Woe wedi eich bodi'r bwysig ystod yn versech chi'n ddweud mwy deisig ar mwychol 148, 179 yw Paul Wheelhouse o'r Stade 1, dwi gydag sydd gewinol ar gyfer Scotland.  I'm delighted to open this stage 1 debate on the principles of the community justice bill. I thank the convener, Christine Grahame, and the justice committee for the scrutiny of the bill and for their stage 1 report. I also thank the finance committee and the delegated powers and law reform committee for their consideration of the bill and I'm pleased that evidence was taken from such a wide range of organisations and individuals. I welcome the committee's endorsement for the need to improve community justice structures and its broad support for the general principles of the bill. The committee made a number of detail recommendations in its report and the government will respond to them in January. In this afternoon's debate, I will address some of the more significant points that the committee raised and I will also focus on the principles of the bill and the positive changes that it will bring to community justice in Scotland. Predining, officer, this is an important period for community justice in Scotland. We have made clear the Scottish Government's commitment to reduce offending and the harm it causes to individuals, families and communities. That commitment sits within our broader vision for a fairer justice system in Scotland, a vision that reflects the values of a modern and progressive nation in which prison and, in particular, short-term sentences are used less frequently. Where there is a stronger emphasis on robust community sentences focused on actively addressing the underlying causes of offending behaviour, it's important that individuals are held to account for the offences that they have committed, but, thereafter, are supported to be responsible contributors to our communities. The new model for community justice supports this vision by delivering better outcomes for communities through reducing re-offending and supporting assistance. In demonstrating these better outcomes, the new model supports the increased use of effective community sentences, the reduced use of short prison sentences and the improved reintegration of people who have offended back into their communities. Since 2012, we have worked closely with our stakeholders to design a new model for community justice that delivers a community solution to achieving improved outcomes, preventing and reducing further offending and supporting assistance. The community justice bill provides a legislative framework for that new model. It's important for members to note that the new model places decision-making locally with those who know their community's best. Understand the problems that are unique to their area and will be most affected by community justice issues that relate to victims and people with the history of offending. However, for those including committee members who wish to see a strong direction at national level, local planning, delivery and collaboration will be complemented by arrangements at national level that provide profile leadership and strategic direction for the sector. Let me provide a little more detail. The strategic planning and delivery of community justice services will take place at a local level. Duties will be placed on local statutory partners to engage with communities and the third sector to identify the key priorities for the local area and plan for those. Those local arrangements will be complemented by leadership at a national level on a party with that provided for the custodial sector. A new public body named Community Justice Scotland will provide that leadership, working closely with community justice partners, the third sector and a range of other parties. Community Justice Scotland will also generate enhanced opportunities for innovation, learning and development and provide independent professional assurance to Scottish ministers and local authority leaders on the collective achievement of community justice outcomes across Scotland, including improvement support that is required. The national strategy will provide a vision for community justice in Scotland. It will help partners to prioritise key areas that they will address in partnership through an approach that is both outcomes-focused and evidence-based, and in that way, the strategy will facilitate and drive improvement. A set of common outcomes will be agreed to ensure that we are working together to achieve what the evidence tells us will reduce the chance of a person re-offending, and that will also bring transparency and clarity to our progress in delivering improved results across Scotland, thereby supporting the increased use of community sentences and diversion activity. Bringing all of those elements together, the new model presents a more holistic and collaborative approach to the community justice system, which will be driven forward at both local and national level by the common aim of securing better outcomes for people and communities across Scotland. Let me now turn to some of the points raised by the Justice Committee in its stage 1 report. The definition of community justice in the bill has drawn a lot of comment from stakeholders and indeed the committee. I understand why there were calls for the definition to be broadened to include early intervention and the prevention of first-time offending. Clearly, it is important to stop people entering the criminal justice system in the first place, and that is why the Government has a clear focus on advancing the whole system approach and improving life chances. The drive in community justice to reduce re-offending is part of our wider approach to promoting social justice and tackling inequality, which includes action to improve early years' experiences, to raise educational attainment for all and to continue to promote the whole systems approach to youth justice. A range of other policies are addressing the underlying causes of offending, such as homelessness, poverty and drug smiths use. The new national strategy for community justice will link with those other strategies to ensure a joined-up approach. I am pleased that the committee has noted the Scottish Government's position on this. That said, I recognise that definition could be strengthened further and I will explore with stakeholders the possibility of reflecting, for example, the preventative impact of diversionary activity in the definition. After all, evidence does show that diverting individuals away from the criminal justice system is, in effect, a way of preventing further offending. There was much discussion at the committee hearings about the cluttered landscape of community justice. The committee acknowledges that community justice is a complex area that requires the provision of a diverse range of services in order to respond to the often complex needs of people with a history of offending. That is why, in this bill, we are providing for a multi-agency collaborative approach to improving community justice outcomes for our communities. I will go further by saying that the new model brings coherence to that cluttered landscape by providing for strategic direction, strong leadership and a collaborative approach to planning, reporting and commissioning of services. The Justice Committee has requested further clarity on the roles and responsibilities of those involved in the new model to ensure effective interaction. I believe that the bill makes clear who the community justice partners are, what they are required to do and whom they must involve. Crucially, it also sets out a participative role for communities and the third sector. It also defines the role of community justice Scotland and confirms how and when Scottish ministers may be engaged. The key relationships are therefore articulated in the bill. The transition work that we are currently undertaking with our partners and stakeholders will provide further opportunities to be clear about roles and relationships going forward. That will help community justice partners to prepare for their roles and understand key processes. We are working with our partners and stakeholders to prepare guidance to aid wider understanding. The national strategy for community justice is vital in setting the high-level priorities and strategic direction. I would like to clarify that it is currently being developed with stakeholders. Indeed, a number of events have been organised across Scotland, including around 400 partners and stakeholders to date, including the third sector, people with convictions, community planning partners and MSPs. Additional sessions will be held to ensure that we capture the views of the general public, victims of crime, people with convictions and their families. I expect the national strategy to be published in June 2016. Presiding Officer, I note the committee's concern that the outcomes for community justice should be framed more broadly so that re-offending rates are not the only measure of success. I would like to reassure the committee and indeed the chamber on that point. We are currently developing the national outcomes for community justice with partners and stakeholders. The outcomes and associated indicators will be used by the statutory community justice partners to plan services, measure progress, report on achievements and identify any issues. Therefore, outcomes are vital in enabling the new model to demonstrate improvements in community justice in a transparent and consistent way. There will also be of great value to the community justice Scotland in its role in driving forward the national strategy. The outcomes are currently in draft and are being tested in specific local areas. The draft outcomes will fall into two categories—structural outcomes, which include, for example, improved public understanding, participation and confidence in community sentencing, and person-centric outcomes, which include greater equality of access to services for people with a history of offending. There is a strong correlation between equality of access to key universal services and a lowered risk of re-offending. That is why access to key universal services such as housing, employment, education and health services are represented in the draft outcomes. I hope that that provides reassurance that a truly holistic approach is being taken to the setting of common outcomes. Staying on the subject of planning, the committee has identified some confusion over how community justice planning links with wider community planning and community planning partners. The bill requires the eight statutory community justice partners to engage, plan and report collectively. Community planning partnerships are not mentioned in the bill because they are not statutory entities, rather they are the sum of their partners and we cannot therefore assign duties directly to them. However, the Scottish Government has always set the planning for community justice within the context of wider community planning. Indeed, six of the eight community justice partners are also community planning partners. The collective knowledge of CPPs supports the multi-agency holistic approach to reducing re-offending, which is at the heart of the new model. We therefore expect community planning partnerships to be at the core of the new model and community justice planning to take place using community planning structures, and that will ensure alignment of planning activity. The transition work, which is already under way, will help community planning partnerships and community justice partners to consider the sort of relationship that they want and to build that relationship. A number of areas are already formulating plans to collaborate with CPPs, including Fife, Highland and Perth and Kinross. Of course, with effective planning comes effective monitoring and accountability, and I thank the committee for drawing attention to the importance of accountability arrangements and the role of community justice Scotland. Local leadership and ownership of community justice are vital to the success of the new arrangements. That is why we are respecting the existing lines of accountability for the statutory community justice partners so that they are not accountable to community justice Scotland. The responsibility for resolving any local issues with the planning or the quality of delivery rests with the local statutory community justice partners. Should partners request assistance on issues that they have not been able to resolve locally, then, of course, community justice Scotland can offer support and advice. However, should an annual report indicate a persistent issue, then community justice Scotland could make recommendations to Scottish ministers. The bill does not specify what the recommendations might be, as this is a matter for community justice Scotland to propose and for Scottish ministers to determine what action to take at that time should the need arise. I anticipate that recommendations could include the need for an improvement plan, the need for formal inspection and exceptional circumstances. There could be a recommendation to establish a rescue task group, and those arrangements will be reflected in guidance in due course. Finally, I would like to recognise the important role of the third sector in community justice. The third sector, including victims organisations, is vital to the successful planning and delivery of effective services for individuals. The sector has made a long-standing contribution to the delivery of outcomes for community justice at local and national levels. The committee highlights concerns around the nature of its participation in community justice, as it is currently provided for in the bill, and I understand those concerns. I have listened to the committee's concerns and the concerns of the third sector, and I am now seeking to amend the bill to strengthen its role in participation. I hope that I will be in a position to be clear on the how of that in the near future. As the committee recognised, any new model for community justice must achieve an appropriate balance between strong national leadership to drive forward improvement in outcomes and local flexibility in relation to the delivery of services. I believe that the new model that is being proposed through the bill strikes the right balance. It will deliver a community solution to improved outcomes for community justice to reducing re-offending and to supporting assistance. Therefore, it is first and foremost a local model. We recognise that local areas are best placed to determine outcomes that are the priority in their local area and the activities that are required to achieve those outcomes. Those arrangements will be complemented by community justice Scotland working with local partners to provide leadership at a national level, to promote innovation and learning, and to provide assurance that outcomes are being delivered, and to highlight any concerns regarding local delivery to ministers. I look forward to working with members of all parties and stakeholders to secure those objectives as the bill continues through Parliament. I now move the motion in my name. I now call on Christine Grahame to speak on behalf of the Justice Committee. