 I welcome everyone to the Justice Committee's 25th meeting of 2015. I can ask everyone to switch off mobile phones and other electronic devices as they interfere with broadcasting, even when they are switched to silent. There are no apologies. We will be to item 1 in the agenda supporting legislation. Members will recall that we agreed to postpone the formal debate in the motion to approve the affirmative instrument on legal aid after evidence-taking last week. I therefore welcome once again Paul Wheelhouse, Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs. I also welcome the Justice Department officials who are here to support the minister but to remind everyone that they are not going to take part in this. It is not an evidence session, it is a debate. I invite the minister first of all to move and speak to motion S4M14088, that the Justice Committee recommends that the legal aid and advice assistance, Ms Elaine's amendment, Scotland regulations 2015, draft be approved. Minister, I will ask you to move and then to speak in the debate. I am grateful to the committee for allowing further time to consider legal aid arrangements for the new sheriff appeal courts. My officials met with the law society representatives last week to reassure them of the Government's commitment to continue to engage with them on this important issue. Following that discussion, I remain of the view that those regulations make appropriate legal aid provision until a review of how the court is operating can be undertaken early in the new year. As shown in the example accounts shared with the society—I am aware that there is some criticism in them and I hope to be able to address that to a convener—as shown in the example accounts shared with the society and with the committee, appropriate fees will be available to solicitors conducting appeals in the sheriff appeal court through the detailed fee arrangements. Scottish legal aid boards estimates that a Glasgow solicitor could earn fees and outlays of anything from £400 to £600 and more. The example account in the committee papers does not demonstrate how a fee of £606.77 has arrived at in a hypothetical appeal against conviction, but as I say, I am aware that the society of solicitor advocates have been critical of some of the numbers. If representing a client from the original defence of the case through to appeal at the sheriff appeal court, a solicitor could be paid more than £900 per client. It is important to emphasise that the payments for the new appeal court are calculated on a different basis from the block fee currently paid to council conducting an appeal in the high court. That fee does not make detailed provision for travel and other expenses. The detailed fees proposed for the new court will allow for a proper assessment to be made of the work undertaken by individual solicitors at each case. That is not the end of the process, though. As I say, we will continue to engage with the profession to review the fee arrangements for the new court and the legal aid system more widely. Indeed, the data that we would develop through using detailed fee arrangements would allow us to assess in due course whether there was a case for block fees to be applied for the sheriff appeal court. The information that solicitors will be providing will help to inform that process. I know members' raised concerns about the cost of travel to the new court, particularly Mr Finney raised an example that I hope we have tried to address in providing information to the committee for this week's session. I can assure members that travel fees will continue to be available and solicitors will not be disadvantaged relative to the current arrangements. The travel fee arrangements are effectively similar to those already in place for solicitors attending court in Edinburgh. However, solicitors will often choose to instruct an agent in Edinburgh for those types of appeals as they do at the moment, and that is important to stress rather than travel. The Scottish legal aid board will be taking a pragmatic and flexible approach to sanction for council, which will help solicitors to make the transition to the new sheriff appeal court. It is evident that solicitors do not want to take on this work in an immediate term, and SLAB has indicated that they will sanction council for cases in the new court. We are considering, convener, whether it would be possible in due course using an accelerated process to amend the regulations to allow for effectively a guarantee that sanction for counts will be given in cases to remove the doubt for solicitors who are currently, as I understand it from the discussions of law society, concerned that there may be a risk if they take on a case and they are not able to represent that client in the sheriff appeal court. Hopefully that would remove that doubt from a solicitor's minds. If a solicitor chooses not to appear in the new court, there will be no worse if at present, and, importantly, the client will be represented. We can be sure that equality of arms will be given, but solicitor advocates, as we discussed last week, will not be able to charge council rates in the sheriff appeal court, but will have the option to provide representation in their capacity as solicitors. I understand that that is not ideal from a solicitor advocate perspective, but that reflects the existing legal aid situation for the sheriff appeals and other proceedings in the lower courts, where solicitor advocates do not exercise their extended rights of audience. We have already begun discussions with the law society, the society of solicitor advocates and the faculty of advocates on the role of solicitor advocates in comparison to council with a view to addressing these wider issues. I put on record the utmost regard for solicitor advocates and the work that they do. I undertake to meet personally with the representatives of solicitor advocates in the near future to discuss the issues from their perspective well ahead of the legal aid arrangements for the new sheriff appeal court being reviewed. I hope that my letter and further clarification provided today will enable the committee to support this instrument, allow the new sheriff appeal court to begin its work and I just stress as well. I mentioned these figures last week, but given the nature of the discussion that we had, I just want to make sure that they register that we are talking about a situation where the cases involved are less than 1 per cent of all those granted support by the Scottish legal aid board. We have around 30 solicitor advocates who are doing work of this nature, who may be affected by the measures, but only half a dozen, six, who are doing more than £5,000 worth of fees in the last year for which Scottish legal aid board have data. I hope that that puts in perspective the scale of potential impact on individual businesses and the number of individuals involved. For those individuals, I appreciate that those are serious issues and hence the commitment to meet with the Society of Solicitor Advocates to discuss that issue. I hope that that helps to clarify the position somewhat, but I am happy to engage in the debate. I have got Rodg's just indicated, Elaine, Alison and Margaret and Christian. Rodg, do you want to make a declaration of interest first, I think, for your staff? Thank you for reminding me. Just in case you get food. Mind you, you would be mind, no? Can I refer to my declaration of interest as a member of the Faculty of Advocates? In that context, Minister, could I just direct you to the question of the impact sanction for council? My colleague Margaret Mitchell last week referred to a section which only obviously applies to civil proceedings. Obviously, I am grateful for your comments about further discussions on extended rights of audience, but is there anything further you can say in terms of the impact of sanction for council in terms of these particular types of proceedings at the present time? I am just conscious of if Mr Campbell can remind me of the point that was made by Margaret Mitchell last week. Margaret Mitchell referred to section 108 of the Courts Reform Act, sanction for council and the Sheriff's Court, but obviously that only applies to civil proceedings. That gives the court basically the part to decide whether sanction for council is appropriate, but obviously that is not relevant to criminal legal aid. Indeed, we are conscious that we are trying to ensure that the provisions ensure quality of arms. I take very seriously the point that Margaret Mitchell made last week, and I hope that in the evidence that we presented in the letter that was submitted to the committee, we have addressed a large number of the areas that were raised last week as concerns. We will see a number of areas where perhaps we need to review the performance of the court in practice. The issue around the regulations, as they are proposed, is that in requiring solicitors to provide information and detailed fees, we will be able to build up a knowledge of the costs of taking forward a case, to be able to look sympathetically at the need for block fees and other arrangements in future to assist solicitors to reduce the bureaucracy involved in drawing down legal aid, where solicitors and solicitor advocates in the council are doing the appropriate work on behalf of their clients. We do not want to create unnecessary bureaucracy if that can be avoided. Section 108 is about whether the costs of council can be recovered from unsuccessful party and civil litigation. We can come back to the committee on that in due course, but it is not entirely relevant to the point that is being debated in terms of the regulations, as proposed. At the second point, just away from sanction for councils, on the question of the £260,000 savings that the law society had predicated by alternative fee arrangements, in your letter to the committee, you said that it is unclear how such savings could be achieved from the options proposed. Does that remind people that this is not an evidence session, it is a debate? I know that it is all right. I am quite flexible about it, but I think that to remind you that the format is more of a debate, so a little speech from you rather than that, but if you raise things, the minister will answer them, we hope, in the winding up. Do you wish to say it in a different way, perhaps? As far as the £260,000 and as far as the committee is concerned, it is really, with the best will in the world, insufficient information presented to us to take a view on that alternative proposal. My approach to this debate is not so much about what solicitors are paid or what solicitor advocates are paid, but the essential thing is access to justice for people on low incomes. My concern is that if solicitors will not perform the duties on the fees that they receive from the legal aid board, and if people are not able to get other solicitor advocates to represent them in the sheriff appeal court if they are supported by legal aid, they will not get the same access to justice as a person who will be able to pay the private fee charged by the solicitor advocate. That means that a person on low income will be disadvantaged. In this essence, legal aid is a benefit to people on low incomes. It is paid to help them to pay for their legal costs. Cutting in that budget is a cut in a benefit to people on low income. That is my main concern. I am afraid that that concern has not been allayed in the last week by the information that we have. I am not convinced that solicitors will continue to do that work or that solicitor advocates will be prepared to do the sort of work that they did for the fees that they get from the Scottish legal aid board. That is my main concern. Unless that concern can be allayed today, it is my consideration that I will have to oppose this particular instrument. I know that there is a certain amount of time pressure with regard to that, but the Government has had a long time to think about it. It has only been in front of the committee for a week, but the Government has had quite a long time to consider this and to get this right. I am not convinced that you have got it right. My question of the minister could maybe respond in his summing up is that, on page 37 of the papers that we have got, which is a letter from the minister, there is a suggestion that the unintended effect of not passing this would be that solicitors would be worse off for representing the client in the original defence of the case. I do not understand that argument at all, so I would be interested in the rationale behind the statement that is in the letter. Thanks, Elaine. I will follow by Margaret Mitchell. Thank you very much. First of all, I will draw committee's attention to my register of interest and a member of Justice Scotland. The minister has chosen to characterise the debate as an issue of fees for the legal profession. I think that, quite inappropriately last week, he cited comparison with the minimum wage. We do not pay legal aid for the good of the legal profession. We pay it, as Elaine Murray has said, as a public benefit to secure access to justice. The minister said that legal aid fees are reasonable rates of pay for the work involved, but clearly in this instance that is not the case. We have had significant amounts of correspondence challenging the figures that the minister has said. This is a new court. There has been ample time to consider this, and it is really not our place to avoid scrutiny because the minister has left it all to the last minute. The court reforms are about streamlining and modernising and when I think that themselves meant to be a cost-saving exercise, and yet what we seem to be getting on the coattails is that. I think that I would stress that the appeals will be no less demanding than they were before, and they will be just as important to the appellant, and yet we are facing appellants with an inequality of arms. We have heard that advocate deputies will be making the case when we have people with no representation whatsoever, given the tight timescales. I think that this is hasty and I'll thought out, and I will not support this order today. Margaret Mitchell, followed by Christian Leeson. Good morning minister. I'm grateful that you've come back with extra information and tried to provide some clarity. Unfortunately, I don't think that you've succeeded. Given the representations that we've had and the very valid points that seem to be coming forward from those affected by those regulations, for example, the contingency is an accurate description of what you're now proposing. The contingency and transitional arrangements lead to a bit of uncertainty in themselves, and that's not good for the establishment of the new court. Although it might only be 1 per cent of all the cases, 38 solicitor advocates, that's still access to justice issues for every individual that might be looking for representation from those solicitor advocates. Also, there seems to be some duplicity about the five accounts of expenses that were drafted for different scenarios. There was some real concern that if solicitors did take on some of the work in their appeal court, and you are referred to that today, and then found that they were on court duty or had some other local commitments, they might be in contempt of court. You've covered that in your opening statement, but that wasn't covered last week. You could easily have passed that last week. My question is how many other things are there that could affect access to justice, because we've already had both the society of solicitors and procurators of stilling and Falkirk and District faculty of solicitors advise that they wouldn't be taking on any appeal courts. That opinion has been monitored, I think, from the Law Society representation too, and there are very many, I think, quite legitimate points that have been raised from the solicitor advocates. One way or another, Minister, I think that the wisest thing would be not to pass this today and perhaps to have a fuller to be and more clarity if it goes to chamber. Christian, followed by John. Thank you very much, and good morning, Minister. Thank you very much for your opening statement, and, like Margaret said, I think that it's quite welcoming that you tackle more points before, and thanks very much as well to give us some level of fees, and we do understand now that the level of fees are quite different from what the submission received. I have no declaration of interest to make, because I've never been working in the profession, but I do understand when a profession is trying to define this level of fees, they will make a strong argument for it. One thing that convinced me to vote with the Governor on this one is what you said about the six months. I think it's quite important to have a review in six months time, and I'm very, very encouraged by the fact that you will keep the communication with everybody in the profession during the six months. So everything you can tell us about this is very, very welcome, and I will wish that some of the submission received will not try to compare apples and pears. I think it's quite important to understand where the fees are, and it's quite important as well another point convener, which we really have to point out is regarding the travelling. Of course, it's in the profession interest to instruct somebody in and above to represent them. So I do feel that all the submission we have received are very, very welcome, but they were very, very similar, and to a certain extent I do understand why they were made, and I'm quite encouraged with the six-month review and with the engagement that the Government will make in the six-month period. So I will vote with the Government on this one. Thank you. John, please, for the moment, we do go. Morning, Minister. The equality arms issue has been mentioned on a number of occasions. I think that that's very important, because to me it is about status, and it is about the relative positions of the crown and those sitting, deliberating on what's important matters about findings and also sentence. I think that the frailty, as I see it, relates to communication here, because I would have found this far more compelling if this had been six months before we were actually considering this, rather than six months after. There's lots of very positive phrases, as you said, if I noted you correctly. In due course, in the near future, you're assured us that slab would be pragmatic. You talked about accelerating amendments, but that's because of the reform that we were involved in passing. It's changed the title, it's probably not even changing the location, but I don't think that the purpose of this committee is to negotiate fees on behalf of any profession, but we have to protect the interests of workers, regardless of what status they have and how competent they may be themselves, and the idea that because we changed the title and forum that someone suddenly is disadvantaged seems to me to be entirely wrong, and indeed the fact that one of that profession refers to competition law and the exclusion from that, I think, is a very interesting development. My obligation is to represent what's in the best interest of my