 Good afternoon and welcome to the Justice Committee's 19th meeting of 2019. We have apologies from Jenny Gilruth, Fulton MacGregor and Liam Kerr, and I'm pleased to welcome Maurice Corey, who is substituting for Liam Kerr to the committee. Agenda item number one is our only business today, and it's an evidence session on the interim report on the independent review of complaints handling investigations and misconduct issues in relation to policing. I'm pleased to welcome to the committee today the right honourable Dean Eilish Angelini, Ian Garnahan, the head of the secretariat and Paul Allen, member of the secretariat supporting Dean Eilish. I refer members to paper one, which is a private paper, and I invite Dean Eilish to make some opening remarks. Before you do so, can I thank you for providing a copy of the report to the committee? Thank you, convener, and thank you for the invitation to meet with you today. My independent review commenced, as you may recollect in September of last year, and my mandate from Scottish ministers is to make recommendations that will help to strengthen public confidence in policing in Scotland, apropos the issue of complaints and their investigation and misconduct matters. Since then, I've undertaken over 80 interviews with individuals and have held over 30 meetings and led to focus groups in discussions. The first report that you have before you is a preliminary report that sets out the nature of the high-level analysis of the functions of the organisations and the problems that have been identified to me at this stage. There are a number of significant issues clearly contained in that report, but there are still a number of matters to be dealt with, which I will now move to in particular. One of the major issues is about victim or complainer participation in the process and how that is supported, and also the issue of whistleblowing. There are major issues, as well as looking at some of the more significant propositions for structural change, which may arise as a result of further deliberations. I will also be visiting the individual responsible for investigating complaints against the police, the Pony organisation in Northern Ireland and going back to England to the IOPC for more interviews and discussions with those who are currently implementing some of the new changes there. We have also had visits with the Home Office officials, as you know the English and Welsh are about to have a whole new set of regulations governing their procedures. I did not want to be unduly influenced by that. I wanted to look at what I considered to be the issues here, but also clearly there are some resonance in what they have been doing based on the Taylor and Chapman reports to changing their procedures in England and Wales. Those are the only comments that I would like to make at this stage. I hope to have further public engagement with officers at all levels to hear from them. There has been a very significant number of submissions from organisations, and I am particularly grateful for those. I have to say that the fullest of co-operation is from all the four major organisations and agencies involved in the matter. We now move to questions starting with Daniel Johnson. Thank you for coming along and giving us the opportunity to see one another on a Monday, which is noble. I would just like to begin with the four agencies that you just mentioned. I was struck by paragraph 277 in your report talking about the professionalism with which the organisations approach their work, but then commenting, what has however become clear through the evidence to the review and from recent media coverage, and as a matter of serious concern, is that certain aspects of those relationships that are between the four agencies are suboptimal and characterised by an absence of constructive engagement and coloured by a tone of citizenism. Indeed, in the subsequent sentences in that paragraph, you used the word suspicion three times. I was very concerned when I was reading that. I was just wondering if you could maybe elaborate on how you would characterise this relationship and indeed what the consequences of this apparent suspicion that exists. Are there any particular relationships between the four organisations, i.e. between particular ones, which are of particular concern to you? Yes. Probably because this committee has led evidence on these matters during the course of the consideration of the act, it would have been evident that there are tensions between those organisations. Tension, to some extent, is not a bad thing, it is natural. However, very often the issue of independence is one that is mistaken for isolation, and isolation of course undermines independence. The important thing is that, while each of them has constitutional roles to carry out, what is very important regarding that is that there is a regular interaction to understand each other, to understand the problems, the challenges, what is good, what is positive and what is not going right. That becomes a dynamic that drives continual improvement, which is what a great deal of this is about. What seems to be the cases that certainly the relationship between the police seems to be concerned with the disposition that they felt was coming from the perk towards one of suspicion. Clearly, if you are investigating, the mindset that you have as an investigator has to be an open mind. It has to be one that is not prejudiced or jaundiced, because jaundice is not in partiality. It has to be one that does not judge the organisation on the basis of what has gone before necessarily, as a continuum, but is looking at each case afresh and contributing more widely when you find things that are wrong to continual improvement. That was something that was really marked in the evidence, particularly from a number of the police officers, was the view that they felt that there was cynicism about them, that there were conspiracies afoot, when in fact they were trying to do a job, whether they were getting it right is another matter, but whether or not people were actually somehow conspiring to get things wrong. That was a feeling that was coming over in the evidence. Certainly, in terms of any particular organisation, I think that the relationship between the prosecution and the police seemed to be a workable relationship, which was, again, quite clearly independent, but there was a clear respect for the individual organisations. That was also reflected in the relationship between the prosecution and the perk. I do not think that there was any issue. The real issue seems to be the relationship and the tone that was perceived to be coming from the perk organisation towards the police. As a result of a degree of cynicism, there was almost a rebuttable presumption of guilt of doing something behind anything that was found at that time. That was also a sense of not being able to really get relationships going in the way that they had. That began to change during the course of my review, because it is something that I commented on at an earlier stage. Obviously, having read the transcripts of the committee's important review into that matter, I was concerned with what was being said at that stage. What I asked at the very beginning was what degree of joint training was taking place, and I think that hitherto not very much. The organisations did notwithstanding that they had common interests and significant need to know about each other, to understand, for instance, how do you train a police officer to restrain someone? What is it being taught? What is it like to be out on a Friday night when the streets are full of people who are drunk or disorderly? What does it take? What type of issues might an officer, even at a police constable or higher level, have to deal with? Those require a practical and quite an acute professionalism in understanding. It is not something that you simply get from reading from a report in an almost laboratory condition where you can make a clinical assessment of someone's conduct, maybe months or days afterwards. It does require an integration and understanding of what they are learning, what is wrong perhaps with what they are learning, in order to have that understanding. That is something that I raised in a