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Justice Committee who led the consideration of the bill at stage 1. I thank all who submitted evidence, gave evidence, our clerks and, of course, as always, my diligent and hardworking committee. Although I always find it odd, and I am going to say this again on the record, Deputy Presiding Officer, that I speak to the report after the ministers responded to it. It seems to me that that is the cart before the horse, but there we are. We must change these rules at some point, so the statement is made by the committee, the minister responds, and on we go. Perhaps not relevant, but it really seems daft that I am going to be saying things that have already been responded to, but there we go. Now, the topic might seem as dry as dust, but this legislation deals with how we set up systems, how we organise, at a national and local level, support to prevent re-offending, which costs the public person arm and a leg, fails society in the first place, individuals and their families. As the current arrangements for community justice only came into being in 2007, some might question whether the wholesale change provided for in the bill is premature. However, in two separate reports in 2012, the commission on women offenders in Audit Scotland both identified significant problems with current structures, the number of bodies involved, accountability, funding mechanisms and the complexity of the arrangements. That seems an awful lot, which they argued were inhibiting the potential to reduce re-offending. Throughout stage 1 scrutiny in the committee, it has been keen to establish whether legislative reform is needed and, if so, whether what is contained within the bill could achieve the change that is envisioned by the above parties. We took evidence over three meetings, hearing from a range of local authority bodies and partnerships, third sector, victims groups, the commission on women offenders, the SPS, Police Scotland and Audit Scotland. I thank everybody who took the effort to respond and give evidence. The committee broadly supports the general principles of the bill, but we made a number of recommendations aimed in particular at strengthening strategic leadership, accountability—I do not know what that word means—to demystify the complex landscape, which mystifies me. I think that that is making it understandable and workable. I am being given definitions. Many responded to a call for evidence, were concerned that the definition of community justice used in the bill was too narrow and differ substantially from that used in the Government's earlier consultation. The committee was particularly sympathetic as the minister knows the view that prevention and early intervention should not only be reflected in the definition but elsewhere in the bill, and I note that the minister's comments on that regarding the committee would welcome that. We appreciate that those measures have been taken forward through other policies, but we did feel that, if you are going to try to do the right thing, save money and save wasted lives, you might get in early rather than await to somebody's offended. Back in 2012, the commission on women offenders described the community justice system as quotes, grossly cluttered landscape—not a phrase that I don't like—close quotes. On the basis of the evidence received, the committee still has some doubts as to whether the new arrangement that is set in place in the bill will simplify it, as community justice, as the minister has said, relies on a diverse range of service providers working in partnership, and we believe that more could be done to streamline those arrangements by setting out clearer roles and responsibilities. We do the minister's attention to the concerns raised by members in particular of the third sector and those of small voluntary bodies who have to operate with minimal staff and a limited budget. At present, those organisations deal with eight community justice authorities, but under the model set-out in the bill, that number would increase fourfold to 32 local authorities. That is likely to put significant pressure on them to raise funding as providers, which is already under strain and therefore would impact on local services, often very well-tailored to that area. As we all know, many of the organisations that make up the community justice system rely on the short-term funding. We are disappointed that the same concerns about the funding and sustainability of third sector projects has persisted over decades. However, we welcome the Scottish Government's current review of the funding mechanism for community justice social work services, which are due to report shortly. We welcome early sight of this report. Minister, if you can make headway with regard to the funding for the voluntary sector, you will be very much welcomed by the committee, but more importantly by the voluntary sector. A lack of strategic vision was one of the major issues highlighted by the commission on women offenders in Audit Scotland. The committee therefore welcomes the provisions in the bill, requiring Scottish ministers to develop a national strategy that should allow for a clearer strategic direction and improved oversight. There were differing views among witnesses regarding the level of oversight the national body should have with local authority bodies preferring a light-touch approach. Others, including Dame Elish Angiolini, chair of the former commission on women offenders, supported of local bodies being more accountable to community justice Scotland. We remain concerned that, without adequate powers to measure and bring forward improvements, weaknesses that the bill seeks to overcome may persist. However, we welcome the provisions contained within the bill to introduce a national performance framework. That should help to ensure that the success of the model proposed in the bill can be adequately measured and any problems can be identified. However, we consider it vital that stakeholders are fully involved in the development of the strategic framework. I think that the minister did say that they are busy doing that already, which is to be welcomed. We have noticed the Government's intention to publish the national strategy and framework in the middle of next year. We would request early sight of those documents to ensure that they are fit for purpose. Under the bill, community justice partners would be responsible for the local planning, delivery and monitoring of community justice services. Some witnesses felt that the bill should specify a lead partner within each community justice partnership. While the committee considers that there may be merit in appointing a lead partner to ensure a focus, we would be wary of that leading to other partners avoiding their responsibilities. The committee therefore does not support a specific requirement in the bill that a lead partner should be appointed. Instead, we recommend that partnerships have the flexibility to appoint a lead partner when they consider it to be appropriate to do so. I think that we are sympathetic to at least somebody being in the lead. The bill does not make any reference about your partners in community planning partnerships. However, the policy memorandum suggests that CPPs should have a key role in planning community justice arrangements. We remain unclear why the bill creates a new level of partnerships rather than a placing responsible for community justice party with CPPs, though I heard the minister had to say it with the statutory status of the two. The committee is of the view that any new system for community justice must achieve an appropriate balance between strong national leadership to ensure improvements in performance and local flexibility in relation to delivery of services. It is a balance, it is a difficult balance, but it is important. As such, the committee sees merit in the general approach that is taken in the bill. However, we are concerned that the detailed proposal on the bill may not achieve that correct balance and therefore recommend that the oversight functions of the national body are strengthened to provide the robust leadership and accountability found to be lacking currently. In general, the evidence that we received did not show any great enthusiasm for one system with which all bodies involved in community justice should be wholly satisfied. The committee recognises, however, that this is enabling legislation and that the detail of how the arrangements are to work in practice would be set out in the national strategy, national performance framework and guidance and that the success of the bill will, to some extent, be evident once it is in operation. I look forward to hearing from other members' contributions in the debate. We will touch on issues that I have not raised and to receiving the Scottish Government's response, which I think I have just heard, to our stage 1 report. Thank you very much. I now call on Dr Elaine Murray. Ten minutes are there by even a generous 10 minutes, should you wish. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I start off by thanking the committee clerks, Spice and the witnesses who gave both verbal and oral evidence on behalf of the Labour members of the committee. The bill replaces the current system of eight regional community justice authorities, or CJAs—there are a lot of acronyms in this—with 32 community justice partners, one per local authority, and establishes a national organisation, Community Justice Scotland. Serious concerns had been raised, as Christine Grahame said in her speech, about the performance of CJAs in both the Angeline report on women offenders, who reported that there was a lack of strategic leadership in accountability, short-term funding, insistency of services and lack of through-care for offenders, and Audit Scotland in 2012, which criticised the CJAs as having many organisations involved. No nationally agreed measure of performance, a lack of strong leadership that statutory partners are not accountable to the CJAs and that they had a limited capacity to undertake their full range of work, so it is clear that revision was required. The Scottish Government published a consultation paper in December 2012 with three options, an enhanced system of CJAs, a local authority model and a single service model, but there was no consensus around any of them other than a preference for a model that involved local delivery. A further consultation on the model proposed in the bill was undertaken in 2014 and received a generally favourable response. That consultation differed from some of the measures in the bill, particularly in that it proposed that community planning partnerships would be the central to the local delivery of community justice services and references that have already been made to those differences. Other current policy developments will also interact with the bill. That was one of the questions that the committee had. Indeed, John Finnie proposed that maybe we should have some sort of flow diagram or a schematic that should have all the different initiatives linked together. The implementation, for example, of the Community Empowerment Scotland Act, which places duties on community planning partners to carry out community planning within each local authority area and the current consultation on the presumption against short-term sentences, which seeks views on whether sentences of three months or under should be extended or whether, in fact, a more radical review of short-term imprisonment, including remand, is required. The Government has also been consulting on changes to the configuration of the female prison estate, which I hope—and many of us hope, indeed—will lead to an increase in community over criminal disposals. The bill requires Scottish ministers to publish a national strategy, and the Government is currently consulting, as the minister said, on the national performance framework. It was one of those who attended the strategy consultation day in Dumfries. I believe in giving congratulations where they are due, because I thought that it was a very good example of local engagement, and I found it very informative. The feeling that I got from the other participants was that they also appreciated the opportunity to contribute to the discussion of what should be in the national strategy and the performance framework. As the bill is enabling and details of how it will work in practice will be set out in the national strategy and performance framework and the associated guidance, it is important that we have that sort of local engagement. Witnesses to the committee in general agreed that improvements are required to the current community justice arrangements, although I have to say that the CJA conveners disagreed. However, there are still questions about whether the bill achieves the correct balance between national leadership and local flexibility. As a convener has already stated, the definition of community justice is much narrower than that on the 2014 consultation on a future model for community justice. It no longer refers to the prevention of offending, and it is restricted to people who have already offended. That change was not consulted on, and there is no explanation in the policy memorandum as to why the definition changed. We and those benches agree with the majority of witnesses on the committee who were of the opinion that the definition should also include resistance prevention and early intervention, and I am pleased to hear that the minister is considering amendments along those lines. Some witnesses are also objected to the use of the term offender considering that to be stigmatising. Indeed, that was discussed at one of the events that I was at. I think that the problem is what else do you use. Offending may have a stigma attached to it. It is difficult to see how you describe people in a less stigmatised way. Other witnesses were concerned that the bill does not refer to the interests and involvement of victims in particular and the wider community in more general. Community justice alternatives to imprisonment will only be accepted by the general public and by the judiciary when sentencing if they are demonstrated to be effective in keeping the public safe and in changing individual offending behaviour. Services such as 218 in Glasgow, Willow and Edinburgh, both supporting women in the criminal justice system, are widely praised. The success of their approach in helping people to turn— Yes, indeed. The member agrees with me that, if we fail in rehabilitating people that we put in our prisons, we reduce community safety and safety for our population because we return people to the community who are simply going to re-offend and reduce safety. That is absolutely acknowledged as being one of the problems with the current criminal justice system, that there is this revolving door and people do not change their lives around it. I think that the importance is that the alternative approaches are not understood, they are not out there in the public eye, they are not out there in the media, and even the judiciary does not always know that other alternatives are available, where they are a lot more successful than just banging somebody up for a few weeks. Most witnesses to the committee agreed that the current model was not effective, and they accepted that the community justice landscape was, in quotes, cluttered, which seems to be a very popular word at the moment. Some doubted, as Christine Grahame said, that going from eight CJAs to 32 CPPs plus CGS would actually simplify anything, and that concern was compounded by community justice partnerships now being the vehicle rather than the CPPs. The relationship between the CJAs and CPPs is unclear, and there is a danger of yet another organisational layer when perhaps the CPPs could be the CJAs. Indeed, that may well be what happens in practice in many areas. The bill defines statutory community justice partners, which are all public sector agencies, and requires them in formulating their community justice outcomes and improvement plans to consult community bodies and other persons, as they consider appropriate. One consequence of that flexibility could be that third sector organisations might not be included in some community justice partnerships and that they might only be consulted when the statutory partners saw fit. Another concern was that the capacity of small third sector organisations to engage with