but there would be more to come. They are actively considering that, perhaps in relation to how the three blue light services can work more closely together, not least given the findings of the Grenfell inquiry. That will happen as well. I have one final question from me. I will move on to capital budgets. I am interested in some more commentary from you about the adequacy of the capital budget. According to Spice, some of the figures we have suggest that the resource spending review would mean a cut of capital spending of 3.1 per cent across the portfolio. Cabinet Secretary, are there areas in that overall cut requirement that you would see as priority areas, but areas in which it would be easier, as it were, to affect cuts than others? We are not proposing a cut, although you could argue that it may end up the case, depending on what happens, whether you see a real-terms increase. The difference between real-terms, accounting for inflation and flat terms is a very important distinction to make. However, there are some flexibilities as between resource and capital, which we are examining very closely just now. If you take one example of body-worn cameras, there is obviously a capital cost to that, but there is also a substantial revenue cost. We are trying to look to see what we can do in order to make sure that we maximise the capital contribution. From my own experience, especially after the early part of the last decade—I know that it is going back in history somewhat—it seemed to be the case to me between 2010 and 2016 that you regularly had better capital allocations from the UK Government than you had resource allocations, and you also had fairly frequent allocations of financial transactions, which are quite limited now that can be applied. However, what we are seeing now is a much closer grip tightening of capital provision. The indicative capital funding envelopes has been maintained from the spending review that was published in February last year. That maintains essential capital funding for the core justice services, and that is always going to be the priority over new initiatives. That includes core services such as states, technology and fleet. We have also confirmed more than £500 million of capital for our prisons, including the modernisation of the prison estate, which has been on-going for some time. It is true to say to your point, convener, that the spending power of that capital budget has been eroded by inflation and now pays for significantly less as the cost of raw materials increases. However, we remain committed to substantial capital investment in the justice system, and we have to keep it under review. We are part of a discussion and negotiation with the different parts of the portfolio as to how that is done. Thank you very much. I have noticed that you mentioned body-worn cameras in your reply, but I am going to open it up now to quit members. If we have time, we will maybe come back to that later. Sticking on the theme of budgets, Katie, do you want to come in? It is just a brief question on the capital budgets and the modernisation of the prison service. We have heard some evidence, particularly, that newer prisons are cheaper than older prisons. Is that something that you have looked at? Is there a business case for capital investment in that it will help budgets in the future? It is not a new idea that, if you build something new according to modern standards, you can achieve efficiencies by doing that, if you do it in the right way, not least. You can also make it much more efficient in terms of the climate change challenge, so if you look at the proposed prison in the Highlands, HMP Inverness being replaced, that will be the first net zero prison that we will have. Of course, it can be the case that you can make efficiencies. We have had an on-going programme for a number of years of renewing, essentially a Victorian estate, and we are going through that process. For each case, for each proposition that we have, there is a business case to develop for that. Based on net zero prisons, one of the things that I have asked about regularly is about district heating systems. For instance, in the plans for Berlin and the new prison, why would you consider doing that? I do not know all the technical details on it, but you would provide energy for the prison. Outwith that, the community and even industrial estates, where you are generating income by having a district heating system in that public building. The intention, as I said, is to have HMP Highlands first net zero prison. The development of a district heating system is probably outwith just this portfolio. Deciding to do that for an individual institution would require the cross-government working that you are hinting at, so with the cabinet secretary for net zero. I think that your point is that you probably have a special relation to Glasgow, a pretty large prison population, the largest one that we have, and whether it could produce wider benefits. We are still in the formative stages of that process towards Barlinnie, but I do not know whether Don wants to mention any more. Thanks, cabinet secretary. Just to confirm that the district heating is one of the options that has been looked at in terms of HMP Glasgow. As the cabinet secretary says, the design work on the prison overall is still in progress, and that is looking at a whole range of different opportunities that might be there in terms of providing benefits for the local community, but ensuring that it is environmentally efficient is one of the top priorities in terms of the design for HMP Glasgow. On the question of HMP Glasgow, his Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons, Wendy Sinclair-Geeben, said to us that she thought that there could be a time-slip delivery in the project because of budget restraints. I am just wondering if you could comment on that. Would the gap be filled and do you have guarantees that the new prison will be ready for 2026? I think what we have seen is true across the UK. If you look at some large-scale capital projects, there have been delays right the way across the UK. Brexit features prominently. The pressures that Brexit has brought on supply chains and the pressures that it has brought on cost as well are very substantial. That is our intention to complete it on schedule, but, of course, it depends. It has been delayed up to now, as Pauline McNeill has asked for questions about this in the past, the delays caused by the change in the prospective site that was going to be used in the new site. I think that we have to acknowledge that. I have said this from the very start in relation to HMP Highland. We are, to some extent, at the mercy of external influences such as Brexit. The supply chain issues that we have, the labour shortages that we have, are very real pressures. We are trying our best to withstand them and keep the programme, but I cannot deny that they are real pressures. Just to expand on that a bit, the new women's custody units have been reassured that they are going to go ahead as planned. The following on from the two that are already up and running, is that the case in your view? In relation to those, as we want to see, first of all, how they are working, they are absolutely groundbreaking. There is nowhere else that has done something like this, so I think that it is only right that we make sure that they are having intended effects before we move on to a further roll-out. That roll-out was intended, but it will be based on our experience with the two units that are now up and running. And also the new national facility at HMP Stirling will be on track for opening next year. Great. That is good to know. I suspect that my colleagues will have further questions on that. The replacements for HMP Greenock and HMP Dymfresort are not currently a priority in the capital budget, I understand. Do you think that they are going to be added any time soon?  It will depend on future capital allocations. What we have done at Greenock because there are issues with the age of the institution, obviously, is carry out works in the meantime to make sure that it is in a proper habitable condition. However, the idea of replacements will depend on future capital allocations, which, as I say, are as constrained as I can remember them being just now. Okay, thank you. I know that my colleagues will have future other questions on that. Thank you. Thanks very much. Pauline, you are wanting to come in with some further questions on prisons and then I will bring in Jamie Greene. There is just a supplementary question on the prison budget, so I put that question to the prison inspectorate and the SPS as well. You will know that the two private prisons, just by dinner of the contract, which protects inflation, which no one ever thought would reach double figures. I put to Chief Executive that perhaps she needs to have a discussion with the private sector prisons about sharing some of the pain. Is that something that you could thought about, or would it not be significant enough perhaps, but it seems a bit unfair that two private prisons are protected financially but the public sector prisons are not? I would say that it is much more in relation to Adiwell than it is to Kilmarnock because they have the indexation feature on the Adiwell one. Just to be perfectly blunt, it is not a contract. I would have signed, I know, in a different context, my local authority, small local authority, is now buckling under the pressure of the PFI for the schools that they had. As you said, when you have inflation going up now to a 41-year high, the impact that can have I think potentially about £4 million a year potentially is very serious. We are involved in discussions, but it is only fair to say that the room for manoeuvre is extremely limited. Going back to the point that I made about my local authority in schools, they tried very hard over the last number of years to try and renegotiate some of those things. It has proven to be extremely difficult and get-outs from these contracts can be very expensive in their own right. To be fair to the people that signed that contract, they did it with that indexing in mind. Perhaps they would argue that they did not expect to have a long period of low inflation and that they had managed that during the course of that time when they would expect the cost of inflation to be borne in the payments that they made to them because their overheads will be rising to that extent as well. I think that there is very limited scope that we have been looking at it or that the SPS have been looking at it. Thank you. I do have some wider budget questions, but seeing as we are in the subject of prisons, I might as well carry on the theme. We heard quite stark evidence from the HM Inspectorate for Prisons, specifically around Barlinian Greenock. The warning was quite clear that if, in the next inspection, the inspectorate is unhappy, it would recommend that the prison faces the real potential of being closed due to health and safety. Some of the descriptions of it were quite disturbing, but on a budget point of view, she also made it clear by saying that the cost of maintaining it outweighs its value. On Barlinian Greenock, she also said that it costs a fortune to maintain the building because it is old. It is just a matter of time before the building collapses. So, rather than looking at it in the silo of this year's budget, is it not part of a bigger picture of what I would say is quite a chronic under-investment in the prison estate, which has led to a situation in which it is so expensive to run? Therefore, any factors such as energy price rises affect them more greatly? I think that it is related to the point that Katie Clark made, which is that if you build new prisons, you can make them more efficient and you can make savings that way. I would acknowledge it, but I cannot get away from the hard fact of the capital allocations that the Government has got. Those capital allocations have to cover things such as schools, plants, machinery, cars and vehicles for different services. You cannot really get past that. You have to live within the envelope that you have. I would say that it is a false envelope. It is originally based on the Maastricht criteria, if you want to go back to that level of borrowing, and the UK wants to cap the total level of borrowing to that extent. As you rightly say, borrowing to improve public facilities pays for itself in a long time. I agree with that, which is why we are replacing Barlinnie. You know the programme of replacements and improvements that we have had across the prison estate. Generally, we are trying to work our way through that, but we can only really go at the pace of the money that allows us to do that. That money, just to repeat the point from before, is going less and less far with inflation eating integers now. However, I do accept, if you can, as we expect to do, replace, for example Barlinnie. We will make savings in the on-going cost of that. On the budget, in your opening comment, you said that your budget this year is looking at a real terms cut of 10 per cent due to inflation. I just wonder if I could probe you on those numbers and how you came to that. My understanding last year is that the 21-22 core grant budget was £36.7 billion, and the 22-23 block grant is £40.6 billion, so that is roughly a 10 per cent increase. I understand that the effect of that may feel negated, but I do not understand that 10 per cent cut. Could you explain the numbers there? First of all, we have said that inflation is at 10 per cent and rising. The budget that we have for this year is worth around £1.7 billion less than it was when it was announced in December. At that time, you will know that inflation was around 4 per cent. Over and above that, because we are having to have pay settlements at a higher rate to reflect that cost of inflation, budget pressures so far—and I am conscious that deals have yet to be done in terms of the prison service teachers and nurses—we are talking about an extra £700 million of pressures for that alone. That has reduced the value of the budget that we have. My figures are that it is a 2.6 per cent reduction going up to 5.2 or 5.3 per cent reduction in our budget when you take into account inflation. Those are very real figures. We cannot strip out the effects of inflation from the budget that we have, so I do not know anybody that seriously contests the tightening of the budget. It is said by the Welsh Government, it is said by departments in the UK, the pressures of inflation. I think that what is more worrying is that it seems to be the case that we are now embarking on a further phase of austerity given the budgets that have been announced. Those are very real pressures that can be checked in the public accounts, but those are my figures that I have in terms of the budget. Perhaps we can ask our colleagues