debate with the PIRC and with others within the other organisations. There was an agreement and there was no resistance to the idea. Indeed, the PIRC then indicated the number of courses at Jackton that she had sent her staff along to ensure that they were aware of what was being taught and that that effort built a greater understanding of what the subject matter is that you are dealing with. It strikes me that what you are saying was a culture of suspicion, but not necessarily born out of reality. I am just wondering whether that is about the perception of individuals in the organisation and whether your recommendations, which are largely at a governance level, will really be sufficient to break down those. Were there any specific worries? Again, in paragraph 283, you talked about there being evidence of non-sharing of certain information. Is it just a generalised issue or were there specific issues that you found? Could you contextualise the last comment that you referred to? In paragraph 283, the evidence suggests that improving communication between organisations needs to be addressed. The evident non-sharing of certain information between organisations concerns me, and then you go on to talk about memorandums of understanding being in existence but for very short timeframes. I was just wondering if you had found any specific instances of information that should have been shared between the organisations that should have? Again, whether or not your recommendations, which are largely at a governance level, would address that? I think that one of the interesting aspects is that you asked about whether or not it relates to specifics. For instance, one of the features that you may be aware of is that each of the organisations has standard documents. Most of those are elderly. They predate the legislation. They have not been updated. From sanctions to solutions was the creation of the previous perk. The Lord Advocate's guidelines are elderly as well, and some of the training that was being relied on by the police officers in the professional standards department of the police was piecemeal. You got together from ACPWIS guidance from 2006 and earlier periods. What concerned me was that they were all looking at different types of sources for their training and guidance. There did not appear to be any subsequent crossover between the organisations to look at what they were collectively doing to address the issues that came from the act and the subject matter of complaints handling and investigations. You will see that one of my recommendations that I make now is that there should be a cross-organisational working group set up to look at their individual training. I deliberately suggest that they all should be party to that, because it is important that, when they are developing it, they are aware and privy of the policies, the limitations and the challenges of the work of the other, so that they are not doing that in isolation. I also think that this high-level working group would also be very useful in taking forward closer working among those organisations. By closer, it does not mean to say cosy. That independence is absolutely critical for all of them. The police follow the directions of the Lord Advocate, but the other organisations can work together collaboratively without compromising their independence or having that continuing of a disposition to think that there is somehow a contemptuous attitude towards the other organisation by didn't all of them having got it wrong? Why they have got it wrong is what is really important. How can you find a solution to that? The whole ethos of what was the essence of the part from sanctions to solutions has not been changed. That is moving away from a culture of a punitive approach to this to a problem-solving approach, so that you have continuing improvement in the organisations. That is important. Having watched it as an outsider from Oxford and looking into it, it appeared that very much of it was based on relationships that, to all intents of purposes, appeared to have broken down. I note what you have said about the relationship that needs to be at a distance, but not too distant, but managing that independence. I would also like to ask you about the relationship to Police Scotland and the SPA. Earlier in your report, you noted that at times that relationship has been too close. I note the comments that you made in paragraph 182 about the SPA having its powers to remove its powers of investigation for senior officers and that being placed by a committee led by the judiciary. Is that principally what you are concerned about? Is that the role that the SPA has to investigate senior officers? Is that something that you would like to see taken forward immediately? Are there any other concerns that you have about the proximity between Police Scotland and the SPA? There are several questions there, so I will try to recollect some of them if I miss any of them. You could perhaps remind me of what those were. The first one was about the relationship with Police Scotland and the SPA of the same nature. No, there is a different sort of quality there because what is close about them seems to be quite legitimate. It is what you would expect in that the SPA is a small organisation and the group of senior officers who deal with them, namely the assistant chief constable, the deputy chief constable and the chief constable, have weekly, if not more often, work of being there to be accountable to the various committees of the Scottish Police Authority, for instance, for the efficacy of their organisation, the efficiency and for the accountability issues. There are several committees that would have chief constables coming into finance committees, strategic committee, their IT committee, etc., where they are looking to either gain resources or gain authority or acceptance of their policies. By dint of that, they are sitting around a table and having a cup of coffee. They are getting to know those people on that basis, as they do in a small country. You have a committee, a subcommittee of that board, as a discipline committee, then determining if a complaint is to be upheld and if the whole process of adjudicating on the credibility and reliability of the officer, as you would in a disciplinary proceeding elsewhere in the police service, is populated by the same people who you are working with almost regularly. I would describe how that situation would be too cosy. It is just too intimate a situation because of the numbers and the sheer scale or lack of scale for that to be seen. It is about seen and perception to be seen to be impartial. I think that the effort is important that, although the functions of the SPA are critical to the buffer between the Government and the police and to ensuring accountability for the service, I do not think that this aspect of conduct sits well because of the very small number of chief officers that they are dealing with. They know them all. As a result of that, I think that it would be much better for them to be a legally chaired independent panel established to deal with complaints against senior police officers where they come to an issue of alleged misconduct. I am not a member of the judiciary. I suggested that the Lord President should appoint a legally independent chair. That is not unusual. It happens in England and Wales. It also happens in England and Wales for all of the junior officers, if we call them those who are below the level of a senior officer. I am not sure whether it is absolutely necessary or whether it is not required for misconduct, but I have suggested extending that to accusations of gross misconduct against officers in the lower ranks, as well as senior ranks, to ensure that there is impartiality and that the public can have confidence in that. That is the basis of that recommendation. Just on the technicalities of your recommendations, is that point about the legally independent chair for that tribunal? Yes. That is not specifically in any of your recommendations. You will see that there are several suggestions in this. This is a difficult preliminary report. I have put a number of suggestions in the report for further feedback and I forgive people the opportunity while I am still