several different community justice partnerships if their services were available in more than one area, although, as we said at the committee, there is nothing in the bill to prevent CPPs from working together in geographical areas where that made sense, and hopefully that sort of model will appear as well. Although you have separate CJAs, you could get CJAs working in partnership across different council areas. The bill does not propose a lead partner with overall responsibility within each CJA to ensure that the improvement plans are driven forward. I understand that ministers are concerned that designation of a lead partner could encourage other partners not to fully engage and leave it up to the lead partner. On the other hand, some others were concerned that the lack of a lead partner with that overall responsibility to drive forward the local plan could result in everybody sitting back and nobody taking responsibility. It is again quite a difficult balance to find between the two. The bill proposes several functions for the national organisation Community Justice Scotland. It must promote the national strategy that is published by Scottish ministers, it reviews the national performance framework, and it will publish a strategy for innovation, learning and development in relation to community justice matters. It will oversee performance, promote and support improvement and promote public awareness. I will come back to some of the things that I have already been discussing. They will have a role in doing that, and that was discussed at the strategy day that I attended. I attended how what sort of role could Community Justice Scotland have in ensuring that the public is aware of the successes of other models. CJPs must consult CJS when preparing their local improvement plans, and CJS must monitor their reforms in achieving both national and locally determined outcomes. Some witnesses consider that some form of inspection of CJPs should be introduced, although other witnesses strongly disagreed. The committee came to the conclusion overall that this should be the role of community justice Scotland and Audit Scotland until the new bodies have time to become established. However, it was not certain from the bill what power CJS would have if a CJP failed either to achieve its outcomes, set in the plan, or failed to consult appropriately with other non-statutory partners. The minister has given some further assurances in his opening speech on the issue, and I am sure that we will be reflecting on that and whether amendment to the bill will be necessary at stage 2 in order to reflect the role of Scottish ministers in being able to intervene. The boards of the existing CJAs include local elected councillors, and the CJA conveners expressed concern about losing that input under the new arrangements. There was some discussion about whether there should be a place or places reserved on community justice Scotland for elected member representation, although some considered that it might be difficult to identify a councillor or one of two councillor representatives who could speak for all the community justice partnerships across 32 local authority areas. CJAs will have a role as a national commissioning body and striking the correct balance between national commissioning and local flexibility was raised in evidence as a concern. CJAs can identify, design an appropriate model and make arrangements for the provision of a community justice service in doing so. It can encourage, assist or act in collaboration with any of the community justice partners. Community justice partners will, in producing and implementing their plan to improve community justice outcomes in their own areas, be able to purchase services for the national commissioned organisations if they are best able to deliver locally, or they can purchase services from local organisations which may provide a service that is more appropriate for the needs of that local area. CJAs has received 614,000 set-up costs and £2.2 million annual running costs, and the 32 local authorities will share £1.6 million for each of the next three years. We are a bit concerned whether that will be sufficient, especially if the desire transfer from the criminal justice disposals to community justice disposals is achieved, and the CJAs appear to be active in providing alternatives to prosecution and in early intervention to support their desistence. I know that we would all like to see fewer people in prison, especially serving short sentences during which little can be achieved in addressing the reasons why the person has become involved in offending behaviour. That will bring in significant savings, but until fewer people are in prison and more people are receiving community justice alternatives, those savings will not be made. I think that that is a nub of the problem, how resources can be transferred from prisons to community justice while there is still a significant population. If fewer people are sent to prison, that should freed up free-up funding, but there will still be prison buildings and prison officers, although the role of prison officers is changing and there will continue to change more to through care and support for offenders. There are problems about how we free up the funds to get the whole process started. I am pleased to say that Scottish Labour members are happy to support stage 1 of the bill tonight. We look forward to further discussion of some of the issues to be discussed today at the amendment stages. Many thanks. I now call on Margaret Mitchell, similarly a generous six-minutes Mrs Mitchell. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome this stage 1 debate on the community justice bill and thank the many witnesses for their invaluable evidence. I would also like to thank the committee clerks for their help and assistance in the delivery of the substantial report. In December 2012, the Scottish Government published a three-option consultation on redesigning community justice. That included an enhanced community justice authority model, a local authority model and a single service model. There was no favoured option, but there was a clear preference for a model with local delivery, partnership and collaboration at its heart, with some form of national arrangements to provide leadership and strategic direction lacking in the present setup. By combining the various elements of the earlier options, a fourth option emerged, namely 32 community justice partners and a new national body. However, there is some confusion about how those CGPs will interact with community planning partnerships. Furthermore, it is fair to say that other proposals in the bill have not attracted consensus, concerns remain about the cluttered landscape, with the increase from eight community justice authorities to now 32 community justice partners and leadership, with the balance and decision making moving heavily towards community justice Scotland rather than the local authorities. However, the most controversial aspect of the legislation is the narrow definition of community justice. In the Scottish Government's 2014 consultation on a future model for community justice, the definition was, the collection of agencies and services in Scotland that individually and in partnership work to manage offenders, prevent offending and reduce re-offending, and the harm that it causes to promote social inclusion, citizenship and resistance. Whereas now, the definition in section 1 of the bill no longer refers to the prevention of offending. That failure to make any reference to prevention or, indeed, early intervention represents a major change. Warringly, in terms of the Justice Committee's scrutiny of the bill and, as COSLAG commented, the definition in the bill was not consulted upon and appears to have come as a surprise to stakeholders and more important to the statutory partners. Furthermore, it is attracted widespread criticism from the following organisations. Police Scotland, to be successful, it is necessary to take a whole system approach. It needs to be right from start to finish. That leads to the emphasis on prevention and early intervention. Sacral, there is no statement regarding prevention, public safety or community safety. Turning point. It is disappointing that the bill does not explicitly direct planning at both national and local levels to consider prevention, especially within the wider context of the community planning process. Barnardo's, if we are to take a truly preventative approach to community justice, we must start at the beginning and focus on how to keep people— Microphone, please, for Mrs Mitchell. And how to focus to keep people out of the justice system and within their communities. As it stands, the definition is restricted to those who have already offended. Victim support Scotland, the definition does not allow for a greater focus on prevention and early intervention in line with the recommendations of the Christie commission. There is also criticism that the bill diminishes the role of the third sector in the planning process, an issue that has been addressed in the minister's correspondence of 17 November. Here, in the wider context of resourcing, there are specific references to the third sector. For example, Community Justice Scotland will, with partners and the third sector, develop and agree a strategic approach to commissioning. While acknowledging the third sector's contribution, it is still evident that, if the legislation is passed, the third sector's role is, like everyone else currently involved in community justice, to deliver the Scottish Government's proposed penal reform agenda to extend the presumption against short-term sentences to up to one year. In other words, I am especially concerned, as are stakeholders, that the bill is a defacto vehicle for the Scottish Government's penal reforms, which I should add are currently only at a consultation stage. While the minister has suggested that the definition requires further consideration at stage 2, it is nonetheless deeply worrying that those reforms to community justice have been built on such shaky foundations. In addition to that, those significant changes were made unilaterally, without consultation with the very stakeholders who will, in time, have to implement the bill's provisions. I just wanted to point it out that maybe the reason would be that the definition of the previous legislation was about reducing real funding so that there would be nothing or prevention on the system that operates still today. I am not quite sure what the point the member is trying to make, but if he is referring to short-term sentences, I think that a good bit of analysis requires to be done and will be involved in the consultation that is being undergone, which will look at what has been done in prison just now in terms of short-term sentences. We know that there is concrete evidence that those prisoners are given absolutely no access to rehabilitation programmes at present, so that is certainly going to be a factor in penal reform. In addition to those, those significant changes were made unilaterally, without consulting the very stakeholders who, in time, will have to implement the bill's provisions. Such an approach flies in the face of the collaborative tone adopted by the First Minister when she took office exactly one year ago today. In conclusion, this is not merely enabling legislation, as the minister asserts. Instead, the bill contains wide-ranging reforms that need to be the subject of robust scrutiny, particularly following its implementation. I therefore urge the minister to revisit the proposals at stage 2. Although the Conservatives will support his motion today, the support and continued support will be conditional and dependent on the amendments brought forward at stage 2, particularly on the definition. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I would like to repeat the word of the convener when she said that the topic is maybe dry and dust, but I do not think that it is. I think that it is about people and it is quite important that we have some good contribution already, quite interesting what we can move forward in the future to see how we can review this legislation. And I would love to say it is enabling legislation. This is the main point about this legislation, and I would disliked it to participate into it as a member of the Justice Committee, and I would like to as well thank all the clerks and all the team to help us prepare this committee report at stage 1. It is really this committee justice bill is really introducing not only a new model for committee justice, but more importantly, an enabling model. One that is the detail of how the arrangements are to work in practice will be set out in the national strategy, that whole part of the bill said the minister, a national performance framework and the living guidance. And it is in post-legislation, Presiding Officer, after the bill is passed and the enabling. As the convener already stated, the evidence received did not show any great enthusiasm for the bill. I put it to the fact that many participants maybe were looking to respond to a prescriptive legislation, and what we have is the opposite, enabling legislation. Some must have expected to come and oppose top-down legislation. It wasn't there. Instead, the discussion was very much around what every participant would like to see in how committee justice could be better delivered and monitored. One thing they all agreed on is that legislative reform is needed, apart from some conveners, of course. We made recommendations, presenting of itself, following the work that we did, and the evidence that we received and heard. We'd like first to say where we are, because it's important, after what Margaret Mitchell said, I was trying to maybe clarify the point I was trying to make. Committee justice authorities were set up in 2006 in the management of Offenders Act 2005 to reduce real funding. That was the main point. For example, in my own region, a part of the region that represents a northern committee justice authority that covers a large geographic whole areas, Rhywabun i'i teabun i Sharia i Moray, is clear on what it was set up for, and is what they say online. Community justice authorities were set up across Scotland to make our community safer by reducing real funding and improving the management of offenders. It is clear what the role is, and they stated our role is to coordinate the delivery of offender services by council, voluntary organisations, and other partners, and to ensure a close cooperation between community and prison services to add the rehabilitation of offenders. All that is very clear. Let me finish my point. The Glasgow Community Justice Authority talks about reducing real funding throughout partnership. They say we aim to reduce real funding as well as improving outcomes for communities, often as anzac immunology system. To do that, we have established a strong partnership across the city with those agencies that deliver high-quality services that reduce the risk that offenders pose and reduce very often. They said that online. That is how we define community justice in Scotland, or as I see it, if Margaret Mitchell wants to. If we are looking at community justice, it is important that we factor into any definition of it, the ability to stop, prevent offending in the first place by early intervention, rather than merely looking at re-offending after the effect. I more than agree with the member on this. I think that we all agree on this. Prevention is very, very important. The question is, is it to be in this bill? If you look at what we had before in how community justice worked in Scotland, it is very much a small changing of what we are doing, but we are not going to involve prevention. I know that Barnardo's, as I highlighted in the