constituents, and I've been left in no doubt by the Faculty of Solicitors of the Highlands, and this would be compounded by the island courts, and I'll just read it. I have canvassed the views of the legal practices working in your constituency who regularly undertake criminal court work, and can report that none is prepared to accept instructions from legal-aided clients in respect of summary appeal cases with effect on 22 September 2015. I think I said last week that the phrase, access to justice is bandied about all the time. That is not access to justice for my constituents. I'm disappointed that the priority, the work that's going to take place after we've discussed this, didn't take place beforehand. I can't support this proposal in front of us. I add my concerns around access to justice to what has already been set out by my colleagues on the committee. Nothing has convinced me since last week to change my mind around this. I've got concerns that people will not be able to get a solicitor of choice, because not every solicitor will be willing to come forward and offer their services for that. Also, you mentioned that you will review this at a later date, the fees. My concern is around what will happen to appellants who have not appealed in that time, but I've lost that opportunity because they couldn't get a solicitor because the solicitor wasn't available or they didn't find it financially viable to do so. It's very difficult that the jury is still out for me about this. I have to say that my concern is also access to justice for whoever you are. One of the main things has been throughout the legislation that we've looked at is equality of arms. I understand that the Shared of Court appeal will be up and running on 22 September. The main thrust for the urgency that I hear from the cabinet secretary is that—and perhaps when he's summing up, he will advise this—is that, again raised by someone else, if we don't bring this in, then solicitors will be worse off. I need to have a working example of that. It says that, consequently, this would have the unintended effect, leaving many solicitors not all but many. I want to know what that is worse off for representing the client in the original defence of the case. I need to know why, if we don't do this, it will be worse than if we do it and wait for a review. The second point that I want to make in the debate is something—I might be sort of skimmed past me—is the role of SLAB. I want to know how firm the commitment of SLAB would be, given that you said that we are only about 30 practising solicitor advocates to move to or automatic—how sympathetic—you are in bringing in automatic sanction for solicitor advocates in the appeal court, so that we get rid of the problem of the differential. There are quite a few things in there for me. The main thing is that, if we don't do this and it's up and running on 22 September, why are solicitors going to be worse off? That is the main thing at the moment. Otherwise, I have concerns, like everybody else, that we are sorting things out if we do this after the legislation is passed. I will hopefully be able to try to address all the points that are being raised by members, and I thank members for their considered points. This is an issue that has gathered significance as time has gone on. I believe that, when the committee scrutinised the original court reform act, those issues perhaps did not come up. They were not raised at the time in terms of being a point where there was concern. Clearly, the committee and Parliament supported the creation of the sheriff appeal court, and now we are in a position where I appreciate the committee's in some difficulty trying to understand what the implications will be for access to justice, which I fully recognise the number of members who have made. On access to justice, I will firstly say that we are absolutely committed to ensuring that individuals are represented and represented well when it comes to an appeal. Clearly, while there is a specific issue to address in terms of solicitor advocates, I recognise that issue and I have tried to express my sympathy for the need to address that issue in the long term. We have a position where, if a solicitor is unwilling to take forward a case to the sheriff appeal court, or if, indeed, there is a concern about equality of arms, we can, as I say, amend the regulations in an accelerated process. I cannot give a timescale, because obviously we need to work with the committee about when that would be possible to do that, but we can bring forward accelerated changes to the regulations to ensure that sanction for councillor is guaranteed for clients. That removes the risk from a solicitor's point of view. If they are taking on a case, there may be an inequality of arms for their client and a concern that they may not be able to represent them to the appropriate level in a sheriff appeal court. We are making that statement today. That falls from the discussions that we have had with the Law Society in the past week, since we last met. Points were raised at that meeting, which we have recognised and felt the need to address. I hope that we are reacting positively to the engagement that we have had with the Law Society in ensuring that equality of arms is guaranteed. That does not deal with the issue of the solicitor advocates that the convener has raised. It is a fair one. I certainly want to put on record my own recognition of the quality of work that is done by solicitor advocates. I am no way critical of their function. I know that they have done a lot of good work under the current arrangements, so we need to try and address the position that there is. There are, of course, as the committee will be aware, much bigger debates about the role of solicitor advocates and the number of stakeholders. We are, as I say, trying to engage with the Law Society already, the solicitor society of solicitor advocates and, indeed, the faculty of advocates to ensure that we address that and to get a fair settlement, if you like, for the compensation for solicitor advocates for the work that they do for their clients. That is not going to be a quick process. I believe that there is a good bit of debate to be had between the different parties and the Government. To some extent, we are trying to marshal all three groups to come to a reasonable position. I recognise the point that the convener has made. I appreciate that I cannot address it today, but I certainly give the committee my assurance that that is something that we will be taking forward. On the access to justice point more generally... How will it be worse off? If we talk past this, that is key to anything. If there is going to be worse off, therefore fewer people representing them, that is an issue that you have not addressed. Happily, convener, I was coming to that point. Clearly, the chef appeal court has been created. It will be up and running on 22 September, regardless of what we decide today. However, in terms of the position that is being worse off for solicitors, most summary criminal work is already paid as a block fee. That is perhaps where some of the problems arise in terms of the comparison between what we are proposing and what already pertains to be the case. Some cases will involve more work than others, so the block fee is intended to offer a fair remuneration across the piece. Solicitors might be doing cases of differing complexity, and in some cases they might benefit from the block fee. In other cases, perhaps it is more of a loss leader, because they are picking up other cases where they get more for the work than they charge on a detailed fee basis. The regulations would make the appeal distinct proceedings. With a separate grant of legal aid, the solicitor would receive the block fee for the original proceedings plus detailed fees for the appeal, so they would get the existing block fee but also... And what working example? Well, I think that the key issues, if you have got app war or proceedings that potentially solicitors would be worse off, but without the regulations solicitor, we will only be paid detailed fees for the whole case. That will sometimes mean clearly that if they are charging on a detailed fee, because the absence of the block fee in cases where they perhaps would have benefited from a block fee, they would be getting less now than they would have done. For those solicitors who are doing more work than the block fee would have covered, they would be getting paid accurately, if you like, for the work. In some cases, solicitors might get less than they currently do, because the block fee overcompensates them for the work that they have done. I am in surhumphry mode now. I am trying to untangle that. Some will be better off, and some will be worse off, is what you are saying. Indeed, because the block fee recognises that some cases are less complex and some are more complex. I hope that the point is correct. Does anybody else want to ask something just to clarify this? I mean, you can do this in debate. You are intervening. You are intervening, right? Yes. The second paragraph of the section on implications says, since the first instance work usually played in a block, as well as the appeal would have to be assessed on a detailed fee basis, why? That is not the same as the argument that you are presenting to us at the moment. You are presenting an argument about the block fee that might not cover all the work that you are doing, and so on, which we understand, but what I simply cannot understand is that, if we do not pass this, we do not change the instrument, that somehow that affects other work that is normally played in a block. I just cannot get that at all. At the moment, we have obviously no regulations that deal specifically with the chef appeal court, so we have no regime in place, if you like, to determine fees for the chef appeal court, because it is a new vehicle and jurisdiction. So, in the absence of regulations, if they are not passed today, we will have to revert to calculating what the cost is from a legal aid perspective on a detailed fee basis. So there will be a mixture of the block fee for the original case work that is taken forward and the detailed fees that should be charged for the work thereafter. In terms of the block provision, why that falls, if I could just consult with my colleague, convener? Yes. It is basically a block that is not going to be a distinct proceeding, so it is all one of those, so it has got to be either the block fee or the detailed fee. Okay, okay, okay, I have got it. Yes, sorry, I have misunderstood the point that was made to me earlier, but because they are not distinct proceedings for legal aid, they all be one account, so they would all be assessed as detailed fees rather than the block and detailed together. That is incorrect, why I just informed Elaine Murray. Apologies, convener, but the point is that they would all have to be assessed on the same basis, so you would lose the ability to pay the block fee for that part of the case prior to the appeal, and they would all be assessed on a detailed fee basis. I have to say, I am sorry, but how do you then know that they will be worse off? I do not know how you know that they will be worse off, so you will have to let it run. The block fee arrangement was put in place based on a detailed... I know about block fees. That currently overcompensates some solicitors for the work that they do in the court, because the block fee is higher than the amount that would be charged on a detailed fee basis. We know that, because it was based on the average across cases of that kind. If there are some cases that are more complex, perhaps a solicitor might be better off by charging detailed fees, but for those solicitors who are perhaps benefiting from a block fee now, for a less complex case, they will get less through detailed fees than they would through the block fee. I hope that that clarifies that point. It depends on the case, actually. It depends on the nature of the case. It depends on the case, yes, absolutely. Is it in the cost, not in the actual fee, but in the administration of the work that has been done? Is that really cost that? No. Sorry. So, can you put a grid perhaps, Mr Paterson, to repeat that? Yes, that is correct. I do not know what you said, but it sounded correct. I think that you have got to come to me and that the minister has got to agree whether or not to take an intervention. I am sure that the minister would comply. I would be happy to take an intervention, you know. Gil. What was asking was that it sounds to me as if it is not the actual differential in fees that is in question. It is the administration of the new work or detailing the work that would bring cost to the individuals that were carrying it out. If I may respond, convener, to the point that Mr Paterson fairly makes, with the regulations being in place, there will of course be a requirement for, as the case study set out, the submission of detailed fees. In the absence of the regulations, we will also require solicitors to submit detailed fees for legal aid in this context. The administration, for the point of view of the solicitor, is just the same, and the legal aid board would be the same. However, the beauty of having passed the regulations today is that solicitors will not lose access to the block fees. For that part of their case, they were still able to charge the block fee and not have to detail everything in there. There was a risk that, if they had to deal with the detailed fees, some cases, the less complex cases, they would probably get less fee paid to them than they would currently under the block fee arrangement. Certainly, it is a minister of issue. Elaine Murray, do you want to ask a question? Yes. Is that all right? Minister, off we go. I met the law society last week and their understanding was that, if the regulation was not passed, the situation would arise where the legal aid board would make emergency payments for work done in the appeal court. Therefore, they would still get their block fee for the initial work and an emergency payment for the work in the appeal court. I do not understand how the statement has been made in it. That is not our understanding of the situation of the situation, I am afraid. Just for the record, that is not our understanding of the situation, we disagree with the law society at that point. I think that we are pretty well exhausted, unless, ministers, anything else you want to add? I would just want to address a couple of points that I did not pick up in my earlier response to members. Just in relation to the access to justice, I want to make absolutely clear that there is no cut to the budget for legal aid. Indeed, the budget has increased this year as I have set out in the letter in the region of £4 million for the legal aid fund itself. There has not been a cut to the budget that Elaine Murray referred to. In the situation where a solicitor was unwilling to take forward a case, or indeed there was some concern about an inability to represent someone in the sheriff appeal court, clearly the PDSO could step in and indeed we could sanction council ourselves to ensure that that person was represented at the appropriate level. We would rather not be in that position clearly. We want to work with the law society, we want to work with solicitors to ensure that the system works, but I do want to reiterate that we are determined to review the operation of this, the submission of detailed fees will very much inform what we do in the future in terms of potentially bringing in block fee arrangements to try and reduce the administrative burden and to bring a more streamlined process for accessing legal aid. We need a new jurisdiction, which is quite unnormal. A couple of members mentioned it in the context of this, why are we in this position of having to have detailed fees? When there is a change of jurisdiction, a new court being created like this, we do not yet know in detail how the landscape will look in six months' time, or thereafter. For the review of the data that is submitted by solicitors working with us in the sheriff appeal court, we will help to inform our understanding of the economics of how it is working. If there are any particular issues of disadvantage that can be addressed, I want to be absolutely clear that there is no exclusion of any legal representative from the sheriff appeal court. I think that there has been a suggestion, at least one submission that I have seen from the law society itself, that solicitor advocates would be excluded from the sheriff appeal court. That might be an economic issue for solicitor advocates, but there is no legal exclusion of anybody in terms of solicitor advocates, solicitors or, indeed advocates, the council to represent a client in the sheriff appeal court. I would indeed, convener, with your consent. Minister, I have got the Scottish Government Justice Directorate's report here, policy note, and the final paragraph relates to the financial effects. Have I read you the very last sentence that says that the Scottish legal aid board estimates that this will reduce expenditure from the legal aid fund by around £1.4 million per year? Just to stress, the bulk of the savings are in relation to the personal injury court that are referred to in the policy note that Mr Finlay has drawn our attention to. Clearly, if we are sanctioning council, as we have agreed to do in terms of guarantee for a sanction of council, that will potentially increase the expense to the legal aid fund from the current position. Clearly, we will have to monitor that as part of the review to see what the impact is, but it is a sensible measure to remove the doubt at this transitional stage from solicitor's minds about whether they can take the risk of taking on a case to know at least their guaranteed council can be sanctioned if that is the most appropriate way to represent their client in the sheriff appeal court, then at least they are not going to be putting their client at a disadvantage from a professional indemnity point of view and professional safety point of view from their perspective. That hopefully will give them sufficient comfort that they do not have to risk their own reputation or indeed the future of their client in taking on a case without the knowledge about who can represent them at the sheriff appeal court. If it comes to that stage, of course, it may not require appeal in due course. I think that you want to go on, because I know that Rod wants to come out into intervention I just wonder if there is no issue with sanctioning council. What is the issue with sanctioning solicitor advocate? It is a fair question from Mr Finnie. It is one that we are, with your consent convener, I will address. As I said earlier on in the session, I am very keen to try and resolve the difficulties we have in getting agreement on the remuneration for solicitor advocates. I think that as a group I have made a strong contribution to providing access to justice for people and giving people choice. As I said last week, I very much recognise the importance of giving people choice. We are in a situation, unfortunately, where we have the need to put in place regulations to ensure