gathering evidence and seeking evidence to be able to respond to those propositions and to see whether there are alternative approaches that might be more attractive by the close of that, but looking at it, it is important. Someone may come to the issue about the preliminary assessment. That is another aspect of the role that is rendered difficult partly because of the legislative provision for it, which makes it very difficult to know precisely what it is that you are supposed to be looking for. That needs to be clarified, but that is the situation in which someone is receiving the complaint in SPA. Someone posts an email to them or a letter or whatever, an anonymous phone call, what they do with that and what they make of that and how they approach that process in terms of their statutory obligation. The aspect of determining whether or not a senior officer, if you think about the implications of a senior officer for the country, is very significant. It should be seen to be an impartial process and one that has a legally chaired because of the implications for the country that comes from those types of proceedings. The casual observer looking at your remit might be surprised that you found yourself commenting on Grievance procedures. It is wholly appropriate that you did that. I wonder if you could comment and you talk about raising awareness and understanding. It might seem that some of the issues that built a huge head of steam could have been resolved with appropriate resolution, dealt with as an HR function rather than resorting to it, ultimately being conceived as a misconduct issue. Could you comment on that? I think that it is really important because although Grievance is not part of it, it is an explanation for why perhaps things are not as good as they can be in this context. As you know, any police constable is not an employee, they hold an office. Apart from that legislative provision, tall intents and purposes are very similar in every way because they are subject to orders and command. It is a hierarchical, deferential structure that they have. Within the group of 15,000, I will be corrected if the numbers are wrong, 17,000 police officers of whom about 15,000 are police constables and two and a half approximately are sergeants. If you look at that, that is a very flat organisation in terms of promotion opportunities. You have a lot of people, and I understand that the average term before a police constable is promoted from constable to sergeant is 15 years. If you have an organisation as flat as that, opportunities of promotion are few and far between. Therefore, all sorts of issues come about why have I not been promoted, why has X been promoted. There can be all sorts of difficulties in what you would call ordinary personnel. There has also been a reduction in the number of sergeants in Scotland. Therefore, you have fewer—with wider management spans, however, we characterise it, they have more constables. What is really important in any organisation is mentoring and intervention at an early stage where conduct begins to people who are maybe absent more often than not or may be more rude or more inconsiderate or there are enmities beginning to build up and you intervene in an HR context. There is an HR organisation for Police Scotland, but it does not seem to be one that is resorted to in the way that any of us would recognise in other organisations. I think that there is a tendency or perhaps traditionally to resort to discipline more rapidly than you would expect. It has escalated to discipline more rapidly than there was a very strong tradition of HR intervention with grievance procedures being used in the way that they would be in civilian organisations. That is something that I really want to look into. HMIC was also concerned that she described it as going from flash to bang sometimes with episodes. I think that what we have got to understand is that, in the report, we ask a huge amount of police officers. We are asking them to go into events that none of us suspect, unless some of you have been police officers and you have indeed done something in the past that you might have wanted to or at least would have run into situations that most of us would run away from, but we ask a great deal of them. If you are doing that constantly, dealing with terrible car crashes, etc, and tragedies, looking for lost people, there is a cost to emotional stability over time. There is a corrosive effect. Therefore, it is really important that there are interventions to support people at an early stage before other habits are taken up such as resort to alcohol or medication or becoming violent in your disposition. We have a real obligation to ensure that it may sound as though it is a very soft issue, but it is critical that those interventions take place at as early a stage as possible to prevent some of the behaviours, which will then manifest themselves later on and bring them into the misconduct field as a result of some of those features. That is what I was referring to when I talked about the HR function. I do not think that it is being exploited as fully as it could be, and there should be greater emphasis on that. I would like to look at that more fully and come back to you in my full report regarding that. Thank you. It is reassuring to hear you address the issue in that way, because, of course, the overwhelming majority of police officers and police staff go about their duties in an impeccable way and deliver a very good service. The danger is that there is a focus on a small number. You talked about a proportionate response to Aimee Ellish. I want to ask you briefly about training in mediation and customer handling. It might be viewed as a very soft issue, but the ability within the organisation to rapidly escalate things would seem to be a very important factor. Emotional intelligence is an important feature of any police officer having to go into the street to deal with anything. If you do not understand what confrontation is, for instance, if you are directly in a police officer, because they have power, they can issue a command to someone to obtemper the law. However, if you are dealing with someone who has a mental health issue or other issues, they might not have the same cognitive response to the commands that you make of them. Therefore, the degree of sophistry that is required in communication with different members of the public is quite demanding of our police officers now. We ask much more of them now than we ever have in the past. They have to deal with many in our community of suffering from significant mental health problems. Understanding how to deal with that is critical, and that applies to those who are considering complaints against officers dealing with that. You cannot really assess the conduct of someone unless you understand the dynamic in which they are operating and the skillset that they require to be able to deal with the demands that are placed on them. It is not simply confined to the police. It straddles the judiciary, it straddles lawyers and the prosecutors today. We have a much more sophisticated understanding of human behaviour, but that does not make it easier necessarily to deal with. I think that it is critical that there is that understanding and that training is available for those who are also handling the complaints that are coming in. They need to be able to listen. They need to be able to understand how to deal with people who are irate, whether it is by email or by phone call, and be able to respond to it in a way in which it is going to understand the position that those people are in. That training is important for those who are dealing with it at that front line. Thank you very much, David. Liam Kerr. Oh, sorry, Liam Kerr. It's not even here. Even when he's not here. We've hit a new low this afternoon. Damiel, I thank you not just for your report, but for the way in which you've engaged with members of this committee in the preparation of the interim report. That's greatly appreciated. We've just talked to John Finnie's line of questioning around the welfare of officers and I think that in relation to an issue that has arisen on a few occasions at this committee about former officers being able to retire and then