and spies to verify the figures that I have versus the figures that the Cabinet Secretary is using. I am just trying to get to an understanding of how you came to the assumption that your budget is 10 per cent lower in value this year than it was last year, which is quite the opposite of the figures that I have. That is not withstanding the £16 billion plus of Covid consequentials that were given to the Scottish Government, which were spent on various issues as well. On the issue of pay rise, I think that it is an important one. It seems to be that your expectation is that the problems that you are facing financially over the next few years are largely due to an expectation that the Government will have to increase pay across the public sector. We heard from the police Scotland specifically on what effect that has in numerical terms, so they forecasted that even a 5 per cent pay rise per annum over the next four years would cost £220 million. To pay for that, that would equate to the loss of around 4,500 officers to fund it. In other words, for every 1 per cent pay rise that is awarded to the force equates to around 1,000 police officers that would have to be lost to fund it. A, is that of concern to you? B, how do you think that the Government will approach the issue of pay rise, given that it is largely outside of your control? Well, the approach to pay rises will necessarily have to take into account inflation. There are projections that you will know from the UK Government, which start to see a significant fall in inflation during the middle part of next year, if memory serves me correct. The approach to pay rises will inevitably try to take into account the real costs of living for people as we go forward. Briefly, yes, there is a correlation between the impact of pay rises and our ability to pay for them and the overall budget. I have already mentioned that, in the justice portfolio, around 70 per cent of our costs are people costs, whether it is salaries directly pension or other costs. Those costs are very significant, and they squeeze out the opportunity to do other things. In relation to the pay settlement that we reached this year, and I imagine that the same process would inform how we approach further pay rounds, we recognise that police officers, prison officers and firefighters face the cost of living increases and the energy cost increases. We are trying our best to reflect that in the budget that we have, but the squeeze that you have mentioned, the correlation between if you pay more for pay and other things, I do not recognise the figures. I do not agree with the figures that we have seen this year. As I have mentioned so far, £700 million of additional pressure has not been seen by a reduction in police officers caused by that. We have seen the reduction in police officers caused by the fact that Tilly Allyn was being used for COP26 and the restrictions of Covid, but it is now back up to the regular 300 intakes that it had previously. There is no doubt that there is a correlation between what you pay for pay. I do not think that anybody is projecting exactly what they are going to do, any Government is projecting what they are going to do for pay over the next three or four years, but it is also true to point out the perhaps obvious point that the 5 per cent pay increase this year does not disappear next year, it is built upon, so these pressures will grow. It is our job to make sure that the police service in terms of its establishment in terms of the number of officers does not fall below the level that we think and more importantly the chief constable thinks is necessary to do the job. A loss of £4,500, though, would clearly have a stark effect on Police Scotland's ability to form not just statutory duties but basic functions. We heard that quite frankly that police simply would not turn up to certain types of crime, low-level crime as it is often called, and we would only respond to the most serious of events due to simply being short of bodies and boots on the ground, and that clearly will come as a concern to the public. It seems to me that what the issue is facing Government is either conceit to the demands for pay rises or simply say that there is a cap on how much money is available and therefore have to accept the consequence. The consequence could be industrial action, as we have seen already, or indeed officers leaving the force, or indeed firefighters and other public service workers looking elsewhere for employment. So how will the Government approach those negotiations, given that they are under I would say quite substantial pressure to concede to demands made not just by unions but by others? Well, I am grateful that you acknowledge the pressures which are there, and you mentioned it without putting a cap. There is a cap on all that we do, whether it is a block grant added to by what tax that we raise here and other sources of income. So the cap is there already, there has always been that cap. You are right, the question is how do you marry those pressures. I should say that I have no intention of overseeing a budget for the police force that results in 4,000 officers leaving the police force. I would also say that, despite pressure reports to the contrary, we have a very stable workforce in the police in Scotland, much more so than other parts of the UK. We have real interest in applying for senior positions within the police force here as well. The point about not turning up for things that we have seen that has happened in many communities south of the border, where there has been no investigation of burglaries and other crimes in some communities for over a year. I have no intention of holding those investigations. We do not intend to oversee that. However, it is true to say from the discussions that I have had both with the SPA and the police that they want to make sure that the model of policing that they have is up-to-date and fit for what is going forward rather than always looking back. I would just say that it is worth pointing out to start from a very strong basis, where a police constable in Scotland will get around £5,000 more per year when they start every rank up to assistant chief constable who has paid higher in Scotland than elsewhere. They have got some of the lowest ever recorded levels of crime, so they start from a strong position, and they do not intend to yield that position. I think that, based on the discussions that I have had, there will be a reprioritisation. Cybercrime is a real challenge, and I think that the police will want to do more in terms of cybercrime. Violence against women and girls, there may be a reconfiguration about how the police would want to do that as well. So it will develop over time, but they are not going to have that level of fall-off of officer numbers, at least the officer numbers, a net fall-off of 4,000 officers. We do not intend to see that happen at all. I am happy to let that out. I am going to just come back. I know Russell Finlay is wanting to come back to questions around prisons, and then we can maybe pick up questions around policing after that. So Russell, over to you. The more the cabinet secretary talks, the more questions I have, so I will try to remain focused, but I wanted to begin with a budget question. The evidence that we have heard in the committee these last few weeks has been nothing short of shocking the police service, the fire service, the courts and the prison service all making pretty stark warnings about what might happen with those proposed cuts. We do not yet know the exact details of next year's block grant, but we do know that there will be an additional £1.5 billion that has been generated by health and education spending elsewhere in the UK. Given what we have heard facing justice, will you ask your First Minister of the Government whether some of that money can go to head off some of the crisis that is facing the justice system? Of course, there will be very substantial calls on the Government to do many things, not least from your own party, demanding that health consequentials are passed on directly to health and do not pass go. I concede that this Government's priority is to make sure that health consequentials go to health. The £1.5 billion over two years has been mentioned. I have just mentioned the £1.7 billion additional cost that we face this year by the erosion of inflation, so there is no question that this is a bonanza that we can all expect to resolve the pressures that we have in our different portfolios, but I will fight my corner for the justice budget, for the police, for firefighters, for prisons and others, for the court service, where I think we are doing tremendous work. A reduction of 12,000 cases is astonishing, I think, in one year in terms of summary cases. Of course, I will fight my corner in relation to that, but there are, first of all, the first word used was shocking. I do think it is shocking. The budget certainly we have heard from Westminster. Given that many different departments, not just Scotland and Wales, have said the pressures that we are facing this year are extraordinary. I am sure that the situation in the Scottish Government cannot change taxes during the course of the year. We cannot increase borrowing to pay for pay, so to have £1.7 billion, if you like, of diminishing in our budget without that being recognised, is shocking and is the source for many of the pressures that we currently face. However, it is my job to make sure that justice is well served by the budget process and that we maintain and improve the public services that we have through justice portfolio. Instead of blaming the UK Government for all Scotland's ills, let's get on the record that the UK block grant is a record £40.6 billion, and it is entirely up to your Government how they choose to spend that money. We have heard dire warnings from across the justice system about failures to spend money, not this year, but in many years gone by. We have fired stations in a state of serious disreporation pair, putting firefighters at risk. We have got courts needing work done to them. In the time of Police Scotland's creation, we have had 140 police stations shut down, so we need to be a little bit more honest with people about the choices that your Government has made. Turning to the issue of prisons, the prison inspector as well as issuing the warnings about the state of Greenock and the possibility of calling for it to be shut down is touched upon earlier, but Jamie Greene also said that the transfer of HMP Kilmarnock from the private to public ownership should be paused, and she suggested that the reason for this happening was ideological on the part of your Government. Do you have any response to what she said about this? Just to respond to your first point where you said that, although I didn't actually say a blame to the UK Government for all the problems in Scotland, just to put it in context, this is not just Scotland or the Scottish Government that is saying this. The Welsh Government says that different departments in the UK Government say this. It is impossible to meet the increasing demands. A huge rise in inflation by the due to the economic incompetence of the Government that you support, I have to say. We can't wish away those costs and to try and pretend. You are good for honesty. Let's be honest about the source of this. Everybody else knows where the source of this the main pressure comes from, so let's have that honesty at least. Let's have the honesty that says that arguing for increases in budgets against that background in virtually every activity of government is not honest. I think that we all know that that's not honest. To come back to the point about Kilmarnock, we stood in the manifesto in 2007 in saying that we believed that it was fundamentally the case that prisons, given the nature of prisons and the service that they provide, should be within the public sector. Decisions on Kilmarnock and Addie Will were taken before this Government came into office, so it's no surprise that we would wish to take this Kilmarnock and we made it clear that we intend to take Kilmarnock back into the public sector, which is where we believe it should be. Come back to Kilmarnock. If indeed it's now the case due to the financial situation and the pressures of inflation, which of course are a worldwide problem, I'm sure that the Cabinet Secretary would acknowledge, given these extreme global circumstances regarding inflation, is it not worth looking again at the Kilmarnock transfer? Well, SPSs are engaged in discussions with the main contractor, the subcontractor, being Serco. They've been involved in those discussions but it's not really around the transfer being affected in a way that obviously looks after the interests of the staff but looks after the safety of prisoners as well. They're embarked on that process and the member rightly mentions inflation, the cost of inflation, and the idea that we would somehow avoid those costs of inflation where we were to go back to it or maintain the private contractor. I don't know any private contractor who would want to bid for a contract that didn't recognise the cost of inflation and we've seen that in relation to the exchange that's had with Parliament Neil over Addiewell. I'd be reminded that the Kilmarnock iteration of PFI was many years, nine years, I think, before the deal was done for Addiewell, by which time contractors were very keen to make sure that the inflation costs were part of the bid that they made. I'm not sure there'll be the savings that are being hinted at by trying to ignore inflation but in any event it is this Government's position that we believe prisons should be in the public sector. I'm just going to try and stay on the theme of prisons at the moment and then we can move on to another area of questioning. I'm going to bring in Pauline McNeill. Pauline. My question is on the police. I beg your pardon. Okay, any other questions on prisons before we move on? Collette and then Jamie. Just again, touching upon the evidence that was given by Wendy Sinclair-Gibbon, she mentioned about the contract for GOAMI in terms of the transportation of prisoners to and forth and she did touch upon it Cabinet Secretary in terms of improving digital and IT in terms of online court appearances and things like that as well. I know that it's a 10-year contract, I believe, or was a 10-year contract. Is that something that you've given consideration to in terms of efficiency savings going forward where reducing the transport given that it isn't fit for purpose? We have seen a substantial reduction obviously with the Covid restrictions over time and the lessening of the need to appear in person for many of these practices but I think I've had quite extensive discussions with Wendy and it's quite evident that the biggest problem that GOAMI have is a general problem of staffing