the efficient operation of the sheriff appeal court, but to outside stakeholders, to members of committee, to members that we will be reviewing the performance of these regulations in practice and to come back with any necessary amendments to ensure that access to justice does not suffer as a consequence of those measures. I take very seriously the concerns of the committee in that area. We are going round in circles a bit. We have covered it all unless this is a new point. With your agreement, convener, I would just like to ask the minister in terms of moving towards a block fee. We are talking about six months review. Based on historical information, is it not possible to work to a much quicker timescale than six months? That is a fair point that Mr Campbell makes. I last week suggested and I am happy to repeat that I do not think that we necessarily need to wait until the end of six months to see evidence before our eyes. If there is an emerging situation that is causing difficulty for clients of solicitors, that would be something that I would be keen to address at the earliest opportunity. Indeed, the proposal to come back with regulations to provide a guarantee for sanction of counsel is the first, I suppose, of those potential amendments based on the discussions that you have had with the Law Society and a desire to make sure that we do not present difficulties for solicitors in understanding the risks that they may be taking on for their client and not being able to represent them fully. We are trying already to address some of the concerns. The regulations that we have brought before the committee will provide a platform on which we can improve and develop the regulations to ensure that they work efficiently and effectively. Once we have a better understanding of how the new sheriff appeal court works in practice and any issues that arise from an access to justice point, we will clearly be ones that we would be keen to address. I have made quite an argument this morning, minister, that access to justice will not be affected. However, what we are hearing clearly is the scaling that the fee regulations will not work. Even with the contingency plans, there seems to be a recognition that there is a problem here. The practical effect of that will be that cases will be marked down, that they will never kind of know how many people lost out in this interim period because we failed to get it right. I think that that is what the committee finds very hard to come to terms with. I certainly recognise, convener, the concerns that Margaret Mitchell fairly raises. I can understand the nervousness in the part of the committee that you would be worried about creating a situation that is worse for the people needing legal services. I respect the sincerity of which Margaret Mitchell and others have raised this point. However, we need to look at the alternative. I believe that in situations where potentially, if there is an economic challenge to solicitors and they are looking at perhaps less complex cases that do not attract much detail fee if they were forced into a situation where we are having to submit a full account to the legal aid board and be charging detail fees right from the start through to the finish, they may be less financially attractive for some solicitors to take those cases on, whereas under the current block fee arrangements there is a degree of cross subsidy, if you like, from more complex cases to the less complex cases through the block fee arrangement, and there will be less of a disincentive from a solicitor's point of view to take on that case. So there could be potentially, I do not have any definitive evidence and I apologise for that to Ms Mitchell, but I believe that there could be a potential that there could be a disadvantage from the client's point of view. If they have a less complex case, some solicitors may say, well, sorry, that's not an area that I'm particularly specialising in, you maybe have to speak to someone else about that. So there could be a degree of disadvantage to some individuals and it's purely conjecture on my part, I appreciate, but that's the impression I get from the loss of the block fee for the less complex cases. Well, I think that concludes the debate. I'm just going to say that the committee has some of the procedural things here. If we vote no to the motion, that would be reported to the Parliament. The Parliament to Brewery would not lodge a motion in the chamber that the Parliament would agree to the instrument, however the Scottish Government would still be able to lodge such a motion, that's just to let you know the process. I have to say for myself, minister, I'm not satisfied. And I think that if the Government were to lodge such a motion in the event that committee votes know that I would hope the opportunity to have an extended debate in the chamber rather than a short debate, there's too many questions remaining unanswered, they may be able to be answered at a debate in the chamber which I understand would have to be next week. It's just an option to the Government a suggestion that there's still things, and I'm not blaming the minister for this, it's a case I think you've inherited something, but there are issues still to be unresolved, and that's just a procedural matter, because I know whatever happens if the Government lodges a motion, it would be a short debate, and I don't think that that would necessarily be a good matter, a good way to deal with it. So I'm going to put it to the vote, and are members agreed, the question is that motion S4M14088 be agreed to, are we all agreed? No. Will those in favour please show? Will those against please show? And those abstaining please show? That's four against three, four, and one abstention. That motion is therefore, it's five against three, four, and one abstention, that is not agreed to. Can I then say that we are required to report on all affirmative instruments? Now normally I would just say to delegate responsibility for me to report on the instrument, but what I'm going to do is to circulate. It has to be lodged by the 21st, so I'll let you see what it's in, because we've had a very substantial debate, and some of the issues that have been raised would obviously be in the report. Can I thank you minister and your officials for attending today, and I'm going to suspend to allow the other witnesses to come. Thank you very much. Right, thank you very much. Moving item two, the community justice bill. This is our first round table session, and we're going to have two today. I welcome each participant to the session. Each of you should have a copy of the table plan on your desk, and the purpose of the round table session is to allow a more informal discussion amongst the witnesses, and we tend to, as a committee, sit back and let you interact, but please just indicate to me that you want to speak, and I'll make a note of your name, and I'll give you an early warning that you're about to be called. And so I think the first thing would be is to go round the table, and I always get this wrong anti-clockwise. Let me think how that is. Anti-clockwise, and get everybody to introduce themselves before we start. I take him, I'm going in the right direction. There you are, you are. Thank you, Elaine. Elaine Murray, member of the Scottish Parliament for a Dynfresia constituency, and also vice convener. And Michael Stewart, I'm the criminal justice service manager for the Outrehebrades, and I'm responding about the Outrehebrades CPP submission. Margaret Mitchell, MSP Central Scotland, and member of the Justice Committee. Amanda Coulthard, I manage corporate community planning in Weston-Bartonshire. Margaret Campbell, MSP for North East Fife. Good morning, I'm Laryon Gillis, and I'm from Westwood and community planning partnership. Gil Paterson, MSP for Clydebank in Mulgae. Good morning, Christian Arad, MSP for the North East. John Wood, policy manager at Coaslaw. Harry McGwigan, North Lanarkshire Counciler in Coaslaw, spokesperson for community wellbeing. Matt Marr, morning, John Finnie, MSP Highlands and Islands. Alex McCallum, I'm the criminal justice service manager in Dumfries and Galloway. Alison McInnes, MSP for North East Scotland. Councillor Peter Manamara, chair of the South West Scotland Community Justice Authority, and also spokesperson for the Scottish conveners. Margaret Mitchell, MSP West Regent, and member of the committee. I'm missing Graham, MSP, convener and member for Midlodian South, Tweeddale and Lodderdale. I'll just throw a question out to you to start. Is this community justice Scotland bill is that an improvement, or not an improvement, on what's happening just now? Debate. Mr McNamara, first off the blocks, all right. That shouldn't surprise you, really. There's a number of things in the bill, but I want to focus on possibly two that seem to me to be missing from the bill. If we are trying to achieve what I hope we're all trying to achieve is to reduce re-offending, which has been very successful under the previous structure, then surely the one thing we want to do is ensure that the new structure does exactly that, continues to reduce re-offending. For me, when all of the different groups came to work together, i.e. police, the prison service, parts of the judiciary, local authorities, social workers, when we came together nine years ago, it takes a lot of time for us to build up trust, to build up communications and to build up a sort of desire to achieve what we have achieved in reducing re-offending across Scotland by something like 4%, which is no mean feat, so we need to put in place something that is going to do that. The reason it was able to be done is that the community justice authorities had one thing. They had the power to be able to give direction to all of those disparate groups. What's wrong with the bill at the minute for me is that we can devolve it down to community planning partnerships, but there is no power to give direction to the prison service. The police service will all have their own agendas, and what you really need is the power to give direction to affect what happens in your local area. That's called community justice, and it's about that influence and direction that we really need to be written into the bill and not left to the laissez-faire way it is at the minute that you simply put some bodies around the table in the hope that they will address the issues. From my perspective, you need to give direction. Following on from Councillor McNamara's point, I think that the bill as it stands has potential in terms of bringing the community justice outcomes within the umbrella of the community planning partnership and the rest of the outcomes within the single outcome agreement. Where there is still work to be done is around the definition of community justice, the outcomes that currently sit within a single outcome agreement are about the community, about your housing, your health, your involvement in your local area. The definition of community justice within the proposed legislation at the minute is still very much focused on criminal justice social work and is missing the opportunity to embed justice outcomes within a wider remit. I think that it is slightly a drift of the public sector reform agenda as a result of that. Just to add your bit, what do you want to see in the definition that is not there? I think that there needs to be a wider definition of community justice that recognises the wider outcomes that impact on justice outcomes. If we had more of a recognition of the wider partners involved in the delivery of community justice services, if we reflected the requirement of a prevention and early intervention agenda more than a justice response, a criminal justice social work response, it would allow us to deliver more of a significant improvement in outcomes for people who are affected by offending. I am glad to be here this morning. I say right at the outset that, as far as COSLA is concerned and the leaders of COSLA, we supported, since the very early days, the redesign of community justice following the Angelina report and the Audit Scotland report. We did feel that it was necessary to move forward and to ensure that the community justice agenda was genuinely community orientated, that people understood what we were trying to do, how we were working with partners to achieve the objectives and that they were able to monitor and to feel comfortable with that. I am going back now about three years ago, when the Cabinet Secretary of State for Education and Skills was the Cabinet Secretary. We had many discussions on the detail of that. I would have to say that there seemed to be a greater willingness to ensure that there was an on-going dialogue between local government and Scottish Government in respect of the redesign. That dialogue has become a little less certain in the past few months. I have spoken to Minister Poolehouse, and he is very much on the same page as we are. It is important to ensure that local government and Scottish Government are working in a complementary fashion. That is what we want to achieve. We want to see re-offending coming down and we want it to be done in a coherent way. I have met the minister and I feel that he supports that approach. We discuss early on what the issues and the areas where there could be some tension between local and national government are. I have to say that I was disappointed at the evidence that was given two weeks ago by the minister's officers when he referred to some of the information that Cosle had put in the table as far as resources were concerned. He seemed to imply that the arithmetic that we had used was somehow flawed. He may be correcting that, but what he did not do or what he did not do, he did not come to us and discuss that prior to the draft being prepared. That is an unhelpful way to be working. I would hope that, in future, we can work better that way. One of the things that we are very concerned about—we are very pleased about community justice Scotland, by the way—we think that it is important and that it can certainly complement the work that we should all be doing here. It can give us the assurances that the outcome agreements are being met and that the local plans are being met. However, Peter made the point about community planning partnerships. I was amazed to find that community planning partnerships do not have a legal status. That is what I have just been told in the past couple of weeks. That is a very worrying aspect. In many situations when I am talking to people and engaging with people, I talk about the hopes that I have for community planning partnerships to be working together, not just as far as reducing re-athending is concerned, but as a whole host of shared interests areas. However, we are not getting that, and there is no mandate to do that. It is very important. We discussed this with Kenny MacAskill and not with Mr Wheelhouse, but I will have sent a letter to him after I heard about the miscalculation that is supposed to be by your officer. However, we want to see the Government. I stand correct. What we are anxious to do is to make sure that community planning partnerships are not seen as the domain—it is not a wind-addressing exercise—we need to see that the partners that are around that table have got a—if not a duty, they have to be able to demonstrate that they are working in a coherent way with local government and the other partners around that table. We have to be reminding them that outcomes depend upon their contribution, as well as ours. I would make that point, and that is a worrying aspect at the moment, that CPPs would seem not to have that authority, but the joint integration boards will, we hope, have some statutory authority, and we can move forward in that. I will maybe come in at later points. Oh, you can, yes. I have got Lorraine Gillis, John Wood, Michael Stewart and Councillor Matt Nomara, so I start off with Lorraine Gillis. That is the list so far. I will respond quickly to your point, Councillor McGuigan. The opportunity that we have is around firmly anchoring the piece of work in the community impairment act. For the first time, we have a sound statutory putting for community planning partnerships, and I think that that is welcome. There has been an issue around the teeth, if you like, of community planning, and the community impairment act gives us a different level of influence. I agree that the power base is still on work that could be done around that, but we now have a commitment and an obligation for partners to be working together to deliver outcomes, which now include a wider set of outcomes around community justice. The opportunity that that gives this agenda is that we now have partners who previously would not have recognised their role in delivering against community justice outcomes, and I think that that is an opportunity. I welcome that. In terms of what Amanda MacDonald was saying, there is an opportunity to strengthen and I think that I would agree with what you are saying about calling out much more clearly the role around prevention and early intervention. I think that the other point that I would want to make is the other opportunity through the community impairment act is that we also have in statute not just a wish but a requirement to be engaging with communities in a much more ambitious and enhanced way. I think that that also gives us an opportunity to take this agenda forward where we have not. To sum up, I think that my overarching comment is around the Community Justice Scotland Bill being much more clearly anchored on what we have around community impairment act. I think that there are obvious links there and obvious relationships, and I think that there are obvious advantages to calling that out maybe a little bit more clearly. Can we not actually deal with that other piece of legislation? I have asked on behalf of the committee that we get Spice to show the linkages between that piece of legislation and our own, which would be very helpful now that has been raised with us. John, would you follow by Michael Stewart, please? I am very insane about putting the community justice partnerships on a more robust footing that would ideally fit in with the community planning partnership or another formal mechanism by local agreement such as the integration joint board. I suppose that an observation is that we have begun the debate talking about the local partnerships, and that is welcoming. We see that very much as a local model and that has been reflected in the Government consultation material and the surrounding literature. As any local Government officer or colleagues around the table will know what sort of matters is the bill. If you were just to pick up the bill, the local partnerships, it is not even evident that there will be a local partnership to be completely honest from the bill. We do understand that there will be, because it is leading the work to lead the transition process for those local partnerships to be formulated, but the bill begins with a definition of community justice that does not quite reflect the sort of cultural shift that we had as partners been looking for. The bill immediately gives an outline of what community justice