proceedings in relation to misconduct or even gross misconduct are then parked. I think that you quite rightly make the point that nobody would wish to prevent an officer who is genuinely ill and under stress from retiring, but I think that you say in your report that it does not appear compatible with the principles of natural justice, especially where the alleged misconduct is associated with detriment to members of the public. There's a major issue of public interest at stake for those to use what you describe as an escape route. You then suggest that there may be merit in terms of public interest and transparency and justice in adopting an approach that is in place in England and Wales, which suggests that your mind is not made up on this, that you can see strengths and weaknesses of it, but you then go on to set out what appears to be a fairly credible way of moving down this route. Are you able to advise the committee where your current thinking is in terms of trying to amend the rules in this area? Well, it was only published in Friday, so pretty much where I was in Friday, in the case of Monday. It's not so malleable, but the difficulty—and really my concern here is with allegations of gross misconduct, because there is, again, the proportionality of this and looking at what would be appropriate. If there is an allegation of gross misconduct and proceedings are commenced and, during the course of those, someone retires, then in a normal job, of course, that would be the end of the matter. It resolves it, the person goes, and the problem that's alleged to simply evaporates. However, increasing is different because it's a public. Police officers have very considerable powers as an officer. They have considerable obligations as well, but they have power, and it's a public conduct that we are concerned with. Therefore, if there is a very serious matter that is being the subject of such proceedings and the individual that is after retires or attires during that, the proceedings are not brought to any conclusion. They are left, and no one knows what the position was regarding that. I'm not suggesting that someone is kept in the police in perpetuity and cannot resign, and I think that there has been a judicial consideration of that. However, there is a question of whether or not the proceedings should continue in order that a conclusion can be reached regarding those. There are two issues there. Would the conclusions there have to have any effect on the individual if they have resigned? Is it simply a hollow exercise? I don't think so. If a conclusion can be reached, which then allows the authorities to advise—this is the second part of that equation—any other police force in the country or, indeed, in England and Wales about the fact that that has taken place and what the conclusion is. There is a real public interest in ensuring that, if I leave the place here and move off to another police force, that police force elsewhere should be aware of the outcome of those proceedings or what has happened. In England and Wales, there is a vetting and barring register that takes place. If someone leaves during the course of proceedings in one force in England and Wales and moves to another, that is something that can be consulted as to whether or not that person has been barred and whether or not there is a matter of concern. That is something that should be introduced in Scotland and it should be cross-border because we have sufficient movement of officers across to ensure that people are aware. That is part of the equation that relates to what I have said before. The question that I have is whether or not it would be sufficient for a finding to be made without any imposition of penalty. I also think that any individual who is in those circumstances should also have available to them representation for those proceedings as well, so it is not something. I am very happy to listen further as to whether or not either of those seems to be disproportionate or draconian, and I think that it is important. I really think that for grossness conduct, there is a very significant public interest in ensuring that those are completed where it is possible to complete them. One of the other observations that you made was in relation to the rules around pension forfeiture, and you observed that that has not actually been used and practised to any great extent. Were you given any reasons why that is the case and would you see that as another potential sanction in the cases that you have outlined there? I think that that is the case throughout the United Kingdom. I think that there are very, very few examples of pension forfeiture. Reduction in rank is another option, which is one that could be considered as well, which only would exist, obviously, if you were still within the force. As far as the pension is concerned, the reason that it probably is not used, and I speculate here, because it only comes from two senior officers, is simply because the officers make their own contributions to that, and there are also issues about the rights of family and children regarding that that you are impacting on. That applies to most penalties that are imposed if you imprison someone that the family is affected by. However, there are issues about proportionality there for that. It is an option that is available. If you have an independent panel determining it, whether that changes or not will be a matter on whether it is fair or not, but it is not something that I think is particularly significant in a motivating fact for resignation, given that it is used so rarely as a penalty. In terms of the procedures, you talked to the vetting and barring, which presumes that somebody returns from a role, but is going on to potentially perform another potentially different role in another force elsewhere in the country. What other sanctions are used in the system in England and Wales that potentially would come into play in a Scottish system? Nothing very different from what we have here. The only difference that you have there is that there are different forces. Therefore, there is a lot of movement around England and Wales. Now that we have one force here, it is easier to keep an eye on individuals. However, it is certainly of importance that, if someone applies for a job, that you are aware of what took place elsewhere and the fact that someone has gone in those circumstances could be referred to in the vetting register is important. I would like to ask you about the time taken to investigate complaints. The committee has heard that complaints processes can be prolonged for various reasons and that that can often have a detrimental effect on the health of complainants and on the subject of complaints. Police Scotland and the SPA have a non-statutory deadline of 56 days to investigate and conclude complaints, which is often not met for a variety of reasons, as I said. Do you think that that needs to be reviewed? Is it reasonable to assume that not all complaints will be dealt with the same and that it would be very difficult to introduce standard timescales to complaints? The answer to your second question is yes. They are very considerably, some are very straightforward and some are hugely complex, involve obtaining evidence from a broad or experts who are experts in a pretty esoteric area. Even if you have identified an expert, you find that they are so busy that they cannot prepare a report for you for another 68 months, and that is incredibly difficult, but that can happen. That happens in ordinary criminal prosecutions as well. If you have targets, one thing that you must have is an opportunity for it not to be an absolute time bar, because that can result in decisions that are not necessarily in the public interest. However, if someone is suspended from their role, that is enormous attention for the individual officer. Likewise for the families, it is incredibly difficult for the individual who is making the complaint when it is a long-term thing that they have to suffer to. If you look at where the delays are, very often there is an interaction among the agencies, so it is not simply with one. It may well be that, for instance, the PIRC has investigated and has reported to Crown Office, Crown Office will then come