briefing to MSPs, that the division of community justice should include prevention. I am content that the division of community justice in Scotland does not include prevention. It never did, as far as I can see it in legislation. I am happy that the minister will consider including the division because the division is different. The division will include, of course, offenders. That is some of the wording I would like to change in the bill. We could find an alternative to the word offender to start with. I have to say that I agree with Enable of Trust. The term offender is usually viewed as a negative label and contributes to the stigma faced by those who have committed an offence. The point is, how long do you keep that offender label after you committed an offence? Do we want people who committed an offence to be known as an offender for the rest of their life? This is the point that I would like the minister to think about. Be it white, or present positive futures, make the case for the term offender to be removed from the bill and suggested it to be replaced with a wording. Hold on, it's quite a long wording. Persons who have at any time been convicted of an offence. I'm not so sure about that wording. I won't be prescriptive today, President Everser, but I would like to enable the minister and his team to find a better wording for the people this bill is seeking to help. The minister already knows my views on some words I would want to be added to the bill. I know this not take it to our report. We didn't take it to our report, but nevertheless, there's a case to recognise that the diversity and multitude of organisations engaged in community justice today should be something to celebrate and not to label as a crowded landscape or cluttered landscape like we heard earlier. When I hear cluttered and crowded, I think variety and diversity. I read from the policy memorandum of the bill that the private sector has a role to play. It says the new model draws on the characteristic identified by Scottish government, one being effective local partnership and collaboration that brings together public, third and private sector partners and local communities to deliver shared outcomes that matter to people. In his opening remarks, the minister didn't talk about the private sector and I would love the private sector to make it to the bill somehow. You told us on the third of November, minister, that we have some good proactive employers who are working with local authorities and the Scottish prison services. They are engaging to provide employment opportunities and I met one of the person at lunchtime who was going through the road to recovery. We did point it out that we only speak to the third sector. There are a lot of people in the private sector who will give us work. In conclusion, I like the bill because I am a great fan of enabling legislation. I believe that how it will work in projects is not for us to decide. The enabling bill is the best way to tackle real funding. You must close, please. Many thanks. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am pleased to take part in this debate today. It is important that we get the community justice bill right to support a reduction in re-offending through joint working and innovative thinking. Today, we shall be supporting the bill. However, Labour has a few issues with its current format and I urge the Scottish Government to consider those as the bill progresses. The current community justice authority model seems to have made a small impact on reducing re-offending rates, although there has been no consistency across Scotland. It has lacked a clear national strategy and there are no measures in place to monitor its effectiveness. The range of bodies involved in it has led to, and I hate to repeat this, cluttered landscape with no clear direction. The bill before us today recognises that this needs to change. It was argued that creating 32 community justice partnerships compared with the current eight would not help to reduce that clutter. However, it will be overseen by a national body that will provide a national strategy and a framework that will produce an annual report that is a step forward and one that needs to happen. However, as I said in opening, I have a few issues with the current bill. The definition of community justice, clarity of roles and the role of the third sector are just a few. I was pleased to hear the minister say today that he will look at the definition again, because the definition of community justice presented to us in the bill is problematic. It does not refer to preventative or early intervention, and it also fails to include victims and their families. During evidence sessions, both Scottish Women's Aid and Victim Support Scotland were concerned about the lack of focus on victims in both the definition and throughout the bill. While Barnardo Scotland argued that the definition, and I quote, should be widened to include the need to support children, families, victims, witnesses and the wider community, not just individuals with convictions. We cannot view those issues in isolation. As I said at the committee evidence sessions, the community justice bill should have a clear focus on victims and their families. In addition to that, there should be a greater focus on the preventative spending and early intervention, so we not only reduce the rates of re-offending but reduce first time offending as well, which is at the heart of what we want to achieve. We cannot improve outcomes for victims, offenders and our local communities if they are not even mentioned in the bill. The bill also needs further clarity on the roles and responsibilities of local community justice partners and community planning partnerships. I agree with Barnardo's that the role of CPPs lacks clarity within the bill, while Dr Foster of Forth Valley Health Board argued that it is very important that delivery should be through community planning partnerships because they are the vehicle that we are currently working with. They are our local partners in tackling many issues. The role that CPPs play in community justice needs to be clearly defined and set out within this bill. I agree with the committee recommendation that the bill needs to clearly specify that CPPs have responsibility for community justice with a view to making the new arrangements as clear as possible. Concern was also raised about who those named partners should be. Evidence was given to the committee about the importance of stable housing in reducing re-offending, so will the minister consider including housing provider representatives as a community justice partner and have housing provision as an indicator in the annual report? Like the criminal justice voluntary sector forum, I am concerned about how the bill will interact with the third sector and third sector organisations, given that the third sector is listed as a provider rather than a partner within the bill. While the bill states that the third sector should be engaged with, I suggest that it would be better for the third sector to be defined as a community justice partner, given that many services and projects are delivered by them. At the very least, a statutory duty to engage with the voluntary sector should be introduced as evidence has suggested. I welcome the minister's comments on the third sector in his opening remarks. Lastly, on the point of funding, from talking to third sector organisations, it is apparent that we need to consider moving away from an annual funding to a three-year model to allow for sustainability and to reduce the uncertainty that currently exists. That would allow voluntary organisations to forward plan instead of constantly wondering where the next launch of funding was coming from. As the stage 1 committee reports states, those concerns have existed over a number of years and the convener mentioned that as well, but no action has been taken. I urge the minister to take this on board and take action to address the long-standing issue. I worry that, in terms of transitional funding of £1.6 million for the next three years, split between 32 local authorities across Scotland won't be enough to support the changes, more so given the financial pressures on public services at this time, because that works out at around £16,700 per year per local authority. That is cause for concern. If the system is not properly resourced to deal with the increased workload of community justice partners, then many projects will be at risk due to the lack of sustainable funding, yet the new community justice Scotland, which is being created, will receive £2.2 million for that same period. To conclude, although I am happy to support the general principles of the bill, I believe that there is still a lot to be done to improve on what is before us today. We need a wider definition of community justice, which is inclusive of preventative measures and early intervention. I also feel that the bill should mention and give consideration to victims and communities, not just offenders. Further clarity over both the roles of the CPPs and the third sector is required, as well as who the CJA partners will be. I am supportive of the bill, but I am keen to see what amendments the Government will propose to improve it at stage 2. Thank you very much. I now call on Gil Paterson to be followed by Alison McInnes, a generous six minutes. Many thanks, Presiding Officer. I start by acknowledging the work of all those involved, both past and present, across all of Scotland's current justice authorities. Those changes are not a reflection on their work, and I feel that their work so far should be highlighted and appreciated. As a member who takes an interest in the welfare of women, I find it of interest that the bill was brought forward due to the concerns and report by the Commission on Women's Offenders, who stated that there were significant structural and funding barriers to the effective delivery of offender services in the community and that radical reform was required. Equally, Audit Scotland found that there were many bodies involved in reducing re-offending and, with a, quote, different governance and accountability arrangements and geographical boundaries resulting in a complex landscape, end of quote. Women offenders were central to those concerns where even the prison service found themselves dealing with many different authorities with regard to the through-care of prisoners after prison release. That complex landscape is not only unhelpful to the prisoner service, but also, more importantly, to the individuals who require community justice service. It is easy to see that, with so many organisations involved, individuals will fall through the net towards feeling unsupported and then ultimately re-offending and return to prison. As Dame Elish Angiolini pointed out in the case of women, we are potentially talking about individuals who have mental health problems who require that support to prevent re-offending. Indeed, the statistics in 2009-10 showed that 30 per cent of convicted offenders were reconvicted within one year. In terms of individuals with mental health difficulties, as supported by Dame Angiolini, the cycle is not being helped by the continuous return to prison. Change is certainly required, Presiding Officer. Therefore, it is positive to note that the Scottish Government is currently developing national outcomes for community justice with partners and stakeholders. I understand the draft outcomes attempts to address the two main issues with the current model that I have touched on so far. Those are structural outcomes and person-centric outcomes, which include a greater equality of access to services for people with a history of offending. The commission on women offenders report recommended a national service for community justice, as well as for those to be reassurance on the better outcomes for women offenders locally undertaken at a national level. As members will note, as part of this bill, a new national agency will be formed called Community Justice Scotland. The idea of a central agency to provide a strong leadership to drive forward improvements in community justice outcomes and to provide oversight and support for the delivery of community justice services is a welcoming prospect. However, what is further welcoming is allowing the local flexibility and planning in the delivery of community justice services through groups of community justice partners in Scotland's 32 local authority areas. Such partners include the local council, police, health board, fire service, prison service, the courts and Skills Development Scotland. The key to the success of this bill is in the name community justice. The more local in delivery of service will allow for local circumstances to be considered and, like many other local services, should see positive results. The proposed new model for community justice hopes to achieve an appropriate balance between the strong national leadership and local flexibility. It presents a more collaborative approach to community justice, driven towards both nationally and locally by a common aim to secure better outcomes for people and the communities. Like the Scottish Government, I wholeheartedly agree that local leadership and ownership of community justice is vital to the success of the new model. I welcome the responsibility of resolving local issues with local statutory community justice partners. However, the national body will be there for any support, assistance or advice. I further understand that the bill will continue to respect the lines of accountability of community justice partners. The bill, through strong national leadership and local delivery, should go a long way to helping to prevent re-offending. However, the bill also seeks to reform the cluttered landscape that is often talked about, impeding on community justice. By closer co-operation, there is a good prospect that this will be achieved. As a member of the justice committee, I will continue to listen to the views of all groups and individuals who have invested interest in community justice. I would certainly encourage everyone to have their say, and I welcome their submissions so far. This is just the first stage for hopefully providing a new model of community justice in Scotland and strengthening local and strategic planning of community justice services. I am sure that, between now and the final vote of the bill, we can together bring about what the bill desires to achieve. I wish to commend the Government for bringing for the legislation, particularly for women, and I further commend the continuing passage of this bill, through the Parliament, with a good end result. I am pleased to be debating the community justice bill today. I have long campaigned for a more effective and compassionate justice system, one that reduces reliance on incarceration and focuses on community reparations and rehabilitation. There is a surfeit of evidence that poverty, inequality and crime are inextricably linked, and yet we keep on sending people to prison and re-offending rates remain high and largely static. The chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service, Colin McConnell, was recently quoted as saying, I am not at all proud of the fact that we incarcerate more of our fellow Scots per head of population than almost every other developed nation across Western Europe. Our apparent obsession with incarceration disproportionately impacting as it does in the most deprived in our society casts a dark shadow. While Colin McConnell is right to say that punishment and retribution has dominated penal policy for too long and the economic and social costs of offending and re-offending are immense, we waste so many resources picking up the pieces, lives are ruined, communities are blighted and potential is lost. When we look at those