Scotland will do and then talks about the national strategy and performance framework, which are aspects of the new model that we welcome, but the local emphasis that is expressed by the Scottish Government and the local emphasis of the new model that COSLA had signed up to is not quite borne out in the legislation in the way that we would like. Thank you, Mr Wood. Michael Stewart-Forbott, Councillor McNamara. Thank you, convener. Just to reflect some of what has been said already, I think that there are, from our own perspective in the Western Isles, there are gains and losses within what is expected here. I think that there is, through the Community Justice Scotland Bill, the opportunity to strengthen some of the relationships around a community justice table locally that perhaps was not as strong previously under the arrangements that we had. However, there are also challenges within that, especially for areas such as ourselves, and we do not have a monopoly in rurality, but certainly in terms of the difficulty of how we engage statutory partners such as the Scottish Prison Service, SACRO, APEX, other key partners in community justice who do not have a presence in our area. For our own point of view, there are local gains but potential losses in terms of what is proposed. The other thing that has been mentioned is the Community Justice Scotland and the national relationship there, which I would welcome about the strategic direction, especially in terms of how that addresses some of what was brought up by the Angelini report. Again, I think that I would wait to see in practice about how that works for an area such as ourselves, and we mentioned in our own feedback and consultation about times when a national strategy or a national agenda that commonly more rural areas tend to be a secondary thought when it comes to about how to put things into practice. Many of us represent rural areas. I think that we all factor rural areas. I was quick to point out that we do not own rurality, but certainly in a stretch of 100 miles, where there are three ferries or two flights to get from one place to another. That is a lovely part of the community. It is. You are absolutely right. If we could record that formally, I would be very grateful. I think that it is important to recognise that one of the examples, as a working example, would be the moving forward making changes as a national strategy in terms of saying that this is how we work with sex offenders and taking in the rurality that we have. A prerequisite for that training is a three- or four-day group work training. We will never run a group in the Western Isles for sex offenders. Three weeks training currently as it stands on the mainland in a city, which the logistics for us is almost impossible when people have caring relationships at home that need to be tended to. My concern is not so much about the logistics, but if we cannot solve those logistics, what does someone like the Western Isles do instead when the community justice strategy is geared towards what would be seen easily as a mainland directive and how the alternative could leave ourselves open to risk by using some secondary motion that is not accredited, is not research-based simply because you cannot meet what is being asked. To bring it back to the improvement or not, there are gains and losses, but I think that what will be key in how that runs is the communication strategy and how 32 voices are heard, because every 32 voices are unique and distinct, and we will say that they are just as special as I say that they are or Hebrides are. I think that it is important to recognise that that communication strategy will be key in making sure that before national direction is taken, all voices are heard first. I think that it is that balance between, I could quite right, the national and local knowledge and how to deal with things in your own patch. I will take members now if they want to and I will get Alison. I have now got Margaret Mitchell, that I will do just now. I agree that there is a great opportunity here when working with community planning partners, especially with devolved budgeting, locality planning and all the issues that affect communities. One of the failures that I think of, and I will hands up, there was a failure in community justice authorities to engage with the wider community, so it is a real opportunity for local people to be involved. However, when you shift the justice agenda on to the community planning partnership, there is a resource issue. The bill states quite clearly that there is £2 million available for a national body, but there is absolutely He-Haw available for local authorities. If we do not… You are not going to be doing the report with He-Haw, are you? Sorry. No, it is good, I like it. Well, that is how passionate I am about it, because if we wanted to work, we have to resource it properly and we cannot simply leave it to the likes of officers to get on with it. If we are serious about reducing re-offending, which has an impact on our community, then we should resource it properly. If we resource it properly, there will be a consequence of a reduced number of people in prison, a reduced public bus, and we could reinforce what happens in the community with any of the savings that we make. I think that there is also an issue with the public who might think that sometimes, because one gives help to people who come out of prison or intervenes to start them going that they are going soft in some way and they are getting something over and above what other people should have, and I can understand that, but you are quite right. Even in hard cash terms at the end of the day, if you save somebody going back in, the money savings are substantial to go back in to the rest of society, so I think that we accept that very much. I will now take some committee… Does anyone else want to come in from the round table before I get committee members? I will add one point, and I think that it is important. It is along the lines that Peter just mentioned about making sure that resources are available and that he makes the point about £2.2 million that will go towards setting up community justice Scotland. I am not sure what that means, but nothing goes to the community justice new arrangements. That has to be rectified and it needs to be detailed in the bill as far as financial memorandum is… It would be in a financial memorandum and the finance committee would be looking at that as well. They will be giving their report. I will take some members and I will take Alison, Margaret Mitchell and Roderick Llingill, but if anybody else wants to come in in between, I will take you first, Mr McAllum, before I take the members. I will press my button here and it keeps just flashing. No, you do not need to press. No need to press. Sorry, I will just put my hand up. Sorry. No, nothing. That is as good as that in here. We are very technical. I get it then. I just wanted to make the point in terms of the point that you made, convener, about the perception, the public perception and people being soft on crime and so on. I think that the definition that is in the bill of community justice is a lost opportunity, actually, in trying to bring communities with us in terms of them fully appreciating what their part is in working together within communities in the various forums, within local organisations, faith organisations, community groups, schools, the whole gambit that is looking at the whole notion of community justice in its broadest sense so that the community takes ownership of its transgressors and works alongside them and the agencies and organisations that are there to assist. I am just looking at the act under community justice partners under section, because you are really talking about the partners, rather than the definition at the beginning of community justice. In section 12.3, the Scottish Government has made my regulations modified subsection 1 or 2, so I am presuming that that means that others could be added, rather than put them all on the face of the bill, you would have flexibility to add. One could add them amendment procedure and that might be a very good idea. It also leaves a flexibility to bring in even more as it unrolls so that we see that it is not all-encompassing, it needs to be more all-encompassing, if that makes sense. I do not know if that makes sense today. You are looking at me bewildered. No, I think that it is an opportunity to be all-encompassing and to look at it. Clearly, there is still a need to manage those people whose behaviour is such that they need to be managed. It is very important and sometimes a very small, long-term organisation of a big impact in an area. I want to bring in, before I bring you back in, Alison, and then I will bring you in, Alison. Thank you, convener. The Angelina report, if we remember, recommended a national service that would commission and provide and manage all the adult offender services. There has been a long consultation and various iterations since then. I am interested in the submission that we have had from the joint submission from the community justice authorities, where they say that the lengthy consultation process and the bill itself have instead created another least-worst local national compromise, such as that that led to the creation of the CJA's in the first place. The current proposals once again restrict reform to the strategic level, leaving front-line operational delivery untouched. I would just like the partners around the table to explore that and to say, well, what is it that we need to do to improve the bill to make sure that the operational delivery side of it is developed? I have outlined a couple of issues, not least of all finance, not least of all some form of authority or power to give direction, but more importantly, it is actually defining—it does say in the bill that one of the partners is the local authority, but it does not define the role of the local councillor, who has actually a reflection of the local community, I would have thought. Also, when you look at the national body, they will be appointed by this Government, but there is no mention of local government being involved in that either. It seems to me a missed opportunity to have a national body, which is going to give support, encouragement and direction to the local bodies without so much as having any local authority representation on it. I was involved in community justice for nine years, and it was until we got the Audit Commission's report that said that there was some lack of accountability and lack of governance. We could have addressed that, I believe, without so much as having to go through another bill to create a distance from the then minister. I sometimes get frustrated at the fact that I thought that the relationship that we had with the minister at the time was a good one, and I thought that we were delivering on the agenda, but suddenly, the Audit Commission comes in and says that the governance is not right, so we need to get the governance right. That, for me, is having locally elected people on the local partnership body but also on the national body. Do you want to, if somebody else wants to come in on that, then I'll bring in Margaret Mitchell on that particular issue, or is that resolved? Mr Wood. We've had some productive discussion with Mr Wheelhouse prior to this session about how the relationship in the future would work between Scottish ministers, CGS and its board and local elected members, but I'm glad that Councillor McNamara raises the point, because I think that it's something that is missing from the detail of the bill at the moment and hasn't been padded out in any of the other consultation materials that there needs to be that productive relationship between local partnerships and local elected members who will be leading them and the national body. I think that it would answer some of the Audit Scotland questions about governance if that happened. To be honest, it would also help outcomes and it would help the model because it would engender a sense of ownership at the local level of the national agenda. Ms Gillis, do you want to come in now and then I'm going to take the members for a bit? That's Margaret Mitchell, then Roderick Gill and Elaine. That's my list so far. Thank you, convener. I just want to pick up very briefly on two points. The first one was around the point that you raised about stigma and you also talked about it. I think that there's a wider issue that community planning partnerships are trying to grapple with around their efforts to move towards prevention and early intervention. I think that the public perception of what that will actually mean is that there's too big a gap. We're all pretty aware that prevention is better than cure, there's a lot of rhetoric on that, but in actuality what that will mean is quite unpalatable actions that partners will have to take, unpalatable actions to the general public, not for us as professionals who are on board with that. That is an issue that seems to come up time and time again and for me and my local community planning partnership. That certainly hinders some of the work that we're trying to do around realigning some of our resources and trying to do some of the things that we know are preventative, but the general public sees as being like touch and soft on people who are offending. The second point would be to pick up around resources. Again, you would expect me to talk from a community planning partnership perspective, from a CPP perspective. I think there has never been such attention in community planning partnerships in terms of the pressure on them to take forward elements of the public sector reform agenda. Quite rightly so, I think, we will never get where we want to get to without focus on outcomes and through partnership working. Just a reminder that today we're talking about community justice, but at the moment community planning partnerships are working on implementing and acting the community impairment act. We're trying to figure out arrangements for integration of joint health and adult social care. We've also got other agendas around public sector reform. It's a very cluttered landscape for community planning partnerships. We're trying to bring it all together under an umbrella of broadly better outcomes for communities across West Lothian, but across the... I'm reverting to where I'm from, but it was really just to pick up on that all of that broadly is unresourced, that even within the parameters of the community impairment act, saying that partners will have different expectations, by and large a lot of that will fall on local authorities. That's the reality of it. Just to make a plea, a support, that that is unresourced. I think that there is a discussion that we need to have about how we resource that to make sure that none of those work streams are happening in isolation and that the community planning partnership is able to do some real thinking and to pull that together, which sometimes is quite hard to find the time to do. If members will forgive me, I'll take two more of our witnesses here and then I'll let members in. I'd like to let some members in. They may have another question, if that's what they'll get across with me. I've got Mr Stewart, then Ms Coulthard, and then I'll let members in and that would be Margaret and Roderick first. Thank you, convener. It was really just to echo the point that Lorraine Gail has made well, but I think that the key flaw of the legislation is the definition of an offender. The definition of an offender within the legislation is someone who has been convicted of an offence. That, for me, if I was a community planning partnership organiser and manager, I would be in a position to say, where does prevention come in to prevent the conviction in the first place? I would certainly like to see that reflected if it's not reflected in another legislation that's planned, but a much better remit and discussion within the legislation. I think that we've already heard that. I think that we're quite sympathetic on the committee to intervention and not just post-sentence. I think that we're already there. Ms Coulthard. I think that just picking up on what Lorraine Gail said, I think that the community planning managers network of Scotland has an opportunity to discuss community justice redesign a number of times, and we're all in agreement that there's probably not been a more exciting time to work in community planning with the range of reform agenda that's all coming together within the remit of the community planning partnership, but bringing us back to the funding issue and having a specific justice focus on that, we have, as community planning partnerships, been offered three years of transition funding to put in place the new arrangements. However, the burden of planning that all of the consultation and the legislation so far focuses on a separate community justice plan for each area, rather than it being embedded within the current local outcome improvement plan, as it will be under community empowerment legislation, the single outcome agreement. If planning for justice was part of wider planning, then it would be easier for us to manage, but we have had a significant lack of investment in the infrastructure of community planning, which is a real issue for us, and the additional burden around planning from this legislation is taking us towards just the tipping point of our ability to respond. I think that we've got the message about funding. Everybody does that with us. Margaret Mitchell, followed by Rodrake, then there's Gil Elaine and then Margaret McDougall. When we had the briefing on this, I think that one of the concerns we had was what would be the relationship between the national body and the local community partnerships. At that time, we were told that it would be very much equal partners. We hear from COSLA that, when the consultation went on, it was the national body supporting the community. Already, there's been a shift and, therefore, you can see how people begin to get a little bit worried that the national body would have too much influence. Therefore, the early prevention that we want to see built in and the resourcing issues to make sure that local priorities were looked at need to be safeguarded. Our last evidence session, a suggestion that was made by Dame Eilish, that we look at an inspectorate for community justice, the same way as you have an inspectorate for prisons or police, who would then look at the balance. Was the national body exerting too much influence? Were local dimensions not being taken account of properly? Was there sufficient flexibility to address a very specific community-type solution? Was it properly funded, etc? That's a very good question, Margaret. I certainly think that community planning partnerships and the community Scotland justice, we have a nervousness about how the role of community justice Scotland may change as they become more embedded. We see the opportunity of a sensible and productive working relationship between the integrated board and the CPPs and community justice Scotland. We can look for advice, we can look for support, we can look for it. Peter used a word