back to the PIRC seeking additional investigation, etc. Therefore, it may well be that there is movement between the two, although the case is proceeding again that you have those longer periods as well. Undoubtedly, I think that when I write the full report, the issue of time is one that I want to look at particularly in regard to the nature and the scale of them, because some are like somebody who complains in the court. They are very, very quick and they should be able to be in a very tight timescale. Those who are identified as being very serious, high-profile and complex, and some high-profile does not mean complex necessarily, but if there are of those variables, if you have, then those cases are weighted. I think that the PIRC has a system of waiting, the nature of those, and I think that something could be done about that certainly within Police Scotland as well, to identify what type of complaint it is that they are investigating on behalf. Of course, a police, if it is a criminal matter, are subject to the directions of the prosecutor, so the prosecutor has a power there, the Procurator Fiscal, to direct and to report, direct the police to report within a particular period, so they do not require a time bar for that because that is the power that the prosecutor is given. However, if that means that it is an incomplete investigation that is presented to them, then it is going to go back to them, so it is not a satisfactory result. However, there have been some very complex and very sensitive investigations that have been bunched together over a couple of years. You like to hope that that is a freak situation in which you have that collection, sort of like a perfect storm, taking place with a number of very significant investigations, but there is no guarantee that it will be like that in the future. I am looking at how you can have resilience within those organisations that allows greater flexibility to be able to deal with that. Certainly, if you have a large organisation like the Procurator Fiscal service, you can draft people in from different parts of the country if you have a major disaster or if you have something to be looked at, you can put together large teams. If you have an organisation like the perk, you are much more limited in terms of your resilience, durability and the scale of the organisation to be able to call in individuals unless you begin to prepare on that basis so that you have a number of on-call consultants who can come in or those who are retired but who are keeping up their CPD in terms of their training etc to be able to call on. You cannot replicate the police force with the perk. It would be enormous cost to the public to have a standby investigation for what might happen perhaps once every eight years or so. Therefore, it is trying to find a way of being able to allow the perk to carry out its statutory responsibilities while not having surplus staff for significant other periods of time. So, are we likely to see proposals for streamlining the system in your final report? Yes, or looking at the way and the nature of the personnel you have there, because one of the opportunities that I did explore at the beginning was if you look at the complaints handling people and you have your investigative people within perk, there are two quite discreet organisations within perk and perk has given evidence about what she considers about complaints handling, but I am not sure that I will be questioned about that later. In fact, she thinks that the complaint handling should be moved elsewhere to the Scottish public ombudsman and that the perk has instead at first and since the role of dealing with all the complaints that were currently dealt with by the police. I will discuss that later. In fact, part of it she sees the most quite disparate functions, but I do not think that they are that different. If you are dealing with complaints against how the police have handled cases and complaints or investigations, you begin to learn all those skills. You are learning the skills, you are learning the law and the underlying concepts, but if you are doing nothing about that, it is not a job that I imagine that people would want to run. You are dealing with complaints day in day out, it is difficult, but there is real scope in the skills that are developed there to be able interchange and development in the organisation. There is very little traffic between the two, and that is something that should be explored to look at how you can widen out the training, have more flexibility so that, where you have those challenges, you are able to draft more staff from your complaints handling, which might have to go by the by. Give yourself the resilience to be able to deal more flexibly with that. The perk's view was that there are such different skills, to some extent. Some of them are, but they are not so polarised that there are not some aspects of an investigation that can be carried out. You do not have to have everybody with a full range of policing skills. If you look at the Procurator's Fiscal Service, the Procurator's Fiscal's prosecute and investigate cases, but they also have precondition officers who do not go into court, who do not do the prosecutorial side of things, but, in fact, they are very, very key to how you process that, so it does not all have to be done by the prosecutors. It is looking at the nature and make-up of that, and that is why I make a recommendation, which is part of it, that there is a management consultant appointed to review the way in which the profile of the staffing for the future with a new perk coming in. I think that that would be invaluable to see what scope there is for looking at different ways in which the working is carried out in there to make it more effective, more attractive as a career as well. Just one brief final question. The press at the weekend seemed to pick up on the point that the report says that police involved in an incident should be separated as quickly as possible to avoid conferring, etc. I wonder if you want to expand a wee bit on that. Yes. This is not something new that I have said as you just said, and it does not relate to any case because there was some photography attached to it that might have inferred that. In fact, the report that I did for the Home Secretary a few years ago, I looked at that particular case in the context of a number of deaths in custody, which had occurred, and some of them are obviously very notorious deaths. The practice that was taking place there in England was that following such a death in custody, the police officers would be brought together and they would be in a group subsequently, very often with a senior officer present. I spoke to the Federation in England and Wales about what was the objective of that largely. They said very much that it was not ever an exchange of opinion as to what happened, but sometimes they felt that they had to check their facts. That in itself is something that concerned me, because they had the view that, unless they had uniform accounts of the event, when they came to court that the Crown Prosecution Service and others would cross-examine them severely for having discrepancies in their accounts. Of course, that is wrong because nobody ever perceives an event in the same way. Discrepancies are natural, and if you have uniform accounts, if anything, it will be a matter of more suspicion than if there are discrepancies. In a sense, that process in England and Wales I did not think was necessarily in the interests of those officers in that group. Equally, if they are together, there is the danger of group thinking about innocent contamination of account and recollection, so it is really important. I think that that is not a criticism of the police office. It is important in the interests of those officers that, following an event of this nature, if it is traumatic, they must have support, they must have their welfare considered, they must have their federation or its composer, whoever is representative present, if they require that. However, putting them together in a room creates all sorts of difficulties because of the perception that, if they are together, they will somehow have the opportunity of influencing the account. There