who are in our criminal justice system, we can see that we have failed to tackle the underlying problems, mental health problems, history of abuse, addiction, poverty, exclusion from education and being in the care system. We know what lies behind the chaotic lives that lead to prison and worse than that we also know what makes a difference. It is time for a change. The bill could—and I stress could—be that change that we need. Liberal Democrats want safer communities, people brought to justice when they offend, robust community justice schemes, but we also want everyone to have a chance to get back on track. That robust but compassionate targeted community justice system, flexible enough to respond to individual needs, will benefit everyone in Scotland. The genesis of the bill was the Angiolini report, which highlighted the disparate nature of arrangements for offenders and the lack of strategic leadership and accountability in the delivery of offender services in the community. A cluttered landscape short-term funding, inconsistent service provision and difficulties in measuring impact, all of which the commission concluded as inhibiting greatly the potential to reduce re-offending. The commission concluded that a radical reform of existing systems and working practices was required. In the intervening three years, the proposals have been through many iterations. Many argue that what the Government now proposes in the bill is a compromise too far. That the community justice bill is well intentioned, but is currently drafted as too timid to bring about the dramatic change needed, and I share some of those concerns. I say that we shouldn't shy away from more radical change if that's what it takes. Audit Scotland in its report on CJA's community justice authorities also criticised the cluttered landscape, but it's not getting any better. In fact, there's a real risk with this bill of it becoming more jumbled and opaque. In supplementary written evidence from the conveners of CJA's, they've told us that we remain very concerned that issues around authority, responsibility, accountability and leadership remain unresolved. In a written briefing from seven organisations, including the Howard League, we heard that if we are to reduce the use of imprisonment in Scotland, there will need to be a greater shift in emphasis and resources towards early prevention, diversion and community-based responses to offending behaviour. They said that good intentions are not enough. We must ensure that any proposed structural changes have a realistic chance of achieving that shift. While we welcome the creation of a national body with a specific focus on non-custodial sentencing, we are concerned that it does not have the necessary powers to deliver the fundamental change that is required. I urge the Government to heed the warnings in our committee report and come forward at stage 2 with amendments that address some of the weaknesses that we've identified. I appreciate that the minister has already today addressed some of those. However, the issues include the definition of community justice. It's currently too narrow, others have said that. It should include prevention and early intervention. Leadership in accountability lines and the interplay between national strategy and local provision must be clarified. The role of the third sector in the provision of community justice remains crucial to its success, and that must be safeguarded in the bill. There surely must be a duty placed on community planning partners to engage with the third sector at all points in planning and the delivery process. There remains some concern about the setting up of the community justice partnerships, as opposed to channeling the work directly through community planning partnerships. The planning of community justice should become a responsibility of CPPs. I hear the caveats that the minister has said about the difficulties of doing that, but if there is some way of identifying a way of placing that responsibility, I think that that would help. The powers of the national body to direct when local delivery is failing needs to be articulated more clearly. Other significant policy changes being considered, such as the decisions around a women's estate and the Government's consultation on increasing the presumption against short-term prison sentences, will increase reliance on community justice services and means that the structures need to be absolutely right if we are to maximise the benefits that we want to see. The role of housing and preventing re-offending is significant, and Shelter Scotland is right to point to the need for us to specify and quantify the kind of issues that the national strategy should cover. As the committee report concludes, there is merit in the general approach, but much more needs to be done to strengthen strategic leadership and accountability. Before I close, community justice authorities have faced criticism, but I want to acknowledge the work of all those involved in CJAs, especially over the past few years, as the organisations have matured. I think particularly of the significant reduction in youth-free offending that has occurred on their watch. The knowledge and the experience amongst officers and elected members must not be lost as we move forward. Scottish Liberal Democrats will support the general principles of the bill this evening, but we remain of review that there will need to be some significant changes at stage 2 if we are to support the bill progressing further. Many thanks. I now call on Roderick Campbell to be followed by Dave Stewart. I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate. While there may be concerns about their proposals, with some exceptions, there seems little enthusiasm for the current arrangements. The current system, which relies on community justice authorities to ensure consistent and effective community justice throughout Scotland, has led to implementation issues and limited progress in reducing re-offending rates, albeit that re-offending rates are at their lowest for 16 years. As Audit Scotland argued in its review of the present model, CJAs were established to improve joint working and reduce re-offending. They have made progress in bringing people together but have had little impact on reducing re-offending. The way that they were set up has significantly limited their effectiveness and there are no national agreed measures to assess their performance. Stronger leadership is required if re-offending is to be significantly reduced. I agree with that. If we are to tackle re-offending, we need a model, an alternative to custody that works, and we also need to take on board the importance, as many members have already said, of preventative measures, whether in the strategy or otherwise. The bill is a compromise that removes the existing CJA model and combines aspects of a national body, providing leadership and strategic direction with local delivery. By doing so, the bill addresses inherent weaknesses in the current system and creates the framework for a model that I hope will help to achieve the Scottish Government's goal. If I may, I can just quote from that goal a justice system that contributes positively to a flourishing Scotland, helping to create an inclusive, respectful society in which all people and communities live in safety and security, individual and collective rights are supported and disputes are resolved fairly and swiftly. An admirable aspiration. On the topic of streamlining the cutted landscape of services that the CJA model has often described, the bill sets out a framework for more effective community justice services, beginning with local implementation. Responsibility for reaching outcomes is given to 32 community justice local authorities, with more intimate knowledge of their localities, respective issues and strengths, which ought to allow for more effective organisation and planning. In response to concerns that replacing eight CJAs with 32 such authorities will further contribute to the cutted landscape, we need to accept that aiding past offenders may necessitate diverse services such as housing, employment, health and education being involved. As the minister said in evidence, if I may dare to quote him, we must reflect on the fact that some people whom we are trying to help by reducing their re-offending and getting them back into a positive place have extremely complex needs, which inevitably may need to be tackled by a multi-agency approach. Alison McInnes referred earlier on to the evidence of Audit Scotland, but I think that Audit Scotland accepted in evidence certain complexities here. Indeed, Mark Roberts said, there are more than 1,300 different community services provided by different providers across Scotland, which means that an awful lot of players are involved and need to be involved and engaged. The complexity that we have been discussing is almost inevitable with work in this area, so I think that we have to accept that some kind of cluttered landscape is required. That being said, the framework for reflective collaboration that the bill suggests, however cluttered, means that community partners such as Police Scotland and the Scottish Prison Service are obligated to co-operate with one another, as well as with members of local communities in both the planning and delivery phases to maximise effectiveness. Local organisations will also maintain some discretionary power over how they share information and work, judging which collaborative efforts are most effective to further simplify their services. Community partners and local agencies that have already worked together need to continue to do so. With regard to the role of a third sector, specifically, my view is that the transition from eight CGAs to 32 such authorities will not necessarily limit the input of third sector organisations. As noted in committee evidence server, third sector organisations provide roughly one third of current community justice services, making their participation and input significant. In section 18 of the bill, certainly seems to me to provide an opportunity for third sector groups to engage effectively in planning and implementing services. I leave it to the Government to decide if the bill could be strengthened in that respect, but I certainly welcome the comments of the minister earlier in that regard. Alongside the operational responsibility delegated to local authorities and community partners, the bill establishes community justice Scotland to provide national leadership and an opportunity for innovation as well as oversight and assurance of outcomes. I accept that the degree of interaction with the community planning partnerships may not be clear from the bill, but I think that we need to avoid the pitfalls that too much prescription in legislation might bring. Community justice Scotland will, I hope, develop a strategy that will allow local service providers to work towards the same outcomes. On the issue of how national leadership will be balanced with the duties of local providers, as we know, community justice Scotland will not provide community justice services themselves. Rather, it will work in collaboration with local agencies and community justice partners to establish a national framework and strategy that service providers will carry out. In response to questions about the allocation of funds, as I understand it, the national authority that it has proposed will also take input from community justice partners in order to best prioritise the distribution of funds at a national level, so it should, I hope, be fully responsive. On the issue of providing oversight and assurance of the delivery of community justice outcomes, I believe that the bill certainly provides a marked improvement over the current model. As the commission on women's offenders noted, a primary weakness of the CGA model is the inability to measure community justice successes. Establishing national standards against which each local agency and community justice outcome will be measured will allow for analysis of what services and programmes are effective. Finally, addressing concerns that the bill too narrowly defines community justice in relation to those who are already offended, it is clear that early preventative measures are critical in limiting re-offending rates. I am sympathetic to the belief that a more holistic approach to community justice measures, as well as reducing short-term sendersing, can be productive in limiting offending in the future. I believe that there is work to do, and there is certainly work to do on the issue of short-term funding. I do not take the view that we need to clarify certain aspects of the bill, but, in my view, it is a substantial step in the right direction. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I am pleased to be able to speak in this afternoon's debate. As a fresh-based 24-year-old and newly qualified social worker in the early 1980s, unlike my current character, I worked in community justice in Dumfries. I remember vividly working with a caseload of clients on probation, aftercare and, one, on a life licence that was convicted of murder, while the ink was barely dry on my social work qualification. I discovered first hand, Presiding Officer, the social problems facing offenders and also victims. In part, that was my motivation for launching a member's bill last session to create a victims commissioner that members will know exist in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and across Europe. The Justice Committee ran out of time from a bill, but I believe that the time will come again for a victims commissioner. I say to members, watch the space. I do not think that it will be however before the election in May, but I will leave that for members to decide. What do we mean by community justice? I will find an interesting quote in the Harvard law review that puts it like this. Community justice represents not a simple return to the rehabilitative ideal, but an approach to crime and punishment that is radically different from that of traditional criminal justice process. Community justice initiatives emphasise attacking the causes of crime, rehabilitating individual offenders and repairing the harm caused by crime, rather than punishing offenders according to traditional, retibutive or deterrence concerns. As we have already heard, Scotland's imprisonment rate is the second highest among the nations of Western Europe. In light of that, I welcome the cabinet secretary's words from 1 September this year, which stressed the need to actively address the underlying causes of offending behaviour using imprisonment far less frequently as a disposal. We have heard from members earlier that the commission on women offenders, Audit Scotland and the Scottish Government's consultation papers about what the current issues are. They have been well rehearsed this afternoon, although I promise not to mention the cluttered landscape again. I think that it was the seventh time that it has been mentioned in the debate. We know what the issues are. Lack of opportunity for strategic leadership and accountability within community justice setup, inconsistency of service provision and difficulties in measuring the impact of those and funding is clearly a problem. Many campaign groups have expressed concerns that the detailed proposals on the bill show that community justice Scotland will not be lacking the necessary accountability functions under a robust strategic leadership model needing it to make a strong national body. Today, though, I would like to take a step back to look at the overall purpose of the bill concerning community justice. The work of the third sector partner in this field is crucial, but I welcome the minister's earlier comment, where he made a strong commitment to the third sector. I certainly welcome