that I don't like, and that was direction. We would be very, very guarded about a situation in which we were receiving instructions in respect of programmes and projects in the local area that were being manufactured at national level. I don't feel nervous about an inspectorate as an ex-teacher through the inspectorate regimes many times. It's about the way in which the inspectorate is carried out, but I don't think that I'd get terribly nervous about an inspectorate. Can community justice Scotland do that? It can certainly monitor, it can comment, it can suggest good practices and so on. The inspector would be totally independent, so it would be looking at how the national body was functioning as well as the local system. The whole shebang, if I could put another word in, along with hee-ho. And the Scottish ministers. I understand your points. It's independent. Councillor McNamara, Mr Wood and Mr McCallum. I believe that local government and all the agencies, the police, the prison service are all inspected to death and I don't see a need for yet another inspectorate to overview and oversee what is happening. What will be able to monitor is the reports that would be published on a yearly basis on the activities of the community engagement or community justice within particular areas. They can comment on and give direction to it. I understand the nervousness about that, but it's about overseeing, offering support, sharing good practice. Those are what we're looking for. We don't need to be inspected yet again. I mean, we'd spend, with the limited resources and limited people we would have within the justice arena, they would spend their time getting reports ready for inspectors and we'd do that to death at the minute, so I would caution against it. No, I would say, don't do it. Could you speak up a little bit? You've got a lovely soft voice, but we're a bit of difficult at this end. That was a compliment, by the way. Deep breath. I completely support Councillor McGuigan and Councillor McNamara. The idea of an inspectorate of being created hadn't come up before, and Dame Eilish raised that, and it certainly wasn't anything that we'd had a chance to consider. I think that, to be completely honest, the case is still being made for there being a national body, so to be putting plans in place to keep checks and balances on the national body and its relationship with the local partnerships just wouldn't make sense right now. I think that, coming back to the legislation, if we're looking for those assurances that there will be a constructive relationship between the national and the local elements of the model, then the bill is the chance to do that. I think that, with proper constraints around what community justice Scotland is able to do, and clearly defined set of competencies between the local and the national, then, if that was clarified in the bill, then we wouldn't even need to consider an inspectorate at this stage. To inspect or not to inspect, that is the question. Well, I think that the inspectorate bodies that are in existence would be perfectly adequate to carry out an inspection. We've already had fairly successful joint inspections across the country in terms of children's services and adult services and, more recently, the multi-agency public protection arrangements, and the remit of those inspectors could be broadened to include the broader justice agenda without creating a separate inspectorate. Even wider than Alex's suggestion, we already have the role of Audit Scotland in reviewing the progress of community planning partnerships. If the outcomes are going to be embedded within the community planning arena, Audit Scotland would be able to take a view on whether we were delivering appropriately at local and national level on the justice outcomes, as well as everything else, rather than add an additional burden in terms of inspection. And you're nodding, Ms Gillans. Do you agree? Yes. Do you agree? No inspector. No. The inspector doesn't call, right? Thank you. That's good. Margaret, can I move on to the next member? Yes. Thank you very much. Roderick Follobangill. Thank you, convener. My question really follows on a little bit from the last minute that we were discussing. Dame Eilish, when she gave evidence a couple of weeks ago, said that she said that the effectiveness of community justice was not being measured at that time when the judges could not be convinced that it made a difference. She said that one of the most important aspects of her report, which was not really picked on, was that there was no measurement of the success of that activity. Are we really saying that it's just enough for Audit Scotland to report on how we're really going to measure the effectiveness of community justice? I do think that there is a fair level of sophistication in measuring community justice outcomes through single outcome agreements and their mechanisms. What I would say is that across the country there are variations in each community planning partnership's ability to measure everything that is responsible for measuring. I do think that there is something around that, but I am aware of some work that has been done to support the national strategy and its development around producing a framework that is measurable that can give us some confidence that the efforts that we are making across the wider community planning partnership are enabling us to measure what we are doing around community justice. I don't think that that's the case, but I would say that it's not a simple picture. It's quite a varied look. I'm going to take Councillor McNamara, then Mr Stewart and Ms Colternd. I take the same view. I think that there are measurements there. I've got one for South West Scotland, which I can furnish to you, which dropped from the worst in Scotland in Ayrshire, dropped from 33.9 per cent reconviction rates, dropped to 27.5 within nine years of hard work by a limited resource. I mean that she came to your committee and said that she was glad to see the abolition of criminal justice authorities. Sometimes people get confused as to what we're talking about here. It's the community justice authority. I just thought we'd put that record straight. But there we are. You've said it. It's another thing on the report for you. Right. Can we go on now to Mr Stewart, please? Thank you, convener. No matter what I say now, it's not going to seem contentious at all. I think that the key difficulty will be about the potential for there to be 32 outcome plans and about how they potentially could be individualised, potentially seen as parochial, potentially measuring what we want to measure and being in a position that the national board have to try to make sense of that. I would certainly appreciate the national strategies guide to be able to help us towards what so far has been an unanswerable question, I think, for justice. How do we measure the effectiveness of both community justice and criminal justice? I personally feel that the reconviction rates alone do not reflect the level and quality of service and work that is undertaken daily by criminal justice, social work and partner agencies, because you could have reconviction rates where somebody was convicted 10 times last year, 2 times this year for much less serious things, but it could still be viewed as a failure. I think that there is room to move on the outcomes. What I would hope is to come back that when there are 32 aggregate outcome measurements, if we are to take that way that we are measuring our own things, I would have concern about whether we are actually able to make a national picture, make sense of whether we are being successful in tackling the issues that we know are present. You are pro against an inspection? Yes. You are for an inspection? You are against? I am pro and for, no. My own perspective, as I agree with the comments that have been made, is that we already have inspection in place to the level that I would not want us to be fixing problems that we have not had yet, and I think that we need to be key to seeing how the national board communicates with local CPPs before we put another layer of inspection in place in case it happens. Can I have our inspection? I know that you were jumping when the word parochial was mentioned, but we will just leave that. Can we move on from inspection? I think that we have heard that. Roddie, are you satisfied that you want to come back? I will let other members in and other points, but I will let other members in. I will come back. There is some conscious of time. I have Gil followed by Leane. I would like to follow up on partnerships. I know that no matter what the circumstances are, local government is going to be a fairly powerful body when it comes to the local body itself, and that is quite right. It goes with the territory. I wonder what they feel about the third sector and its involvement, how they should fit in to any part of the equation. A very, very big role to play in this. The third sector should already be well represented on the CPPs. That is something that many of us have been trying to change over the years, as far as the evolution of community planning partnerships is concerned, to make sure that the right voices are sitting round the table there. One of the problems with the voluntary sector of the third sector is that they cannot all be on a CPP partnership board. The difficulties do arise in selecting or nominating the voices that will be heard there, but they are absolutely correct. They have a crucial role to play. It is very, very valued by local authorities and by other partners in my own CPP in North Lanarkshire. It will grow in terms of the effectiveness and the effective role that they can play. The role of the third sector is very clear when it comes to community planning partnerships. However, the third sector voice at community planning partnership level is a strategic third sector voice, and it is representing a range of issues and groups of varying sizes. Where we have some work to do is the criminal justice voluntary sector involvement in community planning as we move forward and respond into community justice outcomes. There are a range of different organisations in each community that are very valuable. However, they are very small and are often focused on service delivery or on support and do not necessarily want to be involved in strategic discussions or strategic planning, so there is a balance that is defined between strategic oversight and operational service delivery. I have got to Councillor McNamara, Mr McAllum and Mr Stewart. I absolutely agree with everything that has been said, especially what you are saying there, Amanda, about the community justice voluntary sector and the third sector. The one thing that is in the bill or the one thing that is missing in the bill is any reference to the third sector. If we are going to give them a place at the table, they should be treated respectfully as an equal partner and not just an add-on. That is the one thing that is missing from the bill that should be introduced into the bill. Mr McAllum, Mr Stewart. Sorry, the point that I was going to make was in terms of the mechanism for commissioning the services of the third sector and to be cautious in terms of how those structures are established. We have had some difficulty with the initial establishment of the national commission services in the Friesian Galloway, for example. We have benefited from the shine mentoring service, but in the initial stages we had two half-time workers having to respond to three different management systems, which was confusing for them and also inefficient in terms of the use of the resources, so it is about making sure that we get right the local and the national commissioning processes so that the right resources are going in to meet the assessed needs of the communities that we are here to serve. Mr Stewart. Thank you. To make two quick points, one of which Mr McAllum has expressed already, which is about the commissioning strategy's key in terms of the national bids for mentoring. In my own perspective, it is not truly national that they only considered some of the more difficult to reach areas really after the granting of funds had been made, and it is such that I do not think that there is an equitable service. The other thing is to note what I know has been raised to the committee before, is that the short termism of funding makes it very difficult for the third sector to be able to survive and not have to morph and change to be able to chase pots of money, and I am aware that your committee has had that. That is about that last time, yes, but it has been on-going for decades in here. Elaine McAllum, followed by Mark McGoogle, followed by John McAllum. One of the things that Alison McAllum has already referred to is that Elish Angiolain's report suggested that there was a joint community justice Scottish Prison Service Board bringing the two of them together. I wondered whether the bill actually misses a trick and not actually looking at that, because that might facilitate both the understanding of the roles of prevention and punishment in the community as opposed to imprisonment and might facilitate resource coming from the prison service into community justice or do you think that that would just actually because it would be a national body, would that actually just reinforce, if you like, the centralisation that the money might not come down to the partners, which actually needed to have the money? I just wondered what your views on that might be. I think that it was Mr McAllum who wanted in there that right. I would agree that the board would be a good thing. I think that if in the long run, if we are looking to move people out of prisons into the community, then the resource needs to move from the prisons to the community. I know that that is a long-term objective, but clearly if that is an objective, then those bodies meeting at a national and as far as possible, also at local level, would be a good thing. I think that we have missed a trick to some extent by that board not being part of what is in the bill. Thank you. I have got my councillors muddled up. Is it councillor McNamara or McGrigan that wants both of you? Do you do a duet, do you? No, councillor McNamara, shoot. Thanks, convener. I would be again cautious about setting up yet another joint body overseeing, because from my perspective, I think that the setting up of the community planning partnership joint arrangement for community justice, that would be the vehicle, for example, for setting up the local community units to support women. Why do we need, it's not a prison that we're creating, it's a support mechanism that would be put in place, and the community justice element to community planning would be the ideal route for that overseeing, for that delivery, and indeed if we are empty in prisons, then the prison service are obliged to look at their budget and say, for example, at Pullman, when I first got involved, there was 800 young people in Pullman. You go to Pullman, now there's less than 400, and yet the Government has still built two large extensions that are now almost half empty, so there has to be a link up between the policy and the actual capital expenditure. I understand what you're saying, that it would sound ideal to have a national body, but no. I think that what you do is that the Government instructs, because they are Government agents, that if they are saving money in their budget, then that saving, as we spoke about earlier, would be devolved down to the local community for the local community to decide how best that would be utilised. I'm just saying why they're not on section 12, which is the community justice partners, which includes the chief counsel on the Scottish farm resources for skills development, why the SPS isn't in there. The Scottish prison service? Yes. The Scottish prison service should be there. It's not. Where is it? It's one of the partners. It's not one of the partners. Yes, it's not one of the partners. Oh, Scottish Minister, I beg your pardon, you're right, yes, no, that's all right, I'm just getting myself befuddled. You did one in Councillor McWiggins. There is a role for the SPS to play both nationally and locally, and I think we have seen evidence of a change in attitude by the SPS. It's becoming more outward going, it wants to engage with the communities, and that's happening, and I think it's beneficial that the role that it would have nationally, I think we have to be careful about simply saying it will operate through the community justice Scotland mechanism, because we don't want to see, I don't want to see, a powerful body up there. I want to see that activity taking place at the lower level. I completely agree with the aspiration of bringing the SPS more into the discussion on community justice, and potentially having a joint board would free up the resources and allow it to flow back. I think that the resource flow is the important bit there, and there would be a concern that if the community justice Scotland board and the prison service board were combined, that it takes us back to a criminal justice discussion rather than a community justice discussion, and takes us away from that prevention early intervention focus that we're looking for. I think that the confusion for me is the sub-section nature that refers to the Scottish ministers, and I'd prefer to say the SPS rather than the Scottish ministers, because that to me is not the SPS. That's fine. Margaret MacDougall followed by John. I should perhaps say at the outset that I was Vice-Convenor to Peter on the South West Scotland Community Justice Authority, and we were also councillors together in North Ayrshire. That's tricky. It's just a reproduction of things before. I wanted to mention around the quote from Cleolyn Sneddon from the last evidence session, where he said that the bill would be strengthened if the central role of CPPs was reinforced and there was greater clarity about the duties on all partners to contribute locally. As a previous convener of CPP, I just wonder—you spoke, Lorraine Llyrhan and Amanda spoke about the pressures on CPPs—this is one challenge too many. I know how difficult it is to get the third sector involved in CPPs and have them truly represented, so there is an issue around how the third sector will be represented within the bill. My other question is about offenders, families and victims. Are they adequately represented in all this? I haven't seen anything. I haven't heard anyone mention anything about that this morning so far. I think that I'll take Ms Gillis first. I'll take it that you're wanting to say something, yes, and then Ms Coulthard, because she was both nodding and doing this. We've got very informal, suddenly. No, I don't think that it's one challenge too many. I think that it's about time to be perfectly honest. I think that the Community Empowerment Act gives us a strengthened sounding board for starting to move ahead in the terms that you're discussing. On the third sector, I think that there are challenges and how the third sector engages. At the moment, the expectation is that it engages through the third sector interface model, and there are some