issue and we've had a couple of suggestions as to how they might best address that situation. The SPS are working closely with them to try and deliver that prisoner transport system that supports the justice system and protects the public. They are developing quite creative modelling to lessen the impact of the staffing issues, including scheduled weekly meetings to develop short, medium and long-term plans to improve the contractual delivery and maybe get Neil to confirm the length of the contract. But as per the contract, performance levels are monitored by the SPS and any service failures are managed within the terms of that contract. We're aware that they are around 70 staff short of the requirements needed to meet their prisoner escorting contractual agreement, so those things have to be managed. We don't think, just to be perfectly clear, that GOAMI are at it. We know the pressures that are on getting staff and we're trying to work our way through that and as for the length of the contract, there are only a few, no? I can confirm that. We had two evidence sessions on prisons, one with the Scottish Prison Service directly and the other with HMIP. We heard evidence that if the current forecast for budget comes to fruition, it may result in a situation in which prisons have to revert into Covid-like lockdown scenarios. That was described as a situation in which prisons are effectively held in their cells all of the day. There would be a cancellation of purposeful activity, third sector organisations coming into prisons and also a reduction in rehabilitation, mental health and addiction treatment services as well. HMIP described that as a scenario where people will leave prison more angry than they went in, which clearly is in no one's interests, no least public safety. How would you respond to those warnings? We have no intention of, if you like, the SPS seeing it as a necessity to resort to those kind of restrictions. I would have to say that I'm delighted to put on record my thanks to prison staff that have managed during the pandemic when those restrictions were in place. The potential for very substantial unrest because of those restrictions was always there and yet it's been met very successfully by the prison staff. We've done a tremendous job. We have no intention of seeing that kind of restriction apply. In fact, if you look at the, I imagine it may be the case we'll get into the issue of mobile phones for prisoners today, for example, but that and a number of other innovations were designed to make sure that that pressure wasn't felt and that in that case where restrictions were being put in place that prisoners could still communicate with their families and so on. I think our whole approach is to avoid that kind of restriction, which we'd unnecessarily exacerbate the situation in prisons. Just to give one anecdote, if it could, a colleague who's recently joined the Scottish Government had been part of his experience of being to go to prisons in the south east of England in Midlands. He said that the contrast is marked the calmness that he found when he visited Perth prison in particular, which I think is a testament to both the prison service and the way that we've tried to organise things. We would not want to do, as has been suggested, and it is our responsibility to make sure that SPS don't feel they have to do that. I acknowledge that, but we would not want to do that because the consequences of substantial unrest in prison, apart from anything else, would be substantially more expensive than some of the things that we're doing. I know that pressure's there, but we don't intend to see those restrictions introduced for that reason. The restrictions would be introduced as a by-product of financial restrictions. They stated that, quite clearly, they cannot manage against a flat cash settlement without significant adverse impact. Is it the likelihood, then, that it's difficult to pre-empt what your final budgets will look like? Would your expectation be to move money from other areas of the justice directorate budget towards the prison service to void that scenario, or simply to go to the finance secretary and ask for money from other government departments to fund those? If you're making that commitment today, and it's one of a number of commitments that you've made that you don't want to see happen, then it's clear that simply more money is needed. What I'm saying today is that, in relation to the previous question that you asked about, whether there will be 4,000 fewer police officers, I'm saying that's not what I intend to see. I'm also saying that I do not intend to see in prison service restrictions of the nature that you've described resulting from financial pressures, who knows, in terms of future pandemics and so on. So I do accept that I've got to be accountable for those statements I've made, but you will know as well that I can't pre-empt the budget, and also there's two steps really here which are significant. First, what we can manage to get for the budget, as distinct from the indications of the resource spending review for justice, that's obviously partly my responsibility. And the second stage of that is within it, but justice portfolio, however, it's used to make sure those things don't happen. So if they do happen, I'm accepting my part of the responsibility for that, but it's my intention to make sure those two phases, the justice disposition in terms of the budget when the DfFM makes those decisions. And secondly, how we manage that budget, we have to live within that budget, whatever else is said, to make sure those things don't happen, and that's my intention. Okay, if there are no more questions on prisons, I'm going to move us on to policing, and Pauline, I'll bring you back in. Good morning Cabinet Secretary. So you said to Jamie Greene you had no intention, in fact you said it twice, presiding over a drop of four and a half thousand officers, so I'm pleased to hear that. I just wanted to drill down a little bit on what discussions you're then having with the Deputy First Minister about it. But I'm sure you share the same concerns as the committee or myself, which is that the submission that Police Scotland gave us, and Chief Constable has said this quite openly, is not simply the drop in numbers, that's a big concern. It's that, as we've discussed many times, the Scottish Police Service is quite special, actually, in the UK and internationally, because of the type of policing that we have here. Not just the one-on-one service, but figure something like 26 per cent, maybe 28 per cent of calls are crime-related, so many, the police is very much the line of last resort, you know this, we've heard that many exchanges we've had. So I was wondering what kind of discussions you're then having within Cabinet, I'm the Deputy First Minister, about how we can avoid this drop. And just a thought, actually, even if you could find money in the budget, it just seems to me that, given the period ahead, to protect that and preserve that model of policing for the future is such an important thing. And I just wondered if you're getting this across to the Deputy First Minister, isn't just a straight-flat cut and a cut in numbers? We could lose this model of policing for all time, because, you know, when you change things, you don't come back to where they were. Yeah, I'm not going to go into detail of the discussions that I've had with the DFM, both up to this point this coming week and in the period before the budget, but those points are being made and I very much agree with Pauline McNeill, if you look at, for example, the way that Police Scotland dealt with Covid. COP26 Operation Unicorn is an extraordinary record of achievement, in my view, and not many of the police forces, I think, could have achieved that. And again to your point, internationally that is registered with other police forces around the world. They're policing by consent, the model they have compared to some of the models that you see, for example, in some parts of the United States. So there's a lot of interest in the way that Police Scotland managed to conduct themselves during those very pressured times, but Covid is a key one, I think, to the point that you raised, because they moved into a space then, which was often to do with health. And I think it's a symbol of the trust that people in Scotland have in the police that they were seen as the first point of contact. But that has meant, I think, you're right, that they now have this expanded role, which the chief council has always wanted of wellbeing and safety for the environment, rather than just for the population, rather than just law enforcement. Crucially, though, when it's a health-related issue, I think we've got to get better at the handoff to health authorities. And I mentioned at the start about some of the further iterations of reform that might come about in terms of call handling and more liaison between the blue light services. So I think you're right, there's an additional pressure which has been absorbed by the police and I'm involved in discussions of how we can better manage, say for example, the classic example of somebody in severe mental health distress. It'll often be the police that have to attend there when, fair enough if they attend, but they should be able to make sure that professionals put in place as quickly as possible, rather than say a police officer having to be there for an extended period of time. So I think that that is a challenge. I can see that as a challenge that we have to meet. And that is featuring in the discussions within Cabinet as things go forward and will do in the ramps of the budget as well. I appreciate that, you know, I'm really asking you to disclose the detailed discussions, really not, but I suppose I'd like to have some reassurance that in these discussions then, given what you've said, you don't, you want to protect police numbers and you want to protect the police model. The only way that can really be done is to have some kind of plan that's not this one. Can you reassure us about that? There is a plan that the Cabinet is supportive of or how far could you go? Well, that's exactly the nature of the process. Although that plan, specific in relation to policing, has to acknowledge the central role of the chief constable and the SPA. So, as recently as yesterday afternoon, there are extensive discussions on these very issues with the chair of the SPA and with the chief constable. And that will be the intention to make sure that plan is one which Cabinet can support, the Government can support, hopefully Parliament can support in due course. So, yeah, there are very live issues very much along the lines that you've described have been discussed now. And just one final question. I mean, there's many areas, I suppose, you can look at the budget to do where you could find savings and the one that always comes up is court time for police officers having to give their rest days up and all the rest of it. To what extent do you think that that is being resolved by the ingenuity of technology or how far down the road do you think we are with this? Is it something that can assist here? It's a very good point, and obviously the member's been talking to the police who will tell you about the time, the frustrations they feel about the time that's tied up in court, sometimes for cases that don't happen. So, we have the pilot, and Neil can say more about this. We have the current pilot in Dundee, Hamilton and Paisley. What we said in relation to that pilot is, so urgent is the need to address this, is that the very earliest point that we see promising outcomes from that, that's to do with the way cases are managed, we want to roll that out across the whole of Scotland and again that's part of the discussion that we've had from the chief constable, but it might be worse to hear him from me a little bit more about the detail on that. Just briefly, a lot of these issues are discussed collaboratively through the criminal justice board that the crown agent and the chief executive of the court service spoke about. So, specifically in terms of police officer time, there are a number of different actions being looked at to try and respond to that. One of those is obviously the continuing work that we're doing around dealing with the Covid backlog and working that down. The more that we can move through that, then that will help to reduce the number of police witnesses that are having to come forward over time and, as the cabinet secretary said, a reduction of over 12,000 this year in those cases. With the timescales that they're looking at, the aim is to try and have that backlog for some of the cases resolved by March 2024 and for many courts well ahead of that, and that will reduce the number of some of the court hearings that have to be held. The second element that we're looking at is around the development of remote witness for police officers so that they're able to provide their witness statements to the court remotely from police officers so that they're not having to wait in the court. As the crown agent and the court service chief executive said, the pilots that are being taken forward offer real potential for resolving cases more quickly at an earlier stage and reducing the number of police officers who have to be cited for court evidence. The intention behind that is to run the pilots, but fairly quickly, given the kind of positive evidence so far, try and roll those out on a rolling basis across other courts so that the impact of that is being felt during 23-24. That's a very quick comeback on that. You know that I raised this question during the passage of the Covid legislation about what I thought was dreadful circumstances of remote work in the sheriff court, because the quality was so poor. I presume, then, that I'm delighted that the Government did act on that, so that's going to be for restrictive purposes, but not for full custody hearings. Is that something, yes or no, that you're able to address to ensure? There's no point in having it remotely, which I don't have an issue with, but I do have an issue with if the quality of that connection is so poor that it's going to undermine the whole idea of it. The police remote witnesses is a different issue from the wider question around virtual hearings. Obviously, we've had years of experience of witnesses providing evidence for remotely particularly vulnerable witnesses from the witness suite, so that's something that the court service is experiencing. In terms of the elements of remote witnesses, and obviously, during the Covid pandemic, we provided extra capital resource to the court service specifically to assist them with that. It's one of the things that I would highlight as being one of the tragic circumstances of Covid, but the justice organisations innovated with things like the remote jury centres, learnt