may be an assumption that all those officers have the same interests, but, of course, they do not. They are individuals. In any legal context, if there is any potential conflict, you would have separate legal advice because it is not necessarily the case that they all have the same interests at heart. There are all sorts of issues about that that make that process fraught. The safest way, except in extreme operational circumstances—you have to accept it as a disaster and there is a death, and then you are moving on to something else and you are having to save life. This is not, again, a clinical exercise. It is really about if it is complete at that stage, then that they should be so far as possible. In the way that they would with civilian witnesses, if you do not interview civilian witnesses together, you keep them apart as soon as possible to get their own individual, however imperfect account is their account and it is their recollection that matters. I think that that is in the interests of police officers in the future, so it is not to say that you ignore their welfare or their concern about the trauma that they have undergone, but that it is appropriate and that they are not simply put together in circumstances where it is very difficult for people. In months later, when it gets to any case, it can be very difficult to rebut accusations that can be put in the course of cross-examination. Moving on to a very related area of transparency, an issue that has arisen is that people do not feel that they are being given enough information with which to pursue their complaint. It has been suggested that that could be improved by the policing bodies having a duty to provide complainants with regular updates on the progress of their complaints and the procedures that are being followed, for example. Interestingly, it is provided with a named contact. Is that a viable suggestion? In some circumstances, it is a matter of law because if there is a death which is at the hands of the state or alleged to be at the hands of the state of death—that is a death in custody, someone in a prison cell, someone in a police station or a car—then there is an obligation in the state to allow the family of the deceased, the next of kin, to participate effectively in the proceedings so that it is not a question of benevolence or giving them information, the family has a right to participate in those proceedings. That means that they must have up-to-date information and they must be able to understand the process. There are points at which it is sensitive and where you are carrying out an investigation. I make this comment regarding where allegations are made based on a preliminary assessment—the idea that that public statement immediately was put into the press—an allegation that you have proven with the amount of gross misconduct. It is far too early a stage to make such a public comment and can create huge problems for witnesses coming forward. People are intimidated by that and the subject of that. There are times when there has to be an investigation done not in public. If I ask for a search warrant, I am certainly not going to put it out and broadcast it. I am going to someone's house to search their house. That type of thing has to take place in private. However, where it is possible to do so, the family should be involved in consistently having information about the development of the investigation so that they can participate. When it comes to an inquest or a fatal ax inquiry in Scotland, they must again have the opportunity to participate effectively in that. That is where death is. If you look at the rest of the spectrum, we are serious about the event and, of course, the higher level of participation that you would expect and consultation. However, the idea of having someone who deals with all matters that are not—don't get beyond the letter from front-line resolution because someone is satisfied—is important that they have a contact person that they can come to. That is something that I want to look at with complainer groups and consumer groups in the next part of the report, which will look specifically at the participation of those who are complainers. That could be a very important next step for my mailbag of police complaints over the years and might be shared by other committee members. That lack of communication and being kept informed is quite often at the heart of people feeling that their complaint is not being dealt with seriously, so I think that it will be interesting the next steps on that. I began to touch on some of those issues earlier on, but the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner has expressed concern about the level of discretion that Police Scotland currently has to categorise and investigate complaints in the first instance. Is that concern justified? It would be justified if there was copious evidence of there being issues where things that should be going to the perk are not going to the perk. I think that there was evidence, certainly, which, interestingly, came from the complaints handling. This is an example of how useful the complaints handling side of things is that where complaints—or being made about the way in which a complaint had been handled—came to the perk's office to her complaints handling team, they were able to observe that this should not have been dealt with by them, but it should have gone to the procurator fiscal. That is an example of how the symbiosis between complaints handling and the investigation team, in fact, are significant. In relation to the degree of discretion, I think that the perk herself gave evidence that she thought that there were a number of incidents where she would have liked to have been aware of the nature of the incident and where the chief constable had not reported it, because he has a discretion as to whether to report those matters or not. You will see from my report that my recommendation is that, where the chief constable has such an incident, he should consult the perk in the future. Whether or not that requires legislation is another matter, but it is a matter of good practice, it would make sense. That is why the relationship is very important there, is that he can speak to the perk and say, I have this case, I am considering the matter and be able to discuss that. In the way that a police officer would come into the procurator fiscal's office and say, I have a case here, I am considering whether or not it mounts to x or y. That discussion is important. That is not an interference with the independence of the prosecutor, it is simply using that resource and that knowledge and having that working relationship, which is important. I think that it is important that all matters that should go to the perk go to the perk, and that is why I also make a recommendation that all allegations of excessive force should go to the procurator fiscal for determination, so that determination is not being made, because that could amount to a breach of article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights and that those allegations should therefore go directly from the police to the procurator fiscal. For the procurator fiscal to determine whether or not the perk or the police can investigate those matters depending on how they interpret the evidence that supports the allegation at that stage, so there are certainly, I think, there needs to be a sharpening up of those matters to ensure that the concerns. However, the other aspect that concerns me is that one of the best ways of detecting non-compliance with what really are intended to be the areas of competence in each of the organisations is audit. There is an underuse of audit, audit has not been used. One of the important powers of the SPAs to audit, you will see in the report, suggests that although audits have been carried out, they tend to be quite superficial and statistical in nature. A more recent one that I have looked at was excellent and it started to penetrate more in relation to that, so that was a change there. However, likewise, there have been audits carried out by the perk and one of the three functions of the perk that are included are to audit and carry out research on policy as well. The research function has not been used