challenges in terms of how that's being rolled out across Scotland. Some very, very good examples of where that relationship is working very well, and the third sector is engaged strategically and operationally. However, there are also areas in which that is not working as well, so I do think that that needs some attention. I would say, though, that community planning and community empowerment gives us the opportunity to engage others who aren't necessarily engaged in community justice outcomes. I'm thinking particularly of local employers, private sector, Scottish Courts Service. I think that there's a whole raft of organisations that we would like to have better engaged. I think that calling it the third sector is one of those, but there are others that I would probably look to having an enhanced level of engagement through community planning and through community empowerment than we have before. To finish, I totally agree that I'm linked into several different work streams around the national strategy, and that's something that we have been looking at particularly around victims and families. Where are they in this whole agenda, and I'm not convinced that they're called out strongly enough? I agree completely with what Lorain said. It's more an opportunity than a step too far for us. I think that there's a really good opportunity in terms of timing around about the empowerment legislation, public sector reform and justice reform to allow us to bring everything together and be much more person-centred in how we approach all of the work that we're doing. I think that we do need to think differently about how we engage with a range of different stakeholders in this work, but that engagement has to be at the appropriate level for the people that we're trying to involve. There's a huge amount of work to be done on families and victims and offenders themselves, but it doesn't necessarily have to be at the writing of a justice plan level. We have to think differently about how we commission services, how we consult and engage service users and local community members on what services look like for the area and what the need is in the area. We have some great examples of third sector interface work to pick up on and learn from that, but it's a fair way to go on that. I thank you. I have Mr Wood, Councillor McGregor and Councillor McNamara. Mr Wood, first, sorry. I have a couple of quick points in response to the member's question. In terms of Clylon Sneddon's quote, yes, we would absolutely agree that the role of the CPP should be explained more clearly within the bill. I think that we are yet to hear a convincing answer as to why that is in the case and it would be interesting to hear that from the minister. I will go back to each one of you shortly and say that there is one thing that you want changed in the bill or added to the bill, so you will get your chance then, okay? I will pick up on the question that was asked in terms of bringing in the contributions from community planning partners or community justice partners. I think that section 30 of the bill is the opportunity to do that, and it's not quite robust enough in its wording at the moment. If I'm being pressed, then just to reiterate Amanda's point about involving families and victims and absolutely people with convictions as well in the co-production of services. Unless you have something different, councillors McGregor and McNamara, you team councillors, you have. No, just to say this, we cannot. We must not run away from the charge. No, you have nothing different to say. So we'll stop you right there because what I want to do is, as I said, bearing in mind that the next round of tables sitting waiting is to come round and say to each of you, you know, which one thing would, just one, not a big story, one thing you would like to add or change in the bill in summation. Who do you want me to start? Who wants to start here? I'll come round in order. Is Sunday ready, Mr Wood? Are you ready? Mr Stuart Beggarporn, are you ready? Help us if I get your name right. I think that the key thing for myself would be the prevention agenda is made more clear. I think that it is a massive mistake to miss out making clear the CPP focus on prevention if we want to engage CPP partners around the table. Strengthening local governance and accountability through community planning partnerships? I think that we need to look at how we resource that. Mr Wood, now, sorry. A robust fitting for the local partnerships and limitations as to what community justice Scotland will do. The bill should be absolutely clear about the role of the community planning partnerships in this whole venture. It should define it more clearly. We should not, and I'll say it again, we should not run away from the challenges. It is not a challenge too far. Community planning partnerships should be working together, sharing resources and making a difference to the communities that they serve. Mr McAllum? I think that I would like to see the definition of community justice broadened out so that as broad as it could possibly be. I would like to see a clear empowerment to the local community justice arrangements so that they have the influence to drive forward this agenda, which is extremely important, as has been pointed out. Thank you very much. I want to thank you all for your evidence. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did and that the committee did, and that you find it useful. Is there anything else that you wish to add, perhaps following on what you hear next or what you read next, to write to me as convener and be shared with the entire committee? Sometimes you think of things afterwards. I am going to suspend for five minutes to allow the next witnesses to sit round and get their places. Thank you very much and stretch my legs. Now, resuming, we go into our second round table and I welcome the new participants to the session. I know that all of you were sitting through part at least of the previous session and you have therefore got the idea of how we do this. If you indicate to me that you want to say something, I will call you put on a list to tell you where you are and your light comes on automatically—well, not your own light, the light in front of you. I am sorry about that. I am going to do it again. This time, I will remember what anti-clockwise is, thank you, Elaine, and we will move round and introduce ourselves. I am the convener, Christine Grahame, and I am the member for Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale. I am Mark McSherry from the Risk Management Authority. Margaret Mitchell, MSP Central Scotland and member of the Justice Committee. Theresa Mayters, director of strategy and innovation for the Scottish Prison Service. I am Roderick Campbell, MSP for North East Fife. I am Sean McKendrick from Social Work Scotland. Gil Paterson, MSP for Clydebank and MoGuy. Christian Nanard, MSP for the No Feas. Thank you very much. Hello, I am Graham Foster. I am the director of Public Health and Strategic Planning at NHS Forth Valley. John Finnie, MSP Highlands and Islands. John Watt, chair of the Parol Board for Scotland. Alison McKinnis, MSP North East Scotland. Grant Manners, from Police Scotland. Margaret Mitchell, MSP for West Regent and a member of the committee. As I threw it out before, what's good and bad, like the curate seg, what's good and bad about this proposed piece of legislation, does somebody want to just open up, first of all, from our witnesses? Oh, I can tumbleweed time. Thank you very much, Mr McKendrick. In terms of the proposed bill, there are a number of advantages, and I might just start with the positive. On reflection, in terms of what I might say, there might be some more negatives associated with the bill than the positives associated with it. The positive parts of it is the commitment to a national strategy around community justice, and the positive element of it is in relation to the outcomes and performance improvement framework. Those are principles as they stand just now. None of the consultees have saw the final detail of those elements of the positive aspects of the bill, but they're broadly welcomed in relation to that. It's incredibly helpful for local government and other partners to be clear around what they want to provide and produce in terms of outcomes, and a clear strategy should hopefully draw partners together to be much more effective in delivering community justice strategies. In relation to some more concerning aspects of the bill, and I apologise, I might reiterate some of the end comments of the last session, but maybe duplication in this instance might be quite helpful. In relation to this, it's a fairly poor and narrow definition of community justice. Earlier respondents and, indeed, contributors to this committee commented on its lack of mention of early intervention and prevention. That, frankly, is deeply concerning. In relation to the notion of the creation of community justice partners and the nomination of them, the consultation process did not indicate a body in terms of the enshrinement of community justice partners and localities. I went on to reflect the importance of community planning partnerships and, although I will not get the quote exactly correct, the Government's response to the consultation in December 2014 indicated that the governance, and I mean governance in the broadest structure around performance, finance and accountability, would lie with community planning partnerships. That, in itself, is a particular concern. Building on from that, and the last major aspect that causes this concern, is that the function and relationship between community justice Scotland and local partnerships and the way in which that is articulated might open itself to misrepresentation and, frankly, an unhelpfulness in delivering the forms of outcomes and services that can deal with what we would all want from an effective community justice service. It's given us the opportunity to work at a national level on the strategy and performance and to look at the outcomes together as well, so we've been able to input at and are still inputting at a national level. I think that at a local level for most of us as national bodies, where we were dealing previously with eight community justice authorities and moving potentially to 32 community planning partnerships, then how we engage with 32 different authorities may prove challenging, and that's work that we potentially are, or that's work that we are doing at the moment. In addition to that, we are pleased that the definition for those who are coming out of custody in terms of who's involved with those partnerships has been broadened out, because as offenders leave our custody and return to communities, there are more challenges than exist just within community justice for resettlement, so that broader definition, as was discussed earlier, definitely gives more impetus to wider access to services and support for offenders when they leave custody. From a Scottish Prison Service perspective, while there are some challenges that we are currently working on in terms of how we get appropriate representation and input at a local level, which we have identified will initially be done through a mapping out of those partnerships, what the implications are in terms of the types of information that are required, and how we can provide that information, and also to provide some leadership through the identification of governors-in-charge who will represent the SPS at a local level. We are working through that at the moment, but in broad terms, we welcome the opportunity to look at shared outcomes and much more effective local planning for those who are leaving custody in that difficult transition back into the community. I want to start with a public health standpoint, starting with a very positive note. We are very enthusiastic about the content of the bill. It is very important that we recognise the importance of the cycle of offending and re-offending in tackling Scotland's public health problems. It is deeply linked to the cycles of poverty and deprivation that our communities face. It is a clear element in persisting inequalities in our communities. We think that it is a really positive step forward. We welcome the clear recognition of the importance of community planning in that, so it is very important that we keep doing that through community planning partnerships, because they are the vehicle that we are currently working with our local partners to tackle many of those issues. That is very positive. We would like to see single outcome agreements continuing to be a main vehicle in tackling some of Scotland's public health challenges. It is important that the bill recognises the role of alcohol and drug partnerships. As the chair of an alcohol and drug partnership, it is very important that we recognise the clear links to substance misuse in its many forums. It is good that the bill recognises that and starts to move that forward. What else is indicated from our witnesses that they want to come in right now? That was a challenge that I hoped you would take up. You go for it. It is a challenge that I would be delighted to take. In a similar vein, by and large, we welcome the opportunity that the bill gives us to tidy up this area a wee bit. Similarly to what you have heard already and at risk of sound like a broken record, we recognise that, as it is currently constituted, there might be some challenges around that. We particularly welcome the emphasis on community planning or what we thought was the emphasis on community planning that maybe has not translated through the bill into delivering that potential. Community planning and local outcome agreements is where the stuff ought to get delivered. If it is delivered through that, I think that we can tidy up the interface with ADPs and the like more successfully than under any other system. There is a real potential there that we recognise. We think that the bill maybe needs to be a bit more explicit around some of that. To underline that, it is the terminology that sits around a bill such as community justice partners, as opposed to community planning partnerships and the like that might cause some confusion. If community justice is to be delivered successfully, the continuum, the spectrum of partners, is huge. Those partners are not necessarily what we would recognise immediately as traditional criminal justice or even community justice partners. I think that you have already heard evidence from people talking about housing and all that sort of stuff. You have already talked today about the importance of the third sector and some of the niches that sit in the third sector. All of that is really, really important. It is that local cut and thrust that is really important to delivery. The final point that Police Scotland would like to make—in fact, there are two final points—for this to be successful, it needs to be a whole systems approach. It needs to be right from start through to finish. That leads you on to the emphasis on prevention and early intervention. Partners locally recognise the terminology of whole systems approaches of all of that sort of stuff. We have been doing this in youth justice now for a number of years. Sean and I have worked really closely on that and Glasgow in an operational sense. However, if it was to go into my current role in Argyll and Bute, they are equally adept, knowledgeable and practised at delivering whole systems. For me, successful community justice is a whole systems approach. It would be nice if some of that language, some of that experience, some of that good practice was encompassed in the language of the bill. That is a nice thing. The other thing that I worry a wee bit about and a number of contributors to the Police Scotland response worry about is the resourcing of all of this. There seems to be the only money that is mentioned in this is the money for community justice Scotland and the section 27 monies, which are there anyway. If you keep delivering on the section 27 monies in the same way that we have always delivered on the section 27 monies, not very much is going to change. There are some issues that sit around the resourcing and the broader sphere of things. I know that you discussed that in the first session as well. From what was meant to be two sentences, I seem to have been going on for about 10 minutes. I think I was listening, yes I was. Does anybody else want to come in for a move to committee members? Right. Committee members, who wants to come in now with questions? John, I'll take you because she went in last time. I would like the panel views on what public awareness of the partnership should be. A lot of people I encounter have never heard of no experience and that is the case across the public sector of course. Is that important or are we needing more public involvement? I'm not sure that I'm going to commit to answering first every single question. However, you'll note from Social Work Scotland's contribution that we made a mention of the involvement of community. The reality is that that's where people who are off at, who are providing these services and receiving these services are actually in. I don't think that the public has a significant awareness indeed in actual fact. One of the things that we would welcome is the community justice Scotland having a responsibility to promote the benefits of engagement, promote the benefits of the assistance and in actual fact work collectively with organisations and partnerships to deliver those types of interventions. The short answer to your question is that I think that the public are quite far removed in many respects from the rehabilitative element of offending behaviour. They are clearly focused on creating, managing and indeed dealing with those that commit offences, but the other side of that particular coin in terms of their understanding of the rehabilitative nature of it and the reasons why particularly and very well highlighted in the commission on women offenders report why women or why women and indeed some men get involved in some form of offending. I think that there's quite a bit of debate with the public to be had. I think that politicians as well as partnerships in terms of both community planning partnerships and in community justice Scotland has a significant role to play. Fairness to the drafters in section 3 is subsection 1d of the bill. One of the functions of community justice Scotland is to promote public awareness of benefits arising from. So it is there, might not be wide enough for you, but it's there in the bill. Ms Metters. Just to reflect a point that was made earlier in the previous session that particularly the SPS and the work that we do very often, there is an adverse public reaction to some of the more innovative practices or trying to improve outcomes by doing things differently and that adverse publicity can then have a negative impact on those individuals that we're trying to transition back into communities. So I think that there is something around public awareness for us all that we need to take more of what we're doing back into communities to get a better understanding from them as to what we require in terms of their