how to use technology remotely so that there are benefits that we're making sure that we're not losing from the circumstances of Covid. I've had some contact from police officers locally this morning, and they know about this session in the past. I suppose almost a plea, they know that resources are tight, that things are going to be difficult. But this issue of going to court, and they're asking a real plea here that they think that this could be massive in terms of the amount of time that they're spending in court, is huge. It's the exact word used in the text, and I suppose it's a plea really there if this could somehow be sped up and improved. The officer's on the ground, I think, and it could be game-changing in that respect in terms of freeing up resources. The other issue, which isn't quite related to Pauline's point, is still in police time, and the other thing that they asked me to raise, because they asked her two specifics, is that they feel that they're spending a lot of time covering for the ambulance service just now, as well, and we know the pressures that they'll be facing, but this was something else that... So these are the direct things that I've been asked to raise today, and you've already answered the point about the time in court, so I appreciate I don't need another further response than that, but it's more a plea if we can get that sped up. I think it could be good for everybody, the justice system, as well. Can I just come back to say, can you hear that? I think that that's the point that we're saying, that the normal course of a pilot would be to conduct a pilot, analyse it, see the impact and benefits, and then, if that's the decision rule that I would not do in that case, because of the pressures that you've mentioned, and I get the same from police officers, they're frustrated, they haven't spent time sitting in court or in anty rooms at the courthouse for cases that sometimes are not even called when they could be doing other police work. So chief counsel's made that point to me, but this pilot will be rolled out in advance of that longer time period normally have. And on the second point, I think I've already mentioned a couple of times that the blue light services and closer working between them was, apart from anything else, one of the outputs from the Grenfell inquiry, but there is obviously the case, there's more that can be done there, so that's an active consideration that we're giving to that just now, not just between, say, the ambulance service and the police, but also the fire service as well, how we can make that more efficient in a country of Scotland's size. Okay, thank you very much.  I mean, on policing, it's about body warm cameras, because Police Scotland have told us that funding would only ensure 500, specialist police arms officers in Scotland would have body warm cameras, and that a flat rate settlement would inhibit the roll out. I mean, as you know in England, in Wales, police officers already have this kit, and indeed they're moving on to the second generation. So, could you maybe outline where you are in this issue and what discussion is taking place, and whether you are looking at something beyond 500 and ensuring the whole force is equipped? Well, first of all, it's probably important to say that, as I'm sure the member knows, that body warm cameras incur both a capital and a revenue cost. Where the information gathered by the body warm camera goes is quite an important consideration and the logistics behind that, so it has implants for both the capital budget and the revenue budget. Of course, the ultimate decision on that rests with the chief constable, but I acknowledge that that will depend on the resources that he has. I would say, though, that you've drawn a comparison with south of the border. We are a bit different in Scotland than as far as the proportion of the budget, the police budget, which is spent on people is higher in Scotland, substantially higher, and that does provide pressure on the remainder of the budget as to what else you can do with that. We've had representations from the Police Federation and others saying that the priority for them and their one stakeholder was pay and the conditions of officers such was the pressure they've been under and, of course, the impact of the cost of living. We've responded to that, and it's also true to say that we can't spend that money twice, so I acknowledge the financial constraints that are there. I am a supporter of body warm cameras. I think that they can actually achieve savings in the longer term for various reasons, which you'll be aware of, but we have to live within the resources that we have. Ultimately, though, a decision on further roll-out would be for the chief constable to take. There have been pilot schemes being run for almost a mental health emergency response team. Would that alleviate the attendance of police officers or even other emergency services? I know that having spoken to some of our local police officers, they said that a lot of the times they're having to attend for mental health people who are obviously in complete distress as well. Are you actively talking with the Minister for Mental Health in terms of how that can alleviate the strain on Police Scotland and how that would roll out or when it's likely to roll out? That discussion contains discussions with the Minister for Mental Health. It's also in relation to prisons and how we can better deal with some of the issues in prisons as well, but it's probably important to acknowledge that some of the pressures that the police feel through that are, first of all, when the call comes in, whether that call can be better than passed on to somebody with a mental health background. However, it is sometimes the case that people go to the police because they think that that's where they need to go and the police can get there sometimes more quickly in an emergency situation. What is of more concern, at least expressed to me by the police, is how long they then have to stay with that case before being able to hand it to somebody with a mental health expertise? It's that area and the call handling and how quickly a mental health professional gets involved are the main areas that we're looking at just now, and that's part of the portfolio discussions. Has there been, let's say, triage cars where they're able to attend directly rather than putting that onus on the police? Sorry, so mental health professionals will attend directly? I'm not aware of that, perhaps, don't we know? So the thing I'm aware of is that there has been mental health professionals put into police call centres to help with the triage at the call centre point. There may be some local initiatives, maybe what you're referring to. I'm certainly not aware of a national scheme on that, but we can find out more from police and let the committee know if that would be helpful. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, I'll bring in Russell Finlay now. I think you've still got some police questions. Indeed. So everyone in Scotland benefits to the tune of £2,000 per head in additional public spending to others in the UK, which I'm sure the cabinet secretary is very grateful for, and this helps presumably pay our police officers more than they get paid elsewhere in the United Kingdom. But despite this, as we've heard from the evidence in the last few weeks, Police Scotland uniquely do not have body-worn cameras, as Katie has already pointed out. These are in every force in England and Wales. Some of them are in second-generation cameras. David Page says that these would have massive benefits and they are supported by 81 per cent of the public. Now, the cost of these is estimated to be about £25 million. Is it a priority to now get these implemented as a matter of urgency in order to protect officers and protect the public? Perhaps you covered that off, cabinet secretary, in your previous answer, but I'm happy if you wish to follow up on that. Maybe I'll ask it differently. I mean, I'm sure that you understand what the question is. I'm happy to come back in just to say that, to the first point about the resources, I'm not going to rehearse the differences of opinion that we have about the magnificence that are otherwise of the UK Government. But what I would say is that whatever the resources that you have, Governments, of whichever colour at the end, have to attach a priority. We've attached a priority to the fact that, if you're a constable, you'll get £5,000 more if you start in Scotland, or every rank in the police up to Assistant Chief Constable will get more. So that's a priority that we've attached to that. However, the decision on equipment and operational requirements is for the chief constable. I'm not running away from the fact that, of course, he will have to live within a financial envelope, which we've discussed previously. I do agree with the member about the benefits of body-worn cameras. So, for example, it may well be the case that if people have body-worn cameras, you can avoid potentially a huge public inquiry, because there's a contested account of what actually happened, which might be potentially avoided if body-worn cameras can provide that level of evidence. So I don't doubt the benefits of body-worn cameras, but, as an Iron Bevan said, politics is a language of priorities, and we have to decide on priorities, as does the chief constable. We have prioritised the pay and the conditions of our police officers, because we think they're worth it. Beyond that, we do have unavoidable pressures, but it will be a decision ultimately for the chief constable. In respect to the £2,000 per head, that's Scottish Government figures. These aren't open for debate or discussion unless you disagree with them. Going back to body-worn cameras, given the £20 million that the Scottish Government have set aside for constitutional matters next year, and now that that's not likely to happen, given the ruling in the court today, could that money not be used for body-worn cameras? I would say that the option of getting out from underneath a Westminster Government an utterly incompetent Westminster, which is presided over record inflation, a national debt that sits at £1.5 trillion, can pay that to a country of Scotland-sized Norway with an oil fund of over £1 trillion in it, the record levels of taxation, which the body-worn cameras. No, you asked a question about the UK Government, so I'm saying the incompetence that they have presided over, whether it's tax, inflation, public debt, the opportunity to have a different way of doing these things, in a much more sensible, mature way than, for example, the quasi-quartang budget is a very valuable option for the people of Scotland. Of course, we want to fulfil our manifesto promise, which was to offer that referendum. I think that the cabinet secretary has answered your question, and in the spirit of moving things on, I'm going to bring in Jamie Greene. It's interesting that you said that these are operational matters for the police. Deputy Chief Constable Will Kerr told the SPA in a meeting a couple of weeks ago that he was, quote, professionally embarrassed by the slow roll-out of cameras. He described them as a very basic bit of kit. So it doesn't sound like these are nice add-ons, it sounded like they're must-haves. So I would ask the cabinet secretary to reflect on his own comments on that. Speaking of incompetence, over the last couple of years, we've learned through freedom of information requests that nearly two million calls to the 101 service have gone unanswered or not answered by operators or hung up by the caller. We had a very frank and robust discussion about the state of 101 in this committee, and evidence was given to us. Is the cabinet secretary content and happy that that service is working well, to its full extent, and can he commit that it will remain an operation for the foreseeable? Yes, I think it will remain an operation. And no, of course, I'm not happy with where there's been a service failure there, and those have been well publicised. And I've raised them with both the SPA and with the chief counsel when they've happened. However, I do think that the model they now use, the CAM model, is one which is, when it's used properly, it's very effective. And also that's probably borne out by the fact that, I think I'm writing saying in Scotland that the number of calls answered within 10 seconds is around 10% higher than it is elsewhere in the UK, but shouldn't be the only bar. We have to make sure. I think currently it sits around 79%. It has to be higher than that, and we'd acknowledge that. Sorry, 79.9% of calls answered under 10 seconds compared to 68.3% for the rest of the UK. And the rest of the UK is a useful comparison, because, of course, many of the same pressures will apply in relation to that. We did have the inspectorate's assurance review into the contact assessment model CAM for call handling. And it identifies issues. I don't deny that, but it also identifies a number of real successes. So we welcome the Police Scotland's plans to introduce the new digital contact platform, which will help strengthen both the 101 and the 999 services. Once again, these are operational matters for the chief constable and oversight of them is provided by the Scottish Police Authority. But if it's all going so swimmingly, why are people hanging up? Is it simply that they're waiting too long? Is it that the calls are not being answered? Is it a lack of resource in the call centre? Is it anything to do with the centralisation of the service? I mean, what's the Government doing to get underneath the root of the problem here? Because clearly so many calls, I mean, people don't phone for the sake of it, they clearly are calling because there's an issue. And often people are unsure where they should be calling 101 or 999, where we're trying to alleviate pressure on 999. Clearly that's the point of the service. But people aren't phoneing for the fun of it. But if they're hanging up, they're simply not getting through to somebody. That clearly is a matter of concern. And we all know the very grave repercussions of when call handling goes wrong. We've had that debate in the Parliament many times. So what exactly has the Government done to undertake why so many calls are not being answered on the service? And what exactly has been done to improve it? Because just the broad commitment that it will get better probably isn't good enough. We'll just say that, first of all, yes, I do acknowledge the fact that if somebody's call goes unanswered, then that's a failure of service. At that point, I'm not wishing that away. The point I'm making when it's not me saying this is a home office that are saying this. So for July this year, Police Scotland, well above average, 80%, 79.9% calls answered under 10 seconds. Now I'm not saying that is, I've not used the