that as someone in part of my life worked for SCVO, so I am a big fan and enthusiast of the work of the third sector. Even in the initial report, the commission on wound offenders highlighted that the third sector was concerned about the short-term and fragmented nature of funding for interventions, resulting in the necessary competitiveness between third sector providers. Perhaps I can give you an example from my patch in the Highlands and Islands. Michael Stewart, who is no relation from the Interhebrities criminal justice social work, agreed with that above comment, and he said that the short-termism of funding makes it very difficult for third sector organisations to survive and not to have to morph and change in order to chase pots of money. That is an issue that has persisted over a number of years and needs to be addressed now, yet the bill does not set out adequate funding arrangements for the delivery services, and it does not reference how the third sector will be engaged as part of the new arrangements. Although, in contrast, to give some fairness to my remarks, I echo the words of the Highlands Council and they have said that, for a light-touch agency, and I am quoting, with limited power and authority, Community Justice Scotland seems to be significantly resourced. By my understanding of the intention for Community Justice Scotland's role, we have been considering wider social implications impacting community justice and producing the overall strategy to implement community justice moving forward. It is strange, then, that the bill's definition for community justice, and other members have obviously referenced that as well, is that it is restricted only to those who have already committed an offence. COSLA has stated that the definition in the bill was not consulted upon and, I quote, appears to have come as a surprise to stakeholders and statutory partners, especially as it differs from the Scottish Government's 2014 consultation. A new community justice system must recognise the role of services in preventing offending and for possible direct resources towards those services, rather than waiting until people are ready in the system. A broader lens is also needed to address the causes of crime that the cabinet secretary has committed to combating. I will highlight in a few seconds remaining, Presiding Officer, one such structural cause of the bill, which is the link between homelessness and re-offending. Shelter Scotland and a range of other organisations have called for the bill to require community justice partnerships across the country to address this housing need. Without a stable home, the risk of re-offending is greatly increased, and yet we know that 50 per cent of people in prison lose their homes and that 30 per cent of liberated prisoners do not have a home to go to. That is over 6,000 people a year. Providing housing and independent support to sustained tenancies is one of the key factors that will help ex-prisoners not to re-offend and therefore benefit the individuals and local communities. In closing, while I will be dealt with in community justice future strategy, inclusion within the bill ensures a letter that is grounding for issues that evidence or show must be addressed for people to move away for crime. Although I have some minor criticisms about the bill, in overall terms, I support the general principles of the bill, Presiding Officer. Thank you. Many thanks. I now call Sandra White to be followed by Jane Baxter. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and I note to Dave Stewart's mention of his victim and the changing of names and other members having mentioned the changing of names bill. If it is any experience of mine trying to speak to the Victim and Witnesses Bill, we have spent hours with lawyers in relation to the wanting to change the name of victims. I wish you all the best of luck in that particular run in trying to get a name change anyway. I am sure that I will be thoroughly behind you in that. Having previously been a member of the Justice Committee and having met with many local communities and community groups, in regard to how the justice system engaged with them—I think that that is the crux of this particular bill—how the justice system is perceived by the public out there and how they engage with it, I am pleased to be able to speak in this debate. It is imperative that the model that we are talking about is driven at local level. As the minister said in his opening remarks, local leadership is vital in the delivery of the model, as is the recognition that we are not just talking about economic aspects, but about human beings and people's lives. That is a really important point to remember. I came to this debate because I wanted to speak in it, but I think that most people here have a great interest in the human aspects of social justice. I speak to schools as others do, and I am just happy to speak to a school Glasgow academy next week. They have the paper here, and it is about criminal justice. They have a number of questions that I want to ask me, so I will mention a couple of the questions. I think that I will perhaps deal with them as I see it, and hopefully they will get copies of this debate. It will make my life much easier when I go and speak to them when they ask me questions next week. One of the questions was about prisons that are ineffective in reforming offenders. Prison damage is the most vulnerable offenders. One of the other questions was about women in prison who are victims and not criminals. There are other questions, but I picked these particular ones out. I think that others have said already that the revolving door—a number of members have mentioned it. Elaine Smith had already mentioned the economic costs of re-offending, but we have also said that there is a talk of the human cost to that. Audit Scotland gave a report in 2012 about the economic costs of re-offending, and Gil Paterson also mentioned about the 30 per cent of convicted offenders, basically convicted again within one year. 9,500 people were convicted in 2010-2011, 22 per cent of the total convictions, and they had 10 or more convictions, previous convictions. Individuals were released for a custodial sentence of six months or less, a reconvicted more than twice as often as those given a community payback order. That is something that we have to look at in this particular bill. There are other areas out there that we can look at to ensure that people do not go through the revolving door. As I said, when we look at the situation, Elaine Murray said this again, if we look at preventative measures and if we have prevented those people from re-offending, the money that we saved from that could be put into other issues, provision of community justice, which is basically preventative measures. I think that that is the way that we are all wanting to go, may take a wee bit longer, but I think that there is a bill that touches on that particular one. One of the areas that I picked out of the bill was the improvements in the provision of community justice and also making the general public—Elaine Murray once again said that—the general public is aware of the benefits of community justice. It is something that the general public tends not to know about. I do not know if it is something to do with perhaps the media that does not actually put that out that there are alternatives to custody. I think that that is something that we really should look at. If we can look at that properly, I think that this bill can achieve many, many things. The other issue that I wanted to speak on was women in prison. It has been mentioned by Dame Angelini. Her evidence at the Justice Committee and also the commission that she had put forward—I just want to read a quote from Dame Angelini. She mentioned that a very significant portion of the women in Scotland to go to prison should not be there at all. Many of them, at least a very significant percentage, serve very short sentences of imprisonment. Many suffer from significant mental health issues and difficulties within prison. Once they are out of prison, it does not necessarily reduce their behaviour because once they come out of prison, a couple of weeks later, they are back in again because they have hit the closet dealer, as they call it, or they went to some other form of addiction. That particular cycle is constant and it is very difficult to deal with. I think that we need to look at this in the round. Having been a member of the Justice Committee, as I said, and spoken to lots of members on the Justice Committee, I think that we are all coming from the same hint sheet. It is how we get there, basically. I think that we have got to look at this new model. We have got to stop the re-offending. As I said, yet there is an economic hit there, but there is also a very great social hit. You have got women in prison who have families and children outside. They are affected. That affects the social aspect of it also. It affects many people's lives and we have got to start somewhere to look at how we can stop the revolving door and how we can stop women from getting into prison when sometimes they are more of a victim than they are of the person who has perpetrated the crime. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Many thanks. I now call Jeane Baxter to be followed by Stuart Stevenson. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I no longer sit on the Justice Committee, but my last appearance at that committee was for the first evidence session pertaining to the bill. I think that that was in September. I took the chance this week to read the official report to remind myself of what I said, but I was struck by a comment made by Clarellen Sneddon from the Society of Local Authority chief executives in acknowledging that the findings of both the Angelini report on women offenders and the Audit Scotland report, reducing re-offending in Scotland, were important for Solace. He said, the analogy that we have used for the existing system is that it is like looking at the national health service, but only at the treatment end. We became very effective at managing offenders and discharging orders, but less successful at having a strategic overview of our work. There was an absence around prevention and early intervention. In that regard, the policy intention of the bill, which is to help to create a stronger community justice system based on local collaborative strategic planning and delivery with national leadership support and assurance, and, importantly, local delivery, partnerships and collaboration at its heart, reflects the need to take a whole-system approach. One of the fundamental concepts of any debate on justice must surely be that of recidivism. How do we move people away from re-offending? This will not be achieved by simply focusing on the offender. We must create communities that are able to provide the homes, the skills and the jobs that we go such a long way towards making it possible to pursue more positive and rewarding life choices and lifestyles. How we deal with this notion forms a cornerstone on which we build a model of the success of our entire justice system. Community justice authorities working alongside other relevant bodies will set up to plan for reducing re-offending in their designated areas. That, alongside a remit to monitor performance, promote good practice, distribute funding and report to Scottish ministers, has formed part of the community justice strategy in Scotland for the past eight years. While we will see moderate success in state in rates of re-offending, there have been a number of issues surrounding the operations of the current community justice system in Scotland. Both the Angelini report and the Audit Scotland report raised concerns around the operation of the eight community justice authorities covering the country. I therefore welcome the bill in its attempt to tackle issues in the current system, as we must continue to strive for success in improving community justice. The creation of community justice Scotland, which will have a range of remits including overseeing performance, promoting improvement, publishing a strategy for innovation and learning and development, promoting the Scottish Government's national strategy, reviewing the national performance framework and more, will help with a specific focus on non-custodial sentencing. Replacing the eight community justice authorities with 32 community justice partnerships, one for each local authority and establishing a new national body, Community Justice Scotland, should help to tackle some of the concerns raised around the current model of operation. However, as much as the bill addresses its concerns, it also, as it stands, raises further questions. I will focus on one, that of accountability. I ask that the minister address this in order to ensure that we properly tackle the problems that are prevalent in the model of operation that we seek to replace. The bill, as it stands, does not offer sufficient clarity on what the accountability to community justice Scotland will be, which will ensure that the objectives set out are being met by individual local community justice partnerships. Although I note that the minister did make comments about this in his opening remarks and I would be interested to hear some more about that as the bill progresses. If I can again quote Clellyn Sneddon, who said in evidence to the committee that the outcomes will flow from the national strategy and the national outcomes framework, the outcomes will be customised to different areas to reflect the local context, and that prompted a discussion at my one committee on this topic, a discussion on local versus national commissioning, urban and rural context and the role of the third sector. As others have said today, there are currently some 1,300 providers of services, so it may be the case, as Mark Roberts of Audit Scotland said, that complexity is almost inevitable. Although I agree that that is true to some extent, I believe that strong effective local partnership working is a powerful way of making sense of that complexity, and I look forward to hearing more on that from the minister in due course. We have seen differences of opinion on the level of accountability desired, with councils preferring a light-touch approach and the Scottish Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, among others, seeking increased accountability from local bodies to community justice Scotland. That raises the question, will community justice Scotland have the required powers deemed necessary to deliver the changes that the bill seeks to make? With our imprisonment rate in Scotland standing at the second highest in Western Europe, it is clear that we must provide adaptations to our justice system in order that it works more effectively. To reduce imprisonment rates, we must also tackle the issue of re-offending, and a strong progressive community justice policy could help to take steps towards this. I accept the principle of shifting our view on how we address current attitudes to the use of imprisonment. Further to this, I believe that community base responses are essential to tackle rates of offending in Scotland. That, coupled with early prevention and diversions from unnecessarily punitive custodial sentences, except who are absolutely necessary, will do much to address the rate of imprisonment that we see, but also the rates of re-offending that result in our oversized prison populations. In that context, I agree with Barnardo Scotland, when she highlighted a key point made by the committee in its report, that the definition of community justice should include prevention and early intervention, as well as be widened to include dependent children, families of offenders, and the wider community, as well as victims and witnesses. I hope that, as the