support because these are their citizens. When they return to communities they're no longer offenders, they are no longer people in prison, they are citizens of our community and they should be treated as such. Thank you, Christian. Yes, thank you very much. I'll write some of the submission and some of them talked about this bill being an enabling bill and we heard a lot this morning about how more limited it should be and who should be engaging, who should be on it as a partner. We're trying to define a lot about find a lot of definition and adding a lot to this bill. Do you think it will strengthen it or do you think it will maybe weaken the idea of being an enabling bill and being a lot more permissive of what can be done at local level, particularly local authorities who are very diverse from one another and who can interact. We heard this morning about the private sector could be involved as well so you could have a different picture, very different pictures in all local authorities so how much do you think we should change the bill as a way it is to keep or should we leave it as an enabling bill as some of the submission described it does. I take at your focusing on section 12, is that right, community justice partners? Yeah, maybe. Look at that and see whether we should have more a list or whether when she start a list you never know where to stop it. Any comments please? Well can I I'm going to ask something of the SPS, I see you're under H as the Scottish Ministers. Do you happy about that? The Scottish Prison Service, we had duties placed upon us to work with community justice authorities, we have duties placed on us to work with the community planning partnerships, so we fully understand that we have a role to play and that we should. It's not my ask, you're under H as the Scottish Ministers under community justice partners section 12 subsection 1 H in the list you're defined, I understand as the Scottish Ministers now. You mean should you not be there as the Scottish Prison Service? That's a make more sense to me. We're an agency of Scottish Ministers. You've been very diplomatic but I don't want you to be diplomatic, I want you to tell me whether you should be there as the Scottish Prison Service because anyway reading this would not understand, I don't understand it. I understand why you don't understand it. But there's somebody else answer for this good lady who's not referred to as, who would find it more helpful, be the Scottish Prison Service there, yes? I would make the point that, similarly, I don't think Crown Office procreate a fiscal service or specifically mentioned in that either and I think there would be an argument you know along the same lines in relation to that. I also noticed that the chief constable is the only individual that's mentioned there and I just, I wonder why that is and I'll make it for no other point than it is the only individual everybody else is named by the organisation. So it should be Police Scotland? So just Police Scotland. And Crown Office procreate a fiscal service and possibly but not necessarily the Scottish Prison Service but I think it, I mean legislation should be understandable by other people and I don't think that this is understandable. Any other, but more comments, don't foster. Thank you, I was just going to echo that and in response to the question about community involvement, I think there are a number of things that are currently on going which are about trying to deliver community empowerment and engage communities and to give a simple answer. It needs to be simple because the people cannot understand our very very complex arrangements and I've frequently heard the public landscape described as a rather crowded dance floor for example and at the moment it is very crowded and we are introducing new bodies into it and the more bodies we introduce into it the more difficult it becomes for our population to understand and the harder for us to all engage. So the call is trying to make it as simple as possible. Any any other comments? Christian, are you finished? No, it's great. Nobody wants to answer the question about the enabling bill. Should it be an enabling bill or not? It should be more prescriptive. Prescriptive? Yes, Mr McSherry. I think just in that particular point in relation to our functions as I always get this second and wrong on NEPB who has a responsibility to promote effective practice, undertake research and deliver training. I'm not sure if the bill provides specification in relation to the overlap between the functions of the new body and our own responsibilities in relation to those who pose a risk of serious harm. However, I'm not sure that necessarily the legislation needs to detail what those relationships are as long as there's a commitment to undertake further discussions as to how those two bodies sit together. Trying to tackle the question about it should be enabling or prescriptive. Degrees of flexibility are always welcome in terms of planning services. I think that the answer to your question is in part what the national strategy tells us and what the outcome and improvement framework actually tells us, because that in itself should be enabling and should be wide and broad encompassing enough for partners involved in the delivery of community justice services to be engaged within. I think that the permissiveness is helpful and welcome. I think that there's an absolute and clear connection with the national strategy and what that says. Again, it's not written as yet, and I think that there's a connection around the national performance and improvement framework that will come as well, that will give the degree of flexibility that is required. I also want to make a point that I had made earlier on in relation to the concerns around the relationship that's articulated within the bill between Community Justice Scotland, locality, criminal community justice partners and CPPs. I think that with the new development around the nomination of community justice partners and the lack of mention of community planning partnerships, we've actually missed an opportunity to be more flexible and actually to be more permissive. I'll explain what I mean by that. Community planning partnerships, as we all know, are well established around this table. They deal with a host of complex, difficult problems that our communities face. They pull on a wide variety of resources. They've got significant governance and significant experience in planning. My concern in relation to the engagement of Community Justice Scotland was that, A, it will take some time to form and, B, the clarity around its relationship and the accountability between Community Justice Scotland, local partners and the national body is not particularly well articulated and can lead to significant misinterpretation. In summary, I think that it's helpful that there's a permissiveness, there's an enablement. I think that it's not necessarily in legislation that that's best reflected in terms of the objectives behind the bill. I think that the strategy and the outcomes framework is where that should be. We await with interest to see how that's shaped and what that actually says. That's why Social Work Scotland gives this a cautious welcome in relation to these elements because these aspects that support the bill, support the permissiveness and support the flexibility that's required are not yet known and not yet articulated. So, the position is that flexibility is good. We await these two elements of the supporting aspects to the bill and we will see in due course as to whether or not it's permissive enough to create the flexibility of service provision that's required in this area. In a way it's perhaps when it's up and running to some extent to swing these things sort themselves out to an extent. Not saying it solves everything, but in a way it's not a succot and sea, but once it's there we are rebalancing, I would think. Practice tells us that that's the case. I guess, however, it's important that the outline of what will be developed post the legislation is really quite important and addresses a number of different issues. Indeed. Roderick, followed by Elaine, please. Thank you, convener. To some extent my question has been answered. I'd just like to pose the general question to the panel, what do they think? The bill, as it stands, seeming that it might be tweaked slightly, will enhance the attraction of community justice to judges. Yes, more tumble bead. I think that sheriffs and judges like to know what's out there before they make disposals. This is going to help it. That was the point that we were going to make. I was a fiscal for 35 years before I retired and took this probal job. Looking back to then, I think that you're right, chair. Judges have to understand what's out there for them in their area, what programmes are available, what schemes are out there that they can use, so until they see it operating on the ground and happening for them and in social background reports in front of them, I don't see that much in it for them at the moment. That's that one then, nailed to the floor. Elaine, follow my Margaret Mitchell, please. The previous session was expressed by one of the contributors about the fact that he was £2 million for community justice Scotland, but as he put it, he offered the community justice partners at a local level. I wondered if that was a concern for you as well. The bill does not follow the Angelini recommendation that there should be a joint community justice and prison service board, which might have facilitated some transfer of funding from the prison service to community justice. Have you reviewed whether that was necessary? In the previous session, some people thought that that might have been a good thing, some people thought that it might not have. I have to say what you mentioned. He, who is watching the official report, studiously wrote it down again. Questions then? Answers to that, please. I'm quite happy to speak to the first part and Theresa probably spoke to the second part of that. In terms of the initial question, the He-Haw question, it has been the subject of discussion locally in community planning partnerships, and I sit in two community planning partnerships. It would be wrong to say that it has been missed. I noticed that Lorraine and Amanda backed up the He-Haw question as well. It is one that I think is really quite important to address. I think that it is really important to us, because even if we look at how community justice authorities are currently configured, there is a small resource there, working in policy performance analysis and all the outcome-based stuff that we currently look at that allowed Peter and others to talk about their splendid results in the past. Under that notion, some of that resource, in my reading of it, would transfer to community justice Scotland, but there have been no resource left other than what is currently in community planning arrangements. Now, there is no doubt that the current staff in community justice authorities are built up in expertise and knowledge in this field that perhaps is not translated into the broader community planning governance arrangements. If that resource is not transferred to me, it presents some threats, and that is the point that I would make around that. With regard to budgets, with the current funding arrangements, there is no unallocated resource that the Scottish Prison Service has. Our position currently is that there is still a significant churn in the short-term population and the number of prisoners with high-care needs and the complexity of those who are coming into custody in terms of high risk is increasing as well. I know that there is a suggestion that presumption against short-term sentences might be extended, and I think that there was also evidence given to the committee in February about the prisoner control of release bill, which will potentially have an impact on prison numbers as well. At some point, there will have to be consideration given to that. It needs to be at a point at which we can see that there has been a reduction in the overall population and that we are in a position to be able to manage that going forward. There was merit in the Angelini suggestion that the Prison Service and the community justice authority should be one board. Obviously, the Government feels that this is not the time to do that, but that was a trick that had been missed. I think that, in light of Angelini, there was a consultation undertaken by the Scottish Government and, obviously, out of that, those are the arrangements that seem to be most appropriate at this time. As the Scottish Prison Service, we are concerned about, and it was welcome to hear Mr McGuigan's comments on the fact that we are becoming more outward facing, that we understand and appreciate that the strength of partnership working and in communities and taking individuals out of custody and that transition is really important in the path, in the desistence path and, ultimately, in reducing re-offending. We will engage in that in whatever shape this turns out to be. I might come to the question about the board in a second, but I just would want for the record to endorse the comments made by Mr Manders in terms of the funding-related question and the concern that is associated with that and the experience that is built up in relation to report and analysis. I come to the question about the board. I am frankly not really sure about a board. The issue that needs to be considered and I think requires some further reflection is to the mechanism of is around about justice reinvestment. The Audit Scotland report pointed to £3 billion being spent on dealing with offences. That is not all connected with prison, but it is a significant amount of money. If we were to look at the mechanism around justice reinvestment, whether it is a board that exists between the community justice Scotland and the Scottish Prison Service, as I said earlier, I have some misgivings, and I am not absolutely certain on that. What I am absolutely certain on is that we need some form of reflection and structure that, once we are able to re-establish or manipulate those individuals remaining in the community with proper supports, we should have a mechanism that looks at that form of re-adjustment and resource realignment. Whether it is a board, I am not really certain, but I would like us, either in the strategy or in the bill, to reflect a mechanism for doing that. Do you mean money coming, if successful, money from the SPS budget flowing? Yes. We have seen so many other examples in terms of the public sector in relation to health and hospitals. I think that we should learn from that, and that we should look to reflect and think of a mechanism that assists that process, whether it is a board or not, as I said earlier, and that I am really not certain on. I have Margaret Mitchell, by Allison, please. In the last session, we heard that COSLA very much welcomed the community focus when the consultation was there, but they were under the impression that the national body would be supporting the 32 local bodies. We seemed to move to a partnership, and then there has been a little bit of concern that the national body might be a little too powerful. I note also from Police Scotland's written submission that there is some concern over ministers appearing to retain wide influence over the national body and what exactly would be involved in the section on the direction guidance. Given the concerns that Dean Eilish had suggested in the inspectorate, which you probably heard, you did not seem to find much favour with the last panel, but some kind of independence scrutiny, your views on that would be very much welcome. I suspect that everybody will have a strong view on this. My personal view mirrors the previous panel. I think that we have plenty of very good inspection bodies, and we are well experienced now in joint inspections. I think that they bring a richness and a broader perspective to inspection than a single agency. For example, just looking at the community justice purest element to that, if it was a broad inspection regime involving prison service inspectorate, police inspectorate, social work inspectorate and various others, I think that you would get a really rich picture and, of course, with Audit Scotland bringing its own particular perspective into that. I do not think that it is beyond the wit of us to actually work with that and to actually really benefit from it. Immediately, and Dean Eilish did say that we have an inspectorate of prisons. We have that, or if it would have been helped for almost like an independent arbiter, Audit Scotland has been talked of maybe performing that function, but I wonder if anyone had explored looking at how the balance could be struck by an independent source to ensure there weren't abuses, to make sure there was a local flexibility that is intended through the community bill, to ensure that prevention and early intervention was in there rather than concentrating on criminal justice. My view is that a joint inspection with four-side bodies would be the best way of achieving that. I am going to be in the no-camp. I think that there are significant public sector inspection bodies. I think that there is an issue around how we manage the outcomes, how well we are collectively delivering on those outcomes, and how well individual organisations are delivering on those outcomes. Some of that will come from the Government structure around those local partnerships, and some of it will come from the objectives that are already established by community justice Scotland. If I may also make comment on the first part of your question, which was about the balance or the imbalance in relation to a local versus national model, I would take the view that the actual bill as it stands is very unbalanced around the responsibilities and the objectives of the national model. It appears, in some respects, somewhat balanced by the explanatory memorandum that comes along with it at section 105, where it talks much less of monitoring and almost an associated negative set of activities around outcomes to a much more supportive relationship between community justice Scotland. I would certainly wish a degree of balance in the bill or in statutory guidance that is articulated in the activities proposed at section 105, which is generally, rather than reading all of that section out, which is generally around about using community justice Scotland's skills and experience to support and develop local practice and initiative. I think that if we are able to reflect that in the bill, that gives an appropriate balance between what is helpfully articulated as some objectives of a national body, but clearly I think that there is a balance required around the type of activities that it undertakes. The bill itself again, Mr McKendrick, section 3, subsection 1C, says of community justice Scotland to promote and support, which is not direct. It is promoting support and improvement in the quality and range of provision of community justice. Does that not satisfy you that the word support is there? It does. I guess that there is an illustration between the distinction between