word swimmingly, I think that is an example of notwithstanding the pressures, Police Scotland are performing better than average. I think also though to get under some of the issues in your point is that Police Scotland, as I've said before, have been the first point of call for many things, which are not Police Scotland's responsibility. And that's reflected in these calls. So we've looked at the nature of the calls, some of them should be being directed towards other services and we're trying to make sure we can do that. And it goes back to the point that I made previously about increasing the reform that's necessary in terms of call handling and better liaison between the Police, the emergency blue light services and other services. If they can alleviate that pressure on the calls, we're making sure the calls are directed into the right place in the first place, that will obviously help improve what is already an above average performance, such that we can drive out any of those unanswered calls. So it is better than average just now, it's got to be better and work is continuing to make sure it is better. The reason they're calling the Police is because they're desperate. They're phoning for an ambulance and they've been told to wait hours, so they're phoning the Police to take them to the hospital. They're phoning the Police because they're phoning local authorities, social work departments and they're closed out of hours. They're phoning the Police because other public services are letting them down. And that's why people are calling 101 when they shouldn't be because they're desperate and the Police are the first and last point of contact. We've heard that evidence from numerous officers and the SPA and the SPF themselves that the Police have become this catch-all service which is simply adding to the pressures and that's directly down to a failure to deliver other vital public services that people need in an emergency situation. So I mean what conversations you're having with your colleagues in the Cabinet about relieving those pressures on the Police? Discussions with colleagues in the Cabinet about public services. I'll often say the fact that after 12 years of austerity, we think there should be more money invested in public services. I acknowledge that. We should be investing more money in public services but almost uniquely, the UK Government has decided on a programme of austerity which has now lasted for 12 years. To the UK Government, I'm asking you about your operational decisions about how you manage government and how you and your colleagues manage public services. I know you're keen to divert to England and Wales but I'm not. This is the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Committee and you're the Cabinet Secretary for Justice in Scotland. So if we could keep to the focus of the budget that would be great. It's possible to answer without being interrupted or try and answer your question which is to say the idea that you can talk sensibly about public services and try and exclude from consideration the financing which currently we have to rely on from the UK Government I think is not honest. I think we have to acknowledge that as the main driver. I think most other people in the country realise we've had 12 years of austerity suppressed budgets for public services and I don't deny that that's had an impact. I've mentioned the fact that we are trying to look at this so we can alleviate the pressure on the police so that calls can go to the right place in the first place so that reduces the number and the volume of calls which come in. But despite that and notwithstanding those pressures we still have a situation where Police Scotland are above the average notwithstanding those pressures which apply across the whole of the UK. Okay, thanks very much. I'm just watching the clock we've got about 15-20 minutes left and I know there are some members who would like to come in with some other issues one of them being Scottish Fire and Rescue. I'm going to come back to Jamie would you like to open up No, I'll let others come in I've had a good one, thank you. In that case Russell Finlay you wanted to ask a question about fire and rescue. Yes, thank you indeed. So 11 fire stations don't have water supply over 100 fire stations have no raster canteen facilities or 150 don't have sufficient showering facilities 100 don't have minimum toilet provision 125 don't have dedicated locker rooms over 100 don't have dedicated drying facilities 282 don't have dignified changing areas and no fire stations have a first aid room or space for nursing mothers Now this cabinet secretary has absolutely nothing to do with inflation, Brexit or the UK Government according to the interim chief officer the evidence he gave to the committee that £482 million has been reduced from the cost base of the Scottish fire and rescue service over the past 10 years that's due entirely to the money provided to the fire service from the Scottish Government Can you address those concerns and the concerns of firefighters about these extremely poor facilities? First of all I think it's true to state that of course the fire service has got to comply with stringent safety requirements and there's no suggestion from the SFRS that the equipment is unsafe I hate to correct the member but I think the backlog that he talked about was £492 rather than £482 according to the SFRS but we acknowledge of course the challenges I think the desperate attempt to try and pretend this has nothing to do with settlements in the UK Government I just think it doesn't register with people out there they know what the situation is they know what austerity has meant over the last 12 years they know both in terms of resource and in terms of backlog capital backlog there is no backlog in terms of the maintenance side of things but yes investment in the estate structure there have been reviews previously and that has been reviewed again just now I think it's also true to say that many of the fire stations were built in a previous era to provide fire cover for industries and housing which are no longer there in some cases so that is an opportunity to review the estate and to make savings through the rationalisation of that estate which in turn should allow additional investment to be made in the remaining fire stations The SFRS you may have heard any evidence from them have developed a detailed community risk index model which identifies the risks based in individual communities across Scotland and that enables them to take decisions on the resources in an evidence-based way so we'll continue to work through these issues with the SFRS not least through the budget process which I've mentioned previously I'm going to bring in Rona Mackay now I think you've got some questions around gender-based abuse Yes it's relating to the court in prosecution services Yes, yes thanks Thanks, thank you very much Just before I ask my question I think it's interesting to note that the Conservative members and the committee are asking overtly political questions and when the cabinet secretary responds with straightforward and honest answers they don't like it and I think it's important to note that So Yeah I'm interested to know that you touched on it in your opening statement cabinet secretary the priority that funding will be given to the Lady Dorian's review and the prosecution of rape and sex offences and the work of the Cops Covid Unit but first of all Lady Dorian's review and you know if budget implications will affect that or not it's just to clarify that thanks Yeah and the member will know that we have to go through a process before starting the bill process to make sure there's financial cover for the implications and there are as you write to say substantial implications so in terms of a victims commissioner that is obviously one of those in terms of specialist courts if that's what's agreed there'll be a cost associated with that as well and a number of other recommendations will inevitably have costs associated with them but we have gone through the process to make sure we have financial cover it doesn't mean that there's not still a challenge to make sure we have those finances but yes that's been taken into account and there is substantial progress being made on Lady Dorian's recommendations both the ones which require legislation some of which I've mentioned and some which don't That's good to know that it's still very much on track and with regard to court bag logs and the effect on domestic abuse victims I understand that this will take priority when it comes to trying to clear the backlog and the specific nature of these cases will take priority Yeah and my colleague Neil could maybe say more about the figures here but the extent to which that's been a priority right through the pandemic is very evident if you look at the balance of cases going through I just to clarify I have mentioned the success in terms of summary courts 12,000 reduction down from 44,000 to 31,000 obviously more or less so that's proceeding very well what we're not seeing is the same level of progression relation to solemn courts and so there's now a change being made by the court service to make sure we switch resources to help effect a similar reduction in relation to the solemn side of things some of which may include some of the cases that you're talking about but it might be worth hearing from Neil in relation to domestic abuse I think that the cabinet secretary's covered it really well the court service have been publishing regular monthly statistics on throughout the Covid period on the scale of cases and the progress and the updates on that have confirmed the priority given to domestic abuse cases throughout the Covid period despite the challenges and pressures of that and that's continuing through just now as the cabinet secretary says in terms of the high court in particular a very high proportion of those cases will be sexual offences cases or the most serious end of domestic abuse cases and again the court service announced last week the intention to establish two new high courts and six new sheriff and jury courts so those spread across a number of locations to try and speed up that process around dealing with the backlog in the solemn cases that's really encouraging to know thank you thanks convener thank you much indeed are there any other members who would like to come in on this specific topic no okay okay in that case then I'm just going to bring the session to a close I'm just wanting to finish off though there are other questions okay that's fine okay I'll bring in Jamie then Russell and then I'll finish with a final question a completely different area there's an area that I don't think we've really touched a lot on but I think it deserves summer time and that's the issue of community justice and the effect of the budget on that there were quite a large number of submissions although it didn't feature as highly in our oral evidence sessions given the prominence that police, fire and courts and prisons obviously generally has but I think the issue of community justice and social work delivery at a local authority level is something that we perhaps don't spend enough time on as a committee so I wonder if we could maybe ask some questions about that but obviously unsurprisingly the evidence that we did receive was that of warnings that any real terms budget forecast for those organisations particularly from COSLA and from Community Justice Scotland themselves and social work Scotland but the effect that that would have on their ability to deliver adequate and robust unfair community justice services it would be put at risk to be to be quite frank what does the cabinet secretary think could be done to ensure that local authorities and anyone in the voluntary or paid justice sector are able to carry out their functions in that given the tight forecast that we're looking at yeah I think without going back to the previous back and forward about budgets I think at least if we can acknowledge this is a different budget environment from last year so last year in that different context we awarded an additional £15 million for the reasons that you mentioned we are aware that the disposals are not there's not the same confidence across the country from different courts in relation to those disposals so that additional £50 million which was in addition to I think £119 million of continuing funding was to try and affect that change so that the courts would have confidence wherever they were in Scotland that a community disposal would be effective and it would be properly monitored so that just gives our intention a direction of travel but you're right to say we are now looking at a different budget environment and we have to consider that against other options I would say though that in relation to the bail and release bill this is a fundamental part of it it will not work if we don't have proper community justice disposals so that is our intention we do have budget pressures to consider as we go forward and we hear what the sector said we've had discussions there's a new national plan for community justice it's just come out as well which is seeking to do this and also I think I would say that the additional monies that we've provided in the current year were done I think in a very sensitive way such that those authorities those local authorities had been very well served by the community justice infrastructure weren't punished by money just going to those that weren't because it's like punishing success so we've managed to provide money to those authorities that need to really invest more and to produce more money for the other authorities so that is the intention but it is one of those things that's going to have to be decided as a priority in the budget process and the reason I mention it is because if it becomes apparent and clear that the if you like the political direction travel is to send less people to prison and offer alternatives then surely that relies solely on the adequacy of what those alternatives look like and that there is not just public faith but judiciary faith and confidence and we've heard from sheriffs and judges who feel like they're not trusting that those sentences will either be carried out or delivered properly and therefore that leaves them with little alternative so we can't simply divert people from prison if there's nothing to divert them to specifically otherwise we absolutely will lose public confidence in the service so is that something that you're mindful of also? Very much and I don't deny the logic of that I think there's also in relation to electronic monitoring and some other aspects there's a need for more information to be provided to the judiciary sometimes there's not the level of awareness that there should be and not seeing it's their fault and it's not for me by any means to educate