bill progresses, we can go some way to achieving that broader definition, and in particular to continue to value and support the role of local services and the degree to which they should be involved in the planning and delivery of community justice services, whether that be at a strategic or a local level. Many thanks. I now call Stewart Stevenson to be followed by Nigel Dawn. Presiding Officer, when I got elected to Parliament in 2001, one of the biggest things in my entry at that stage was the then plan to close the prison in Peterhead. That prison, of course, had been opened in 1888. The only other thing that I know about 1888 was the year Celtic football club started. Peterhead was built at a cost of £57,400, and the land upon which it was built was £5,000. I am delighted that, after a long community-based campaign, which I was very happy to support and contribute to, we now have a community-facing prison at a rather more substantial cost than the £57,400 that the original prison cost. It is already showing signs that it will contribute materially to the way in which things operate in criminal justice in the north-east. The staff at Peterhead are what make or break what goes on in that prison, and that is true of prisons elsewhere. Indeed, in the whole community justice space and in dealing with offenders and people who are looking as if they are heading to offenders, we need good people in place. By and large, that is exactly what we have. However, prisons are not the answer. If your economics tells us that, the cost of keeping people in prison can be as much as £40,000 a year, and the cost of treating people outside so that they are less likely to re-offend. Not only do we know that it is more successful in achieving that aim, but the cost is likely to be a quarter of that. For people who say to bang them up, put them in prison and throw away the key, they are saying to take money out of socially useful ways in which we could spend money and waste it on something that is not going to deliver anything very meaningful indeed. Margaret Mitchell and I spoke 10 years ago—here she is—on victims and witnesses in 2005. We have not heard an awful lot about victims in this debate. I hope that we will hear a little bit more. At the end of the day, the victims are the most important people in any consideration of criminal justice, because they are the ones whom, frankly, are often marginalised in the process, much as we have tried to do more. Our incarceration rates are far too high, that is for sure. If, in particular, we look at Scandinavian countries, there are about a third of what they are here. The good news is that the United States is four times our rate, so we are considerably better than some, but not as good as we need to be. The then-executive in 2004 in a consultation used the headings to reduce, rehabilitate and reform. That is an excellent way of looking at the activities that we have to undertake. Even the 1839 prisons act had, as a central part of that act, the purpose of prison was reforming criminals. Reformation and reforming criminals are not a new idea, although it would be fair to say that, in 1839, punishment was probably pretty central to what was going on. The Justice 1 Committee did an inquiry into re-offending in 2004, and Aberdeenshire Council said that the prison environment cannot of itself be conducive to achieving the desired outcome of reducing re-offending. I do not think that anybody in the debate has said otherwise. Clive, Fairweather, the late-clamented inspector of prisons, was a great supporter of out-of-prison rehabilitation. We miss him, and he is sage advice. I do not agree with him on every political matter that I hasten to add, but he was very clear on that matter. We have heard a little bit about the definition that is in the bill of what community justice needs to be. I and the rest of us should be slightly heartened by the document that the Government has produced, the new model for community justice in Scotland, which came out in September 2015, which says that the collection of agencies and services in Scotland that individually and partnership work to manage offenders prevent offending. That is absolutely crucial. I hope that those words that the Government has already written on something that it has published are roughly similar to those that we may end up seeing in the bill. Indeed, if I look at section 17 of the bill, which talks about the outcomes improvement plan, first of all, I am heartened by the use of the word outcomes, because I think that that anchors what the plan has to be about. Do not let us be unduly prescriptive about methods, but let us focus on outcomes. That creates, in the existing way in which the bill is constructed, the opportunity for those plans to address the issue of preventative spend, reducing offending, because that ought, above all, to be the outcome that we seek. In my final remarks, I just want to say that I am very reluctant and always reluctant to add another layer to any organisation. Perhaps I have yet to be convinced—I have not been engaged in this as it has gone through the committee—that adding another layer in and of itself is going to help very much. It might well do, but I am instinctively needing to be persuaded. Similarly, just the whole process of planning, it is quite clear that the plans have to come from the community planning partnerships up to national level. When a plan is produced by person A but has to be implemented by person B, you have the risk of not being buying it. I am hugely enthusiastic about where the plans come from the grassroots, reflect the experience of people at the grassroots. There is more chance that they will be successful. I would like to start by echoing Gil Paterson's thanks to those who are currently doing a very good job in this area. It is those who work in our communities with those who they are trying to prevent from re-offending and who make our communities safer. We need to thank them for everything that they do. Recognising that reducing re-offending is the primary purpose of this bill, I do not want to add to the comments about whether that should be widened within the bill. I want to address the structure, and indeed Stuart Stevenson has just done so. It does seem to me that having a national body that can lead this and having rather more local bodies appears to make life more complex. I think that it has every opportunity to succeed because providing some national leadership is certainly important and was plainly missing. The 32 additional or new bodies are not indeed new at all.  Secondly, they are contiguous with community planning partnerships. Unless I have missed a trick, Presiding Officer, I have not yet seen within the bill the term community justice partnership. There are lots of partners, but there is no partnership. That is quite simply because it was never defined. Quite simply, I think, because what the Government is trying to do is to make other partnerships and the community planning partnership those who pick up the rates. I think that I have that right, and I am pleased to note that I have that right. If I can return to the subject of funding that was brought up by Audit Scotland in its November 2012 report, I would simply like to read into the recommendations. The Scottish Government should improve arrangements for funding community justice to ensure that the money is targeted towards effective approaches to reduce re-offending. There is more flexibility to meet local leads and priorities, and allocations are more responsive to changes in demand. So say all of us for any area of funding in public life, except could we add to that that we should eliminate as far as possible short-term funding? I have yet to meet an organisation or individual in any area of life who is helped by having repeatedly to go back to look for money. It means that you spend your time looking for money instead of doing the job. On the subject of money, could I just pick up on Dr Lam Murray's comment about the fixed costs of prisons, which I think is effectively what she was saying? We mustn't kid ourselves that we are going to get anything back from the expenditure on prisons in the short term. It's only going to be when we're actually closing prisons wholesale that we're going to get some reduction in that budget. Coming back to the structure, Presiding Officer, and the need to get from where we are to where we're going, there's clearly a transition, and that exercised quite a number of those who put in written submissions. I have from Police Scotland, Five Council and Five Partnership, the NHS in Scotland and the Scottish Working Group on Women's Offenders, all specifically commented on transitions. I don't have time to read that out. It seems to me that what we're all looking at, though, is the fact that this new structure provides an opportunity, but it does bring with it, I think, a risk and a threat. If the national body has—I'll use the word charismatic for want of a term—leadership that actually provides real people leadership, then I'm sure this can proceed and succeed. Equally, those 32 community partnerships, however they are ultimately configured, will need some leadership. The bill is silent on who should lead, and I think that's right, but it's going to come down to the actual individual people who are actually putting their heads above the parapherty in whatever meetings there are and saying, hey, guys, how are we going to do this? I wonder if the member might agree with me that grassroots is best, and there is an old saying that of the greatest leaders it will be said, we did it ourselves. In other words, when the leadership is invisible and the grassroots is empowered, then it tends to work pretty well. I'm absolutely sure that the member is right. I probably won't be there to write the history, but I think the point is that, whilst we can see ways in which this can work very well, it's not difficult to see the poor leadership at the local level, and it would be particularly where two people who thought they should lead it permanently at odds, and we have all seen that in public life. That's going to be the threat, and this doesn't prescribe away past that, and therefore it leaves the threat very much in front of us. Finally, Presiding Officer, I wonder if I could pick up on something which I don't think anybody's yet mentioned, and that is not only what we might measure as the outcomes, but what might be achievable. Now, we know in human life that some things are easy to change, some other bits are more difficult to change, and some bits actually prove to be intractable just because the amount of effort that goes into it is disproportionate to anything you're going to get out of it, and you don't achieve that. We know that re-offending rates are around 30% and apparently static. Now, I don't want to be in any way negative about what people can achieve, but I wonder whether we could fairly soon, by doing some research, which I'm always in favour of, work out what kind of re-offending levels we can achieve, by putting some serious effort into appropriate places, it might give you a little bit of a postcode lottery, but at least let's see whether we can get from 30% to 20% to 10% or whatever, because if we work out that we can get to 20%, but actually reducing it beyond there requires a quite disproportionate amount of effort, then it would be nice to know at least roughly where that number might be. Otherwise, it's a risk, we're constantly trying to achieve something which we know gets more and more difficult. Finally, Presiding Officer, I might, the point's already been made, and I think it was David Stewart made, lack of housing is one of those things that we know, both statistically and from common sense, is likely to push somebody back into prison. Now, I imagine that there's some kind of correlation somewhere, I haven't seen it. Maybe some of these individual issues are one such again, we could get some numbers on, get some idea of how important they are, and make sure that the important things really are being done and are measured as being done. I now call John Finnie to be followed by Richard Lyle. Thank you, Presiding Officer. In the policy memorandum to the community justice ball, the Scottish Government commit itself to reducing re-offending. It says that offending is a complex problem and there are well-established links between persistent offending and poverty, homelessness, addiction and mental illness. It tells us that re-offending creates victims' damages, community and waste potential. It talks about the complex needs of offenders and the saying that successful delivery of better outcomes for victims' offenders and communities relies, therefore, on a wide partnership of agencies and services working together. Much mention has been made of the commission on women offenders and the Audit Scotland report and what the Justice Committee focused on, whether that proposal was the transformational change that both of those envisaged. Mention has been made of how long the existing arrangements have been into place since 2007 and the question was raised whether it was premature indeed to consider reform with that being the case. It is not very academic, but I spoke to a senior social work professional and asked about the criminal justice authority and what the person said was, the top slicer budget and I have to go to two meetings a year. That might be crude, but it suggests that they were never fully embedded in the landscape and indeed passed many by unnoticed. A couple of my colleagues, I think that Gail Patterson, Alison McInnes, also said that it is important to realise that people were meaningfully engaged in those. There was geographic variation and I do not think that this proposal was ever meant to undervalue the work that did take place. What we are interested in is whether the 2012 reports talk about the problems, the structures, the number of bodies involved and the accountability and funding mechanisms and that those complex arrangements were inhibiting the potential to reduce offending. The Justice Committee certainly accepted improvements to the community justice structures and arrangements that are needed and I suppose therefore is this the vehicle to take it. We heard little evidence supporting the current model. I had initially said that we heard little enthusiasm full stop, but I think that we heard more a muted response. However, it is very clear that if 340 folk attended the meetings in 66, consultation responses were received that there is interest and that this is a compelling matter for communities. It is the debate around the strong national leadership and the local flexibility that is in that. I was keen that we heard from rural practitioners when we did and we heard that, under the existing models, one of the national offender programmes was inoperable on the west isles because it was not the aggregate number of personnel involved. That flag up potential issues around the question of strategic commissioning and adopting a single approach. I like local. I thought that all of us like local and I do not think that we should be scared of local. As I think that Nigel John said, there is a very clear geographic area set out already and we want to see local decision making flourish. I certainly do. The greater clarity about the relationship between the two and the balance of responsibilities is something that is very important and how it is expected to work in practice. There are things in the horizon that are going to shape that. Mention has been made of the Scottish Government's move to more community-based disposals and I am certainly hugely supportive of that in the presumption against short sentences. The issues around another piece of legislation that we dealt with that ended the automatic early unconditional release and the assurances