the memorandum, which is evidently by its nature, much more detailed, but it provides a much more collegiate perspective around this. I accept the bills. What counts at the end of the day? To reflect and agree with the point that Grant Manners made regarding inspections, the inspectorates are very well established and already conduct thematic inspections, as well as inspections of services. In terms of proposing a remit and scoping and outcomes, I think that it is something that jointly they would be able to do. That is a loss to you, Margaret. That word is lost. You have tested it to death, that is fine. Alison, to be followed by Margaret, please go. Ms Medhurst said that the Government had consulted on the proposal from Angiolini, which was this national agency, and come to a conclusion that the bill was the most appropriate way forward. We heard in the previous panel that the community justice authorities felt that it was the least bad local national compromise and that it was too much of a fudge. I wonder if the panel would give me the views on whether it is just a compromise too far, or whether it is the most appropriate way forward in balancing local and national tendons. I do not take that badly, Mr MacKendrick. I am not taking it badly in relation to a compromise. I am not really sure that I could support the word compromise. I have reflected previously on the surprise and professional disappointment that it is not enshrined or that the proposals are not integrated with the responsibilities for community planning partnerships. I think that that is a major error in relation to that. I might just take the opportunity to explain why I think that it is a major error. We talked about the complexities of individuals who offend in their city circumstances. Restricting the responsibility for community justice planning to the nominations in the bill itself does not create the synergies that are developed through community planning partners. For example, there are significant people missing here, notwithstanding the legal professional terms of the Crown Office, but services that are helpful to families. Earlier intervention services, the third sector and services associated with housing are all services that appear to be missed. I am not really sure that I could agree with the word compromise, but I think that I would say that there is a missed opportunity not to cement the activities that we would associate in delivering good outcomes for those people who are involved in the justice system and not connecting them into community planning partnerships. I think that that is a missed opportunity. From an SPS perspective, I said earlier in my opening that having that broader range of partners at the table is absolutely very welcome because we know that those transitions back into communities, individuals who have gone through a transition whilst in custody, made that journey and have made some very positive changes in their lives, then return and find difficulty accessing not criminal justice services necessarily, but those broader range of services, which are much more difficult. From that perspective, having the national, from a national organisation, we will come at it with a national perspective, but providing that local perspective, which has a much broader engagement right across the community, we will definitely improve outcomes for those moving back into custody. I will ask the same question as I did of the earlier witnesses. The third sector, it is very light on including the third sector in this. I wonder what the panel's views are on that. Do you feel that offenders' families and victims are adequately represented within the bill? In relation to the first question, I have just forgotten. I think that the point that was made earlier is that the third sector is incredibly important. We work with the third sector as well, but the difficulty is that across Scotland, what is provided in local communities differs quite considerably, and because it differs quite considerably and its local services have been developed for local needs, it is difficult to ask them to engage in any meaningful way because they do not have the resource or support to do it. It is about how it is done in a community sense or in a national sense, that we engage them, but recognise and reflect the fact that they are there and provide that support, because I know that it is critical in the work that is done locally. The third sector is absolutely a key partner in most of the work that we are developing in prisons, and we always engage with them and work as positively as we can, recognising the role that they play, not necessarily so much whilst in individuals in custody, but certainly coming up to release and then on release. We have strong linkages, but I think that there are difficulties around what they are able to deliver and the fact that they are not national bodies and that they are local by their very nature. I think that from a sort of family's victims and the offenders' perspective, certainly from a Scottish Prison Service perspective in relation to the journey that we are on, in organisational change, looking at desistence in the asset-based model, our focus very much is around about engaging with the individual themselves, with their families, but obviously always respecting the rights of the victims. I think that it is how we do that in a constructive way when we are working with somebody during their sentence and then that transition back into the community again. The question is about the importance of involving the voluntary sector and also the role of families. It will give sufficient cognisance to the families of the offenders and the victims of those offenders. The routes of offending behaviour run really deep and they engage all of our different organisations around the community planning table. It starts with early years and interventions that run through schooling and how we support people through school, it runs through the positive destinations after school and so on. We all carry responsibility for that and that is why the community planning partnerships are a really good place to do that. From my experience of setting up a family support hub at Caernton Vale prison, the people that we needed to engage to do that were the community planning partners. Again, I think that there is a huge opportunity here to use that community planning focus to engage the public and the communities in that work. The voluntary sector is absolutely a vital participant and one of the good things in our local area is that we have the voluntary sector at the community planning table and we need to emphasise that. I think that that is a very positive step. A third factor is that there are other agencies at that table who would not naturally be at a separate table or in a different discussion. For example, a strong partner for us locally in our partnership is Fourth Valley College, who would clearly play a really important role in supporting that and trying to reduce the offending and re-offending patterns. I think that we have a lot of potential to use the existing community planning structures to nail the voluntary sector engagement but also community engagement because we are actively trying to strengthen the community engagement in community planning partnerships right now. I cannot read your writing any more. You are getting tired, Mr McKendrick. The bill gives enough prominence to the vital and very important role that the third sector plays in the delivery of community justice interventions. It is fairly straightforward. It is sparsely mentioned in relation to the bill itself. I think that the answer is pretty clear. Maybe the other question that follows from that is the question around about, well, why isn't it? I think that the earlier submissions actually reflected at least some of the points that I am going to make. It is that it is very diverse as a third sector that can provide national services as well as an appropriately so locally defined services to bespoke sub-sections of those individuals that are involved in the justice system. It is a complex picture and we need to do more to make that more coherent, both from a national perspective and a local perspective, but it is complex for those very reasons. Some of it is also down to the commissioning set of arrangements and how well partnerships are using strategic commissioning principles. In addition to that, some of it is also down to the nature of the section 27 funding. Of that being annual, the capacity to third sector organisations to bring resilience to their organisations is impacted by at least some form of the funding that is available to them. In relation to families and victors and individuals involved in the justice system themselves, there is no mention again of those individuals. I take you back, arguably, to the definition of the bill in relation to what community justice is. If we were thinking about broadly articulating the bill, as is articulated in the policy memoranda, which is much broader, the issue around the impact on victims, individuals involved in the system themselves and families would be encompassed in that. I think very strongly for a number of reasons that those constituent members should be greater reflected within the bill, and that is, in part, due to the rather narrow definition that I have articulated earlier. Margaret, on that point, we all recognise how important the third sector is. The answer usually is that they are represented on community planning partnerships, but there is some concern that is very much top-down. There may only be one voice there, and there is not the direct think that there needs to be for funding for various third sector organisations, such as Circle or OpenSecret, which goes into Contenvale. How do the panel feel about that? Would community planning partnerships take the box for you, or does there need to be a more explicit mention of third sector organisations? I think that it would be useful for the bill or act to be pretty clear that there needs to be a duty to have the right third sector agencies involved at the community planning aspects. The reason I say that is that it may have been covered in the first session, but it is probably worth repeating anyway. Normally, on community planning partnerships, it is somebody who represents the third sector interface, who will not necessarily be a member of the third sector body who understands the agenda, who attends the strategic community planning partnership. It is important that we get people to the table who understand the agenda when we are talking about community justice matters, so it would be useful to do that. I think that, just as a secondary issue, it is an important point that Sean mentioned, strategic commissioning there. It is important to recognise that there are a lot of examples across Scotland where community planning partnerships and local authorities have joined together for the commissioning of some of the third sector bodies. That is something that ought to be encouraged. For example, if North Ayrshire has got ex-service, it would be a good idea if it shared it with South Ayrshire and vice versa. That way, we would end up with a virtuous circle. There are good examples around Scotland, but it would be useful if not the bill, but certainly the strategies sitting around it. Was it clear about what we could do around that? I was going to come round and just take a last round-up from you all of one thing. As I did with the previous panel, one thing that you would like to change in the bill or add to the bill, just one thing if I was to put you on your metal there and say what would you put in or take out or what? Just one. In a word, it would be prevention, but the reason for that has already been mentioned. It sits around issues around short-term prisoners and stuff like that. I think that we are well provided for with a longer term. Early intervention. Early intervention. Right. Anil, I asked you, Alison, what you would like, but you will get your chance at another time. Mr Watt. I suppose that, as a judicial agency, our role in this is limited, but I think that I would ask for some kind of duty for full exchange of information about an individual among partners so that that can be made available to decision makers, be that a court, the fiscal or a parole tribunal. It's not available just now. It could be an awful lot better. I think that I'd like to expand that maybe in writing if we've got time to explain data protection issues perhaps, not just now. Dr Foster. Thank you. Unfortunately I have two, so I'll need to be quite clever and try to make them one. You see, you've got one, it's in two parts, that's what politicians say. That's what we do, thank you. I've learned something to do. I mean, I should have to tell you these things. I have one reply, it's in two parts. The first is, I think, we were talking about how you measure, and I think it's really, really important that we find some way in the bill to talk about positive destinations and not just the negative measures. So we shouldn't be measuring re-offending rates, we need to measure individuals going into employment or other positive destinations. I think that that would make a huge difference to the way that this lands. The second one was just picking up on the discussion. The landscape is very, very complicated. The NHS, even as a large public sector body, struggles to already manage to attend all the different partnerships and organisations. So anything we can do to keep it simple and keep the number of organisations simple will help all of us and will especially help people like the voluntary sector bodies and so on who want to come to the table. So try and keep it simple, try and build on existing mechanisms rather than create new ones. Thank you, Mr McHenry. You've not got one point in three parts, thank you. Open up the gates there. No, for timing, I might just make the one point that you suggested. On the basis of forum follows function, I think that we really need to look at what the definition is. I think that if you get a broader definition with the clarity that picks up some of the discussion around about inclusion, you'd have a much better bill. He just stole my thunder. There is to be a further working definition of community justice, and it's really important that that definition gives clear parameters so that we have got absolute clarity about the continuum of service for offenders both within community and custody. Mr McHenry. I have two parts, although it's on a continuum. That's all. Hey, you're embellishing it now. First part, just as I mentioned earlier on, it's not so much changes to the bill, but clarification in relation to the delineation of roles and functions between the new body and also our own organisation would be welcome. I think what we mentioned in our submission was also that there is reference in relation to the map at annual reports being subject to review by the community justice Scotland, but it's unclear, I think, within the bill as to what function the community justice Scotland body is taking in relation to, does it have responsibility and oversight of those map arrangements, so some follow clarification in the bill would be welcome now. Well, thank you all very much, and we very much enjoyed this evidence session. Again, it's very useful, and I'll just suspend for a minute, stay put team, to let witnesses leave, because we've got another item on the agenda. Quickly on to item 3. It's consideration of five negative instruments. The Scottish Government says that the purpose of all five instruments is to move toward fees that reflect the full cost of the processes involved with some fee exemptions to protect access to justice. The first is adults within capacity public guardians fees Scotland regulations 2015. These make provision for the fees payable to public guardian in Scotland. The DPLR committed to consider this instrument at its meeting on 1 September and agreed that it did not need to draw the attention of the Parliament to the instrument on any grounds within its remit. Do members have any comment? Are members content to make no recommendation? The second negative instrument that we're considering today is the Court of Session fees order 2015. This makes provision for the fees payable to the Court of Session, the principal clerk of session, the accountant of court and the auditor of the court of session, or any officer acting for one of those officers. The DPLR committee considered this instrument at its meeting on 1 September 2015 and agreed that it did not need to draw the attention of the Parliament to the instrument on any grounds within its remit. Do members have any comment on relation to this instrument? Are members content to make no recommendation on this instrument? My apologies. The third negative instrument that we're considering today is the High Court of Justituary fees order 2015. This makes provision for the fees payable to the High Court of Justituary to the principal clerk of justituary or any other officer acting for the principal clerk. The DPLR committee considered this instrument at its meeting on 1 September 2015 and agreed that it did not need to draw the attention of the Parliament to the instrument on any grounds within its remit. Do members have any comments? Are members content to make no recommendation? The fourth instrument is the Justice of the Peace Court fees order 2015. This makes provision for the fees payable in justice of the peace courts in Scotland to the clerk of the justice of the peace court. The DPLR committee considered this instrument at its meeting on 1 September 2015 and agreed that it did not need to draw the attention of the Parliament to the instrument on any grounds within its remit. Do members have any comment on relation to the instrument? Are members content to make no recommendation on this instrument? The fifth and final instrument today is the Sheriff Court fees order 2015. The order makes provision for the fees payable in the Sheriff Court to the Sheriff's Clerk or the Auditor of Court. The DPLR committee considered this instrument at its meeting on 1 September 2015 and agreed that it did not need to draw the attention of the Parliament to the instrument on any grounds within its remit. Do members have any comments on this instrument? Are members content to make no recommendation on this instrument? A next meeting will take place on 22 September when we will take evidence of the Cwngty Justice Scotland Bill and consider amendments to the Criminal Justice Scotland Bill at stage 2 and look at our on-going petitions. In relation to the criminal justice bill, we will be going no further than part 6. We will consider amendments and stop and search and powers arrest a later meeting. I am going to ask Spice for a briefing on the community empowerment bill, which seems to interact so much with the community justice bill that we have. I think that that would be quite useful for us to have an idea about that one, which is processing its local government. That went past me in a flash. We need to know more about the interaction because they seem to relate to each other considerably. Thank you very much. That is the end of the meeting.