the judiciary but I do think there's a need for more awareness about what is possible but you're right at the root of it they have to have confidence at that legitimate disposal for them it won't be a political direction not to send people to prison of course that'll be for the judiciary but I don't dispute the logic the member draws out and that is our direction of travel that's what we believe in that underpins the ideas behind some of the legislation we're taking through the issues how we can make sure we can continue to do that with the resources available Cabinet Secretary your government has written what is effectively a blank check to cover the cost of the Rangers malicious prosecution scandal they tell us the amount has now reached £51 million which incidentally is double the amount it would cost to give every police officer on Scotland body worn cameras I'd like to ask if you can give us any idea as to where the total amount might end up and also ask who you think is responsible for this and whether there will be any consequences for this absolutely shocking state of affairs I don't think I have anything to add to the previous responses given by the First Minister except to reiterate the point that the cost of that and I can't tell you what the ultimate cost will be it depends on factors out with my control and obviously predates my time in office but the cost of that will not fall on the justice portfolio directly that will be born across the whole of government I don't think certainly my colleagues were in post at the time that that was when that became a live issue down to then to add but it's not something I think I can add more to than what the First Minister said previously Do you think people will be surprised though that £51 million has been paid out through to incompetence or wrongdoing and no-one's been held to account? Well I think you know the processes for accountability which are in train and I have nothing to add to that Pauline McNeill I think you want to bring in come in on that I didn't know this issue was going to be raised but anyway it has been raised I appreciate cabinet secretary at the moment everyone's effect to the can't say anything about this case because it's a live issue so I'm you know not going to press you on that and but Russell Finlay is right about accountability a Lord Advocate took a decision some years ago that has massively impacted on credibility of the Crown Office and not to mention the huge sums of money I mean I'm going to ask what scope have you got as cabinet secretary when everything settled if you satisfy yourself that there's going to be accountability or at least I hope you'd agree with me that somebody has to hold the Crown Office to account for that decision because a person took that decision a former Lord Advocate took this decision and I don't think it can just be allowed to just dwindle out once the court case is finished I think it's cannot be allowed to happen again shortly All I would say is I think understand the point that the member is making but the member also started her comments by saying that I she knows I can't comment on some of these things we're also talking about whatever else it was it's a take a decision taken by an independent Crown Office so she knows the constraints under what I can say but she will also know the process for accountability that's in train for this in terms of a subsequent inquiry so I if that's the case then that will also be independent so that's the reason why I am not able to say more at this stage so it's the inquiry that's going to hold the decision making of Crown Office to account over this decision is that I think some people would term that as a process of if there's a public inquiry that's a process of accountability sorry I just want to be clear is there going to be one did you say I think we've that's been established on the responses by the First Minister in the chamber on a number of occasions okay thanks very much thanks cabinet secretary I wonder if I can I'm just going to bring things to a close I'd just like to go back to the emergency budget review review just with a quick question in relation to the UK wide emergency services mobile communication programme so obviously the most recent update from the review was that the Scottish Government will cut £14.2 million from a projected saving on the Scottish Government contribution towards the programme so I just wondered if you can expand a little bit on what is being reduced and what impact that this may have on Police Scotland Scottish Fire and Rescue and is the rollout of the new review systems for police officers will that be affected at all I'll maybe ask Don if I can to come in after making a couple of comments which is this project it's a bit like Christby rail it's been going on for many many years I remember because as I said I was involved in a joint police board a rollout of airwave and that was complicated but I have many concerns of this project which I've registered with the UK Government the Welsh Government's registered concerns and the budget changes over time the spend doesn't match the profiles that we expect so that's the basic underlying situation but Don's very heavily involved in this and I'm sure he enjoys being very heavily involved in it as well yeah so the the change in the emergency budget review is very simple the UK Government the Home Office gives us projections at the start of the year as to how much our share of the spending on the UK programme will be for that year they update those projections at various points through the year they updated those projections for Scotland to reduce our contribution this year by I think it was around 10 million pounds we've also agreed with them to switch some capital to revenue which represents the balance then that was announced in the emergency budget review so it's largely about the pace of progress and pace of spend on the UK programme and what that means for our share of the contribution to the bills that the programme pays that thanks very much is there any sort of indication around timescales I mean I don't want to stray off budget but that obviously does correlate with budget as you've just said the programme regularly updates it's programme deployment dates I'll check the latest deployment date for Scotland and can confirm that as the cabinet secretary has said you know one of our key concerns is that that date has changed on a regular basis that the deployment date for the system has changed and been significantly delayed over a number of years and one of the things I would say is that what we are looking for from the programme and I know the cabinet secretary as well is actually for them to commit to dates that they can stick to and that they will keep to and that the police can have faith and the other emergency services can have faith and have trust in that those dates will actually be delivered so that's the dialogue that goes on between us and the programme on a very regular basis convener thanks so can we take it from that then that ultimately the rollout won't be affected although there's a lot of questions but ultimately it wouldn't be affected so the programme has not changed its deployment dates that does not mean the history of the project is that that does not mean they will not be subject to review at some point in the future I'm afraid, convener okay thank you very much I'm going to bring this session to a close can I thank you cabinet secretary and your officials for attending this morning and as usual if there are any follow-up questions that members have we'll pick those up in writing so we'll just have a very short suspension to allow for a change of officials thanks very much thank you very much so our next item of business this morning is to consider an affirmative statutory instrument which is the international organisations, immunities and privileges Scotland amendment order of 2022 and I refer members to paper three I welcome back Keith Brown cabinet secretary for justice and veterans to the meeting and I also welcome his officials Walter Drummond Murray head of civil courts inquiries private and international law and Emma Thompson legal directorate legal directorate with the Scottish government so welcome so I'd like to open up by inviting the cabinet secretary to make a short statement on the SSI thanks convener I have chopped some of the commentary I was going to make because I know you've had a long morning and I think this SSI is not dissimilar to ones which this committee or its predecessors have considered in the past the draft international organisations immunities and privileges Scotland amendment order 2022 confers various legal immunities and privileges upon the inter-american investment corporation IIC and on persons associated with that organisation so far as that is within the devolved competence of this parliament the order is limited to the issue of privileges and immunities but just by way of background I would mention that the IIC is the main private sector arm of the inter-american development bank group the IDB which lends to governments and to the IIC the UK has an update to join the IIC and the conferral of immunities and privileges to the IIC is required to ensure that the UK can fully comply with its obligations under article 7 of the IIC's founding agreement and joining the IIC offers the opportunity to be part of an important organisation in Latin America and Caribbean region which will support economic growth and leverage further private sector resources for development financing and just in order to assist the committee will say a little about the nature of the privileges and immunities involved the conferral of legal capacity and privileges and immunities is necessary to ensure that the IIC can function as an international organisation in the UK the order grants the IIC immunity from suit and legal process inviolability of archives and premises and exemption from taxation it also grants personal privileges to the IIC's officers and employees immunity from legal process with respect to official acts and exemption from income tax the income tax exemption does not apply to British citizens the privileges and immunities conferred by the draft order are granted primarily on the basis of strict functional need there are no greater in extent than those required to enable the IIC to function effectively so that the privileges and immunities are conferred in accordance with the agreement the UK government have introduced a statutory instrument through affirmative procedure with the expectation that the order will come into force late this year or early next year the UK government also laid their SI in Parliament on the 11th of October so I'd welcome the opportunity to hear members' views on the order and I would commend it to the committee thank you very much cabinet secretary so I'll just open it up to questions from members Jamie thank you apologies I haven't been on this committee when this sort of thing has arisen in the past so I'm new to the subject matter but I just had a simple question that's if the cabinet city is aware of if the organisation has any employees officers or undertakes any activities in Scotland the reason I ask is on the last point about specifically around income taxation if an employee of the organisation was ordinarily resident in Scotland would they pay taxation that was appropriate to south of the border or whether they would pay locally devolved income taxation which may differ my understanding is that tax liabilities are termed a reserved UK income tax I'm not sure if that applies to the person to the employees there is no current plan to have employees based in this country it will be visiting employees and you have no offices as I understand it in Scotland in the UK but just to check I've got those factory if I could ask I either want to come in well I'll certainly take the second point which is that in this case the order is largely theoretical because it's not expected that there will have activities in Scotland I don't know if I can confirm on the taxation point so there are exempt from devolved taxation in Scotland but as I say that's a theoretical point at the moment because they're unlikely to be a base in Scotland it's going to be visiting employees any other questions from members okay thank you very much in that case we'll just move straight on to the next agenda item and I invite the cabinet secretary to move the motion in his name number 06291 that the criminal justice committee recommends that the international organisation's immunities and privileges Scotland amendment order of 2022 be approved thank you very much so the question is that motion 06291 in the name of Keith Brown be agreed are we all agreed thank you very much okay thank you very much thank you cabinet secretary and your officials for attending and that concludes our consideration of the SSI and we'll just suspend the meeting briefly to allow for a change of witnesses thank you thank you very much so our next item of business today is to take evidence as part of our scrutiny of the national care service bill and specifically those provisions relating to criminal justice, social work and community justice and I refer members to papers 4 and 5 so we have apologies this morning from Claire Wilson who's unfortunately unable to join us but I welcome to the meeting Lindsay Smith chair of the justice standing committee of social work Scotland and we have joining us online Anil Gupta chief officer for communities with COSLA and Kate Ramstone national executive member of unison Scotland so a warm welcome to you all so we have a number of questions that we would like to ask you given that we have two members online I would just ask members if you can just indicate who you would like to direct your question to and if I can ask our witnesses who are joining us online if you would like to come in if you can just indicate accordingly on the chat function so we'll now just move straight to questions and I'll just start with a very general opening question I'll maybe come to yourself Lindsay and then I'll bring in Kate and Daniel so it's really just to ask for your general views on the possibility of just the social work being included within the planned national care service how might this affect criminal justice social work and the services there that are being provided currently in what way would you see those changing so I'll come to you first Lindsay thank you and hello everyone so it feels like quite an abstract question because of the detail it is not in front of us I think if we work on some assumptions I think there is a potential for it to improve some things that are currently needing to be looked at but I think we do need further evidence to make those calls I think so we work on the assumption that justice social work would move from having 32 local authorities to one