that the cabinet secretary provided me in relation to the tailored support for individuals there. It is crucial in the whole tapestry of things how this piece of legislation will work. Also, as it has been made, the Scottish Prison Services is through care and after care. The position of third sector has been touched on and in relation to that matter there could be tensions there. Does it follow that the Scottish Prison Service would deliver that? I think that we have to commend the very good work that is on going at the moment in a wide number of areas and indeed commend cross-border working, which in the Christie commission mentioned and the policy memorandum and that is the approach that we would want to see taken with everything. As regards the definition, of course the Christie commission mentions prevention and early intervention, but I reassured what I heard from the minister there. I think that on this and a number of other matters, the minister indicated a willingness to listen. It is back to my flowchart diagram whatever. It is to understand how many of all those really good initiatives dovetail together because there is a lot of work going on. There is a myriad of acronyms and it is to understand how they work together. I am not going to use the word that everyone else has been using, but I am going to use the word horizon because I think that we do need to look forward. With a lot of work still to be done, one thing that I would want to pick up on though, and that was something that was mentioned too, is about the measurement. I do not want to offend being counters, but I fear that I am going to again. If it is simply going to be stats rather than a focus on the individual, then we are not going to be measuring the real success that is getting an offender to turn up in the morning when a chaotic lifestyle meant that it was a challenge to get out of bed, to turn up for an interview, to secure a job, to maintain a job. I am sure that the minister would want to pick up on that. It is about individuals and I would be very keen to hear more on the issue that you talked about of access to universal services and no barrier. Housing is frequently mentioned and a very keen interest in housing. Guess what? It should not be a surprise when anyone leaves prison, so the issue of where they are going to be accommodated, there should be some forewarning. If all the commendable work that we hear about collaboration across the sectors is genuinely taking place, then hopefully we can revolve that issue of housing and accommodation out, because it is absolutely pivotal. I would like to note the issue of whether we could find an alternative to the word offenders. I thought that the minister was making an early bid when he twice used, if I noted him correctly, people with convictions. I do not know what that means for someone who is in the singular there, people with conviction, because I thought that I would hope that we would all have conviction. I like the direction of travel. It certainly is the position of the green and independent group. We will be sporting this. Thank you very much indeed. Our final open debate speaker before we turn to closing speeches is Richard Lyle. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I begin my remarks in the chamber this afternoon by saying how delighted I am to speak in this important debate on the community justice bill, and I have to compliment Christine Grahame and her committee on their hard work. I start off by saying explicitly that I believe that this SNP Government has a strong record of supporting justice in Scotland, and while I am sure that I continue to do ever and in its power to make sure that the people of Scotland are always treated fairly under the law, no matter what. The community justice bill strengthens the role of community justice as part of the Scottish Government's overall strategy to tackle the social and economic effects of the offending in Scotland. It is important, Presiding Officer, to highlight some of the weaknesses within the current community justice model, or that Scotland reports that the total economic and social costs of the offending in Scotland are about £3 billion a year. 30 per cent of convicted offenders in 2009-10 were reconvicted within one year. In fact, 9,500 people convicted in 2010-12, which represents 22 per cent of the total amount of people convicted in Scotland, had 10 or more previous convictions. Presiding Officer, we must do more if people are committing the same crimes over and over again. There has to be, I would suggest, more we can do. This Government has an impressive record on ensuring that crime is brought to a record low, but this community justice bill provides a basis for a new model for community justice in Scotland, and I wish the bill well. Under the provisions of the bill, community justice Scotland will be established, working closely with statutory community justice partners and set out in the policy memorandum. The name of the bill is to help to create a stronger community justice system based on local collaborative strategic planning and delivery with national leadership support and assurance. Community justice Scotland will, I am sure, provide leadership and strategic direction for the community justice sector and promote best practice. Under proposed arrangements, the main functions of community justice Scotland will be to promote the national strategy in relation to community justice, prepared by Scottish ministers, promote public awareness of the benefits of community justice, to oversee and keep the Scottish ministers informed about performance in the provision of community justice, and finally promote and support improvement in the provision of community justice and making best use of resources. Currently, I understand that the Scottish Government is developing a national strategy for community justice with relevant stakeholders, which in turn will set out priorities and the strategic direction. That, I believe, is expected to be published in June 2016. When it comes to re-offending, the community justice bill aims to curb re-offending rates and support distance. A range of other Scottish Government policies are addressing the underlying causes of offending such as homelessness, as already has been covered greatly this afternoon, poverty and drug misuse. The new national strategy for community justice will link those other strategies to ensure a joined-up approach. At the Justice Committee on 6 October, and I am led to believe in 2015, Minister Paul Weaverhouse said that, where we can reduce re-offending, that will have benefits for wider society and not just for the prison estate and the Scottish prison service. It will have benefits for communities and for families whose loved ones will not be incarcerated. The impact on children will have benefits for education provision and could generate savings there. He went on to say that he certainly agreed that tackling the issue and re-offending can produce significant long-term economic and public spending benefits to Scotland. I want to conclude by highlighting once again the importance of the bill, and it has been a pleasure to take part in this debate. The community justice bill reinforces the role of community justice and is part of the Scottish Government's overall strategy, as I have already said, to tackle the social and economic effects of re-offending in Scotland. I look forward to seeing the bill continue to progress, and I hope to deliver for the people of Scotland. In a section of the report, I note that this new model will promote an improved culture. Each community justice outcome improvement plan will be evidenced through annual reporting offering transparency. The statutory community justice partners will reflect on previous years' work and produce an annual report on the progress that they have made in delivering outcomes, improvement actions and other activities set out in their plans. Community justice Scotland will consider the annual reports and provide assurance in the form of an annual report to Scottish ministers and local government leaders on the progress across Scotland towards meeting the common outcomes. The report will deliver and will offer transparency in the community justice reporting process, and will provide opportunities for driving improvement, identification and dissemination of best practice. I wish the report well and the bill well. Many thanks. We now turn to the closing speeches, and I call on Annabelle Goldie up to seven minutes, please, Ms Goldie. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I welcome the stage 1 debate on the community justice bill, and I too thank the justice committee for their comprehensive report. Over two years ago, I participated in the Scottish Government's debate on the initial consultation, proposing wide-ranging reforms through our community justice system. I was previously convener of the Justice 2 Committee in 2005 when it considered arrangements that were in place at that time. Arrangements that I might remind the chamber, many felt, had the potential to work and should have been given more time to prove themselves. However, following that debate two years ago, it became clear that the three options outlined in the consultation were not fit for purpose and ministers had to go back to the drawing board. There is no shame in that, but despite a second consultation in 2014, stakeholders have argued that the proposals scrutinised with the Justice Committee and that are the subject of today's debate are still worryingly short of what is required. My colleague Margaret Mitchell has outlined our principal areas of concern in relation to the bill, so I will take this opportunity to review Scotland's community justice system more generally. Many members will be aware that my party did not support the management of offenders, etc. Scotland Act 2005. We anticipated congestion of participants, confusion and lack of clarity in both purpose and leadership. The Scottish Government is now having to replace the eight community justice authorities just 10 years after they were introduced. What have others been saying? In 2012, the commission on women offenders pointed to myriad issues besetting CJA's, which seriously affected their performance, including a cluttered criminal justice landscape, short-term funding, a lack of accountability, leadership and inconsistent service provision. It is with no pleasure, I say, that gave me a sense of deja vu. Separately, Audit Scotland argued that CJA's, and I quote, have had a little impact on reducing re-offending. The way that they were set up has significantly limited their effectiveness and there are no nationally agreed measures to assess their performance. As the only party to oppose the 2005 act, it is fair to say that our fears about CJA's have been realised. On the strength of those damning comments, two things are clear. The current system is broken and needs urgent reform. The unhappy history of CJA's compels caution better surely to reflect and get in change right than to rush and get it wrong. This is a genuine open question to which I have no answer. How long does the member think that one should have to wait to see a change in re-offending, because I think that we probably all recognise that there are no quick fixes in this? Quite right. I do not have the answer to that question. All I and other politicians and do is, as I have already indicated, try and identify what is broken and what is wrong and try and warn about where not to go in seeking to improve things. During that debate in 2013, I urged caution and cited the creation of a single police force as a warning for not bulldozing through change in the face of justified concern. Stakeholders have expressed a number of significant concerns about the bill and I repeat my warning to the minister that each change should be driven by consensus, not railroaded through the Parliament to satisfy some Government mission. In his letter to the Justice Committee at the end of October, the Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs confirmed that he is, and I quote, "...confident that the new model for community justice and the proposals included within the bill that is supported will support not only the developments described above but also any future developments in relation to penal policy reform." The Scottish Conservatives are particularly concerned that those changes that we are debating today are a prelude to penal reforms that, at present, are the subject of another consultation that does not close until 16 December. The consultation responses have not been, Minister, I really want to make progress, I do not have a lot of time. They have not even been collated or analysed, the ink is not dry yet, ministers seem to be paving the way for a new penal policy that will be complemented by the model proposed in this bill. This is not cart before horse, the horse is not even in the horizon, it is still grazing in some distant field. We know that those penal reforms include extending the presumption against short-term sentences and we know the Government's view about that, but I would remind ministers of what Audis Scotland said that community sentences are not necessarily more effective than imprisonment in reducing real offending. Research published this year demonstrated that the presumption against short-term sentences does not figure prominently or explicitly in the decision making of sentences and that sharers tend to use such sentences when there is no suitable alternative. My party has no principled objection to robust community sentences that are properly enforced, but public safety demands that we should not be emptying our prison of violent and dangerous individuals who, with all the facts of the case before the judiciary felt, should be behind bars. I merely make that observation to say that community sentences are perhaps not quite the panacea that the Scottish Government would have us believe, but I am really concerned about the seemingly haphazard way that the Scottish Government is approaching the implementation of its penal policy as well as a rationale that underpins it. Let's take time to build the community justice model that the public can have confidence in and let's take time to develop a penal system that tackles the recidivism rate, while giving victims, yes, victims, two-celled and mentioned, giving victims the justice that they deserve. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am pleased to contribute to this stage 1 debate and I am happy to reiterate the bench's support for the principles that lie behind the report at stage 1. Much has been said around the chamber indicating reservations about some of the issues, and I hope to visit some of those reservations in this concluding speech. However, it is worthwhile to revisit some of the aspects that have caused us to consider the need for a community justice Scotland bill at this time. Largely, they emanate from the Angelini report on women offenders and Audit Scotland report on reducing re-offending in Scotland, both published in the same year 2012. Both reports independently raised concerns regarding a lack of strategic leadership, a lack of accountability, the impact of short-term funding in terms of diverting workers away from their main task of delivering services for those who might reoffend, the inconsistency in the standards of service, a lack of true care for offenders and shelter in their briefing papers for today's debate, and I think that appropriately a major play that the lack of appropriate housing has a significant impact on those who may reoffend. Those two reports also talked about a lack of strong leadership, the statutory partners not accountable to the criminal justice authorities and the limited capacity available to undertake the full range of work. That was a particular