and the audit function of front line resolution, for example, where a lot of the problems were described by the perk has not been used since 2014. If you are going to have those decisions made at the front line by the police, they should be subject to regular audit and I think that the perk has the power to do that and it can be done very effectively. Likewise, research can be done by the perk. The perk's position regarding that is that it simply has not had the resources to do that and it has made a number of calls for additional resources. However, when I looked at the complaints handling side of things, I referred back to a report that Robert Gordon prepared. He is a member of the audit committee there some years ago when he looked at what he considered to be a bit of a council of perfection in the complaint handling that even though the ground of complaint had not been handled correctly and was not upheld, the perk staff would continue to look at other issues such as failure to comply with the standard of operating procedure, etc. Rather than spending that time on that, once you got to whether or not the complaint was good enough, whether or not other matters could go into a thematic, put it to the side and these could be the subject of a thematic review there after going to the chief constable rather than spending more time going through each of these. The important aspect of that is that that team should be doing more audits and I think that they could be usefully doing more audits than they have been able to do perhaps because they have been spending too much or too long on the individual complaints. I think that that is looking at how you use the resources and what is most effective. The other suggestion that I make in the report regarding this matter, which is important, is that the centurion computer system is the computer upon which all of these matters are entered by the front line resolution, so they put them in. I think that there may well be a case for giving the perk access to the centurion system so that they can do contemporaneous audit from time to time, so that they can dip in and look at what is happening to satisfy themselves. I am not sure that finding the occasional breaches in itself suggests a major structural change in who has responsibility for that, but I do think that the powers that are there are, as I said in the report, they are not add-ons, they are a core part of it. I think that the use of audit is something that can be very effective in beginning to secure better improvement or greater improvement. Just finally, again, you have touched on this. The commissioner raised a concern about the discretion given to Police Scotland in determining what constitutes a serious incident and whether to refer to perk for an investigation. In evidence, Ms Frame recommended that the term serious incident within the relevant regulations be amended to a potential breach of articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR. Again, just to get your comments on whether the concern is justified and whether or not that is a step that you think could be taken to resolve matters, whether there is anything else that you want to suggest? I think that I have answered some of that in the previous answer, but I would say that, if there is a potential breach of article 2, which is death, that must be reported to the Procurator of Fiscal, as well as a perk. I do not think that there are any suggestions of deaths that have not had a very serious allegation and have not been reported. Article 3 is wider, that is in human degrading treatment and assault or torture or treatment that is highly injurious to an individual's wellbeing. The vast bulk of those would be excessive allegations, which sometimes have been packaged as excessive force when, in fact, they were assault and should have been reported as an assault. In those circumstances, because of that, that is precisely what I have recommended, is that allegations of excessive force should be reported to the PF. It is a long time since I have dealt with complaints against a police when I was deputed to Fiscal in Airdrie, but I do remember having those reports coming in from the police to say that there was an allegation of those. The Procurator of Fiscal, who was in the custody, would look at those to see whether or not we were concerned sufficiently to ask for a full report regarding those matters at that stage. I think that that is something that certainly should be reinstituted and that the Fiscal gets to see those all and the Fiscal determines whether or not those go to the park directly. Just following up on your answers about the complaints handling process and, in particular, your key recommendations in terms of the concerns around miscategorisation and so on, are around audit and access to insurance. I am just wondering if you could elaborate why you feel that that is sufficient. Obviously, if the park or another body had a triage function, they would be able to see the allegations first hand, rather than having to rely on the accounts themselves. I wonder if you could elaborate further why you felt that the second level access was sufficient. Partly because it has not been used yet. I think that what is important to do, because, if you move to that, the latter may be an approach that would be acceptable. The park feels strongly that she would like to jettison that section, the complaints handling, out to the Scottish Public Ombudsman. My concern about that is that policing and crime are quite a specialised area and my concern about it is dislocating it away from those who are investigating further. It is different from some of the other issues. People might say that everything is special and medicine is special. However, you have the issue of how do those people keep up their competence and understanding of that. It would be a two-pay issue if you had to move that group. Instead of that, the park had the function of being the first and since front line basically. That is what happens in Northern Ireland, but of course that is because of particular sensitivity and the history of Northern Ireland. I think that it was set up in that way. It could be done that way, but again you have the issue that you have a bureaucracy that you have created there because you then have to have a form of complaint against the handling by the park, because there are now the people who are determining where the destination is at first and since. Also, you have a dislocation from the ability to move as quickly as you might. You might say that you deal with these every morning and you give out instructions, but some of them are not required for the information and what I observed because I sat in. I am not sure if anyone else has come along because I think that it would be interesting for you to see these sergeants at work. As they are getting these messages, they are coming in. Some of them are ambiguous, some of them are people who are influenced by alcohol. That might surprise you, but some of them are not necessarily as coherent, so they require some more exploration with the individual. If it becomes apparent to the officer that what has been alleged is a crime, as opposed to a front-line resolution matter, that somebody—Police Officer Smith—was rude to me, he did not turn up in time, he did not come to respond to my house-breaking, so those are a quality of service issues. If it turns out to be something that is more than that, they then nip next door to the inspector and they give it to the inspector who immediately puts it into an investigation unit to be investigated as a crime, or to go to the procuratorate of fiscal. There is that proximity that allows that thing to go, I am slightly concerned that what we are creating is a very significant structural change, which I think could be bureaucratic and quite clunky. When what we are trying to do is the vast bulk of those complaints do not relate to those matters—there are thousands of them, 6,000s, but the vast bulk are of the nature that PC Vlogs was arrogant and bullshamed with me, was rude, or he did not come out to come, or the police did not come, my house was broken into the police did not come for at least six days, that is the nature of it. It is absolutely critical