joint point of accountability and rather than the multiple arrangements which are in place at the moment and we have identified that you know that structure has been cumbersome in the past so there is an assumption that if you were to streamline it and have you know one point of contact with one set of governance arrangements that some of the barriers to developing and scaling up improvements and services would be reduced I think there is an also an assumption that if justice social work were to be included in the NCS that we would be doing so alongside our colleagues which is ultimately a positive the strength and the profession remaining together for the good of the profession itself but also for those people of Scotland who use social work services you'll be well aware in the committee that someone who's involved a person who's involved in the justice system has often multiple and complex needs so social work work across adult services addictions children and families to coordinate services around that person so one of the proposals for the NCS that seems to be taking shape is the creation of a national social work agency and again making some assumptions that the impact of that could be positive in relation to dealing with some of our issues around recruitment and training for staff we often feel as if we're a national profession at the moment without a national structure which certainly impacts on our ability to workforce plans so some positives but there's some there's some I would say concerns or negative aspects to it at this point but I'll let colleagues come in okay that thanks very much Lindsay I'll bring in Kate I'll come to you first Kate and then I'll bring in our other witness so Kate Yeah I think from a unison perspective it would be fair to say that we're deeply concerned about this bill and the impact it's going to have on social work criminal justice social work and wider social work the trouble really for us is that there's no detail about what social work would look like if this went ahead it leaves the bill if passed we'd leave all of that open to ministers to bring forward secondary legislation and if passed it'll leave our social work and social care members as well a hostage to fortune really is to what their service will look like who their employer will be and how services will be managed and will be funded and we're really concerned that that impedes proper scrutiny and risks it risks weakening parliamentary democracy and there's promises in the bill that they will consult before transfer but that consultation is entirely non-binding and on the government and they can completely ignore it which is what they've done with the many many criticisms that have been about this bill not just from us but from other agencies as well we think that this has been done the wrong way round we really believe that they should have started off engaging with all the people who are involved in this social workers social work clients communities and built a national care service from the bottom up we think that what this does really is creates massive uncertainty for our social work members in criminal justice because they've no idea what it'll look like as things move forward and you know we already have a social work service in crisis so this kind of upheaval and uncertainty can only make matters worse I think it was social work Scotland themself that said that one in four of our social work students who graduate won't make more than six years in the job and we know from our own surveys that more and more social workers are looking to take early retirement we think that this will only make things worse so we would really ask the Scottish Government and ask yourself to put pressure on them to go back to the drawing board and to look at it again and really co-design properly Thanks very much Kate I'll now just bring Anil straight in Anil, would you like to pick that up? Thank you very much I think much of what my colleagues have just said are very broadly supported by Oslo's position as the representative body of the Scottish local government perhaps it's worthwhile just saying the justice social work and community justice areas are facing huge challenges at this very moment in time so for instance the investment at the moment the costs of delivering the services are extremely problematic the flat cash settlement for instance is likely to result in around a 7% cutting the monies available for this area of activity and obviously given the theoretical nature of what's actually been presented to us the issues around finance of the sector which is not covered in any way we have been through quite considerable changes over the last few years 2005 saw the creation of community justice authorities 2015 was the legislation which convened the community justice partnerships and community justice Scotland and if this is to go ahead we'll see another significant change within the shortest period of time and what we're looking for is a degree of stability and innovation in the area as well as getting into the real detail about what this actually costs be done properly the particular draft legislation doesn't cover in any way satisfactorily the multi-agency work that local government is responsible for in terms of community justice and where that would end up we will still have matters around housing to deal with employability issues of education skills and so forth to bring to the table but we probably won't have the services that helped complete the picture should the things be taken out of local government I think what we see with the lack of definition is a very unclear proposition and it's quite difficult to do on the work I think in the papers that you have the Scottish Government has listed the research work that they're looking at which is about how best to look at what would be appropriate for justice social work into the future unfortunately we just don't know enough about what the proposition is be able to do that work properly and obviously the other point is that this is doing the work probably the wrong way round where we should be looking at the strengths and weaknesses of current systems and what is needed to make them deliver into the future and then perhaps discuss matters about where these are positioned and what is needed really there's no opposition whatsoever to the idea of developing standards across the country but being able to deliver on standards does require an element of local diversity to meet the local circumstances and I think without that you might actually end up hobbling the system not only with the disruption sorry and elements of planning blight in the area but you also probably dampened down innovation that's already there so our obvious other concern is one which has been referenced by the unison rep about parliamentary scrutiny and pushing the real important issues including the finances and the detail into secondary legislation would not give you a huge amount of opportunity to question what is being presented to you in the longer term and clearly although we have perfectly good relationships over community and criminal justice for the Scottish Government it feels undemocratic to leave the decisions ultimately for what our shared competences at the moment to a minister to decide on how to go forward thank you thanks very much Anil I'm going to just come back with a I'll come back to Lindsay with just a follow-up question and then I'll come back to Kate and Anil and then I'll open it up to members obviously and I think you've all alluded to the fact that there is a bit of work to be done in terms of a big piece of work around co-design and really understanding what this proposal will look like and in the context of criminal justice social work the proposed plan is that there is a consultation around that I just wondered if I can come back to you all and just ask for your your commentary on what you would like to see that consultation process focus on and what you would like to see come out of that consultation process around priorities for how criminal justice social work continues to deliver the best service possible so Lindsay I'll come to you first so we really welcome the opportunity to have these types of conversation I think there is from social work Scotland point of view and if I can speak for the members of the committee there's a real recognition that the status quo cannot continue and that we do welcome an opportunity to review justice social works positions current model and what might be improved so there is a real appetite for change in reform I absolutely take on board the points made by colleagues around about you know we have a really weary staff group and there is a question about whether this scale of change is appropriate at this time given what folk have been through and have been dealing with but I would hope that the research would set out the strengths and the weaknesses in the current system I think we would want to work out what the benefits might be to justice social work being included in the NCS in relation to leadership which we've touched upon structures in itself do not seek the change that we're looking for there's a whole collective that needs to be looked at in leadership professional development so that's leading into that kind of opportunities for the staff group as a whole the paying conditions that Unison have touched upon and most importantly the outcome for service users the failure report for me obviously didn't consider justice social work as part of that it was really the right thing to do it listened to people who use services and their voices were really prominent in the report but there was no justice voices in there and I think part of the research needs to include that voice I'll come to Kate and then Anil Kate Yeah I think I mean we consulted with our members and across social work about the national care service bill and I think there's a real unhappiness that they weren't consulted before this came out there's a real sense that that there hasn't been any opportunity to look at what the role of social work is what the important role of criminal justice social work is to look at the kind of professional values that underpin that role and I think all that needs to look at but I would again say it shouldn't be looked at after the bill has been passed it should be looked at before the bill goes through Parliament because if we don't do that then we can have no confidence that those voices will be listened to and heard and the voices of service users etc as well I mean even issues like pensions haven't been looked at so we have a whole group of social work members who don't know what will happen to their pensions if these things go ahead so there's been a whole lot of work that still needs to be done that's not been done but it needs to be done in our view before the bill is passed so that we can have confidence that that will all be taken a count off within the bill I just wanted to add just a small point in terms of the funding I wanted to say that there's absolutely nothing in the bill that addresses the current underfunding of social work including criminal justice social work it's in fact it's really sorely lacking in financial information and what information is there has been roundly rubbish by a number of people that have responded to the bill and also by the finance committee of the Scottish Government who have been very critical about the lack of detail so again that's all things that need to be looked at and addressed but they need to be done in our opinion and many others before the bill is passed because if they're not then it just leaves us a hostage to fortune That's very much Kate and Anil Thank you I think one response could be that the consultation may be about the wrong subject at this time we really do have to have a broad discussion about the future of community and criminal justice and the issue about structural change at this stage is probably not the most important matter it is about longer-term investment it is about the lack of confidence that we are told regularly that sentences have in community disposals and what needs to be done to improve the situation certainly local government is very keen to address issues around workforce, the finances, the experimentation, the learning from elsewhere and so forth those will probably be touched on in a consultation in any case but we really do need to be looking more at what is required to achieve the to achieve sustainable change rather than to hobble ourselves with complete change structures at the moment the other thing that would probably be I think important for us is actually how you interpret the consultation the last one was simply done as far as we were concerned as a numerical exercise about the number of votes or views and which way those went on different subjects with little waiting attached to the people who are responsible for needing working in financing and so forth that he with areas of work it needs to be a bit more sophisticated so that the voice of local elected members as well are given their due waiting as representatives of local communities rather than just being counted as ordinary simple participants who are representing individual views Okay, thank you very much Anil I'm going to open it up to members now and I think Fulton MacGregor you were wanting to come in The thanks, convener, and good morning to the panel and for the purpose of this particular session I should probably refer members to my register of interests as a registered social worker with the OECC I mean I think that this issue of integration in some form or another isn't isn't anything new as both committee members and the panels will know and I think it is probably fair to say that that the workforce as a whole probably wouldn't be overly happy about it I don't think but that's despite the point of whether it's a good thing or a bad thing I agree with the comments that have been made so far I think we need more information and it does feel like in a bill the size of this and I'm sure this is not the intention of the Government and I can in fact I can probably guarantee that but it does feel a wee bit like this has been sort of added on to and we'll deal with it later sort of thing which is probably not really a great place to be because we don't have enough information so what I wanted to ask the panelist is what more can be done at this stage in future stages of the consultation to make sure that the people who are working in the sector just now and people who use the services are having a chance to have their say in what they think the positives might be and the negatives might be to and how can yourselves and all your respective organisations make sure you get that information out to the people that are working there to get that to get that feedback you know to see how we can move forward collaboratively because I think you know as you said there is there is the things that you said you pointed out there probably is advantages to it you know you don't want to fragment the social work workforce if other aspects of social work are moving over plus there's a lot of health overlap however at the same time the same argument can be made if you take it out of local authorities then you'll lose the link with perhaps housing stuff like that which is very important as well so you should almost take with one hand and lose with another so you know the joint up working needs to work anyway regardless of where it's situated because there'll be whether it's with local authorities or the new national care service so I wonder if you can make perhaps comment on that and how you can get the workforce to be involved and be engaged in this yes and it's difficult so as well as my role within social work Scotland I'm head of service for justice social work in Glasgow so we have been engaging staff around about this topic which which has been tough because we don't have the detail so again repeating the point it feels quite abstract at the moment so when you're asking them to think through it and think through the pros and cons it's difficult for them to do so so because they don't have a lot of detail one thing I would say in relation to that is we would want to consult the staff on the ground we would want to hear from those who have lived experience and who have living experience within the justice system that takes time and what we're trying to achieve in relation to this research is we don't have a lot of time to play with to really properly consult with service users with staff with key stakeholders such as third sector Anil had touched upon you know the wider community so if you're asking what would make this a really meaningful piece of work then proper consultation with the key stakeholders would be key to that and staff being one of those and so yes and there's a turn to the other two if I know it's getting in Anil I suppose then how could you know based on that what could this committee ask of the Government then in relation to that do would it be helpful for the Government to provide more information on this or are actually you know as organisations are you quite happy just now that it's more of an abstract concept than it would in a full consultation would happen later or do you think actually that this particular aspect needs to be taken out the NCS bill just now and dealt with completely separately and I'm also a bit of devil's advocate questions here but putting them out there yeah I if I can come in there's oh I'm getting an echo sorry I don't know why that is there's a you've got a really good model for consultation in the Scottish Government you did the independent care review that resulted in the promise which actually took a bit of time to speak to every stakeholder including the you know the people who use the service to come up with the kind of changes that were needed and I think that's what's needed for social work at the minute it needs to be pulled right back and we need to be taken the views of everybody about what's good about criminal justice and other social work what works well what doesn't work so well what needs to be changed because you're absolutely right there's no such thing as a seamless service it's just about how you manage the seams and there are so many important local relationships that would be lost if if justice social work was taken out of communities there's so much local knowledge that would be lost and actually that isn't just about how they best provide the service to their service users that's also about public protection having that kind of local knowledge so all of those things need to be taken into account and we need to really be allowing social workers to talk about the purpose of their profession the values that they want to work with and how best they can be supported to do that in a way that genuinely makes offers the people they work with the opportunity for change which is in everybody's best interests so I think at the minute it's the worst possible of all worlds because we don't know enough and yet if the bill goes through people know there will be change but don't know what the change will look like I do think it needs to be pulled right back to have a proper to allow all stakeholders really to be properly engaged from the bottom up in what a service should look like and how that service should be delivered and managed and where the funding is going to come for that as well because funding is a key issue that's just not being addressed at all Just ask about one point there Kate, that you made in maybe rather than taking up too much time and Neil could maybe refer to when he was responding but you were saying there that folk will know there's change coming if this is passed but is that the case is that the feeling that people are getting because my understanding is that it just allows the Scottish Government to consult with the possibility of change but you know it does there need to be some work there then done with the workforce and people who use the services to say it you know it's a possibility but it's not but you were quite definite there Kate because you were saying that folk will believe that once it passes that change is coming rather than it being a possibility I think that's absolutely right people are really anxious about it because what it does is it then puts all the power in the hands of Scottish ministers and although there's a they say they will consult and I think they believe to consult what they do with that consultation is in the lap of the gods and I don't think there's anybody that looks at that national care service bill amongst our members that doesn't believe that change will happen but doesn't feel that they know what that will look like or how they can engage with that and that is why you know we're really strongly saying withdraw the bill start again do proper consultation particularly around social works involvement with it which has not had any kind of consultation process at all and let's see what you know what the best way to deliver the services that meets the aspirations of our members and the Scottish Government thanks Kate and service users is it convener is it okay to bring in a line or am I taking up too much time is that right yep I think the consultation itself we need to recognise is going to and after the research has been done and one of the things that we've been pushing for is a strength weakness opportunities threats approach to the situation that we will be looking at in a few years time once the changes have been actually been formally and properly proposed so at the moment it's a bit of a moving target but it feels to me that there should be probably three options being placed before people to actually deliberate over one is effectively not too different from what we currently have with the community justice criminal justice arrangements in place one is something which completely integrates the justice social work and but also has clarity about where the responsibility for leading community justice is and then there'd be something in between probably what I would really suggest one thinks about though is that these are really important issues and we spent as COSLA something like two years in consultations over community engagement to deliver a significant element of legislation we're not putting in as much effort in this area which has to carry with it the the approval or consent at least to develop further of the major stakeholders and partners who are currently there we are far far away from that at the moment and need to be pretty inclusive along the lines that certainly the unison representative Kate was saying so I'm quite keen to see a workshop approach being adopted rather than just a blank piece of paper facilitated involving elected members but also immunities who face the front end of disruption caused by criminal activities and offending so that they also have an active role rather than this just making part in a theoretical ether which is very difficult to engage with at the moment if that's good enough pretty much okay thank you I'm good to bring in Katie Clark and then Jimmy Greene Katie I think it's come through very clearly from all of the witnesses that you feel there's a lack of detail in the proposals and the legislation itself is obviously an enabling piece of legislation there's not a huge amount of detail in it in general but it gives ministers significant powers to create a new way of providing a service now it's been said that the inclusion of these sectors is overreach given it wasn't included in the Feli report itself would you agree with that assessment? From a social work Scotland point of view yes that was what we had said in our response as part of our consultation response and we burmily believe that alongside our colleagues within children and families just as social work should have been afforded the same opportunity consultation opportunity that was given elsewhere so yes I would use the phrase afterthought and certainly if you're starting to think about how this is landing with staff and what the temperature is among social work offices that's certainly the strength of the feeling that's out there If I could ask Lindsay Smith another question because I think you said in your contribution that your view was that the status quo couldn't continue and our understanding of how the national care service will work is that it won't actually provide a service it won't employ any staff it's not like the national health service I think a lot of us who campaigned for our national care service were campaigning for a body that would provide a service that would employ staff directly that would provide a high quality of service and our understanding of how it's going to work is that it's going to commission services and that effectively it will put out tenders and I'll ask Cosly about this in a minute but I've been told by people in local government that it's unlikely that many councils will actually put in and participate in that process because of their own financial situations so when you say that the status quo can't continue what are your reasons for that and what's the top reason if you like is the top reason because of the funding so currently so put the funding to the side I think cover problem do you think lack of funding lack of resource at the moment I think it's consistency in service delivery for me from my perspective although I probably is on an equal footing to resources and funding but consistency in service delivery is key we currently have 32 local authorities who operate variances across the service and there's very good reason for that we're dealing with some justice social work offices that are trying to offer a service across islands so there absolutely is going to be variances in what service provision looks like across the country but from a leadership point of view from a social work Scotland point of view we're very aligned to the justice vision for Scotland and the justice so we would align ourselves with a lot of the principles around about prevention and early help for those who are in the periphery of the justice system but who we're trying to exit from it and I'll give you an example so we've rolled out electronic monitoring bail across the country that has been quite difficult to facilitate because we've very much acted as a single point of contact within justice social work to work with the 32 local authorities to introduce this change now me as a chair I don't have authority over local authority decisions but we have used various methods of leadership to try and get local authorities to a place where they're able to do that so naively and if you have one central point of contact that's potentially able to deliver and set direction clearer then maybe that would offer something but that's my main frustration Can I maybe ask Cosla to come in on that to comment on what's being said in terms of consistency but also what they see that the major challenges are is it resources and funding or is it other issues and also maybe to comment on to what extent there are discussions in councils about how they would proceed if these proposals as we understand that they're likely to operate go ahead and what that means for the future of any of local government involvement in these kinds of services There's quite a lot of detail in that and multiple questions I'm not too sure I can I'm in a position to answer those all but try to deal with the first one about consistency I think certainly councils are quite keen on ensuring there is consistency in outcomes not necessarily in services per se and that that as Lindsay has already said depends to some extent on geographism how you meet the various challenges of providing services locally and our view is that managing the local challenges is best done locally and you will find some difficulties in cookie cutting services and applying them in local areas and we contend that basically the principle of keeping things as local as possible is not just in terms of efficiency a best way of dealing with things but it's also about community ownership of the issues that are there and making sure that accountability is maintained so that is one of them but clearly linked to that as you've already highlighted the lack of resources across the piece does happen to be an issue now we are more than aware partly because we are pulled by two social workers that there are difficulties within workforce retention improvement recruitment and retention and I am not at all clear that those would necessarily disappear once you have a national arrangement it's equally possible to argue that having a single employer but that is the way that that was going to go and again all very theoretical would create the possibility of moving people around significantly changing their terms and conditions so that holes can be plugged across the country that might itself act as an incentive to people to work in the area I feel excuse me but I don't know the answers about commissioning and where the local authority and local government would wish to go part of the reason for that is that we haven't had firm enough proposals to consult with those who lead on community justice the criminal justice in local government the last meeting we had to discuss some of the basic issues around this was facilitated one back in November last year when we had been taken a little bit by surprise by the last minute insertion of social work overall into the consultation documents and particularly the community justice and criminal justice so I do know that elected members are interested in engaging as a representative body we would obviously want to bring those members together which is one of the reasons why I was talking a little bit earlier about workshops is b