for those types of things, for the police organisation to be able to resolve that and improve itself. To put it into another organisation is to be not necessarily logical, nor has it yet been shown to be necessary. That is the important point, as I said, is when you exhaust the other roots of possibilities of doing that, you can improve that, as well as improving, as I mentioned, the training of those who are at the front line to make sure that those skills are as good as they can be. Maurice Cymru Good afternoon, Demi. Are Police Scotland currently subject to any form of oversight regarding the categorisation of any potentially criminal allegations? Is this something that should be subject to a review? Of course, it is under the direction and supervision of the Pro-Creator Fiscal. The prosecutor in Scotland is independent of the police and has a power to direct, which is something that we sometimes overlook in terms of its significance, because if you are the Crown Prosecution Service in England, you have no power to direct the police. It is a Pro-Creator Fiscal who has that role. The responsibility for investigating death, which is a coroner's function, is also separated out in England, so you have unique in that role a very powerful organisation that is superintending the actions of the police and of necessarily prosecuting the police. Are you happy that that is working okay? I am not suggesting that there is any. I have not been asked to look at the Pro-Creator Fiscal Service that is excluded from my remit, but I did not hear anything from the other organisations to suggest that it was anything other than that. The CAPD unit is a huge improvement of what used to go before. I was a regional fiscal up in Grampian Highlands and Islands and I had responsibility for those at that stage for a very brief period when I was up there. However, I would say that the new organisation of having it all in the CAPD unit led by a very senior prosecutor provided it is properly resourced. I think that more resources have come into it so that it is not a bottleneck of excellence because you have to make sure that it is moving the cases through in the same way. It is a very powerful and valid check on police conduct. I have a very brief question. It is a historic frustration that police officers have had that there seems to have been a marked reluctance on the part of the prosecution to instigate proceedings against those who make overtly malicious complaints against officers. Accepting what you said about your remit not covering that or giving direction to the Lord Advocate, would it be logical that, with a more enhanced and more robust complaint system, there would be more rigorous prosecution of malicious complainers as well as a way of not only addressing a crime but also providing some comfort to those within the service? I think that it is important that we act on efficiently and effectively investigating complaints against the police. However, where those are found to be malicious or false, I think that there has to be a very important message there that there should be prosecutions. Indeed, I think that there have been two for wasting police time by false accusation in Scotland over the last couple of years, but there is also attempt to prevent the course of justice depending on the stage of proceedings and what happens in that. I think that there is an important public interest, but that is a matter for the Procurator Fiscal and for the Lord Advocate to exercise independently of any person, including me. However, what I say in the report is that, regarding vixacious complaints, which may not be of criminal nature, many of those are received that are anonymous, and you have an anonymous report on how you deal with that. It is a matter of huge sensitivity as well, because they can be anonymous for a very good reason, but it also sometimes provides a cover for people who are vixacious, disgruntled, and it is really important that there is specific provision made regarding vixacious complaints, which not of a criminal nature but of a nature of this can be dealt with in any future amendment to this legislation, because I think that that is really important. Just picking up on some of the various things that are being covered, in terms of the Police Service of Scotland senior officer conduct of 2013 regulations, do you consider that they should be amended in order to protect the identity of a very senior officer when they are or senior officers when they are the subject of a complaint? In the way in which it is put, I do not think that there should be complete at that level of seniority. If, for instance, it was me when I was a Lord Advocate, if you were to drop a Curlywerly wrapper in Sucky Hall Street, it would be a matter for the news because you would not expect that from the Lord Advocate, and it is a minor offence, but none the less important. There is an attachment. With that power comes huge accountability and visibility regarding that. However, where the allegation is one, based on a preliminary assessment, which is what the regulations provide for, and I have explored that in the report, in other words, is not one that is suggestive of active investigation. You have the ipsidix of someone who may be anonymous. It could be scribbled in the back of a bubblegum paper or whatever. It could be an anonymous call. The obligation of the SPA at that stage is for them to pass that where they make a preliminary assessment to the perk. If that then becomes public at that stage, regarding an individual by dint of the fact that there are so few of them, so even if you do not name the individuals, if there are only eight of you, then it can very quickly mushroom in such a way that it can be hugely prejudicial, not just to the officer and their family at that stage when there is not even a prima facie case, you simply have an assertion at that stage, but it is also damaging to potential witnesses who at that point may not even have been seen by anybody and therefore they may be cowed or intimidated by reference to the fact that it becomes public. I do therefore think that it is not a question of that remaining so for the duration of it, but that sensitive early stage of the proceedings when there is no prima facie case is simply an assertion. The investigation should be sealed at that point. I just tease that a little bit further. I think that you do recommend that when it is a senior officer, a very senior officer, perhaps the most senior officer being investigated, that that should be prioritised. Can you explain what you mean by prioritised, dealt with quickly or should there be some other mechanism there to deal with that level of content? I do not think that I need to speak to this audience here about the destabilising effect where you have such a small group, one force in terms of the senior command of the police, if you have such investigations on going. The individual is not about their status that they should be given priority. It is about the destabilising potential that it has for crime and its investigation in this country and the police force. Therefore, it is important that it is in the public interest that it is dealt with as quickly as possible, as is compatible with the evidence. In those circumstances, given that there is nowhere for the officer to be repositioned, you cannot put a chief officer into a post elsewhere, where we look at more creative alternatives other than simply suspension so that they could be seconded to somewhere else, a force out with Scotland or alternatively to a charity or some other organisation where they could potentially work pending an investigation if that is considered to be the case, because while they are in position of power, it is very difficult for those investigations to take place. That is another reason why, because of that, it has to be done as expeditiously as possible. It is also in the interests of the public for that too. Did I see somewhere—I cannot see the recommendation just now—that you were recommending that a chief constable, if they are asked for information, must be provided to me as well? Yes. In fact, I suggest that, within two days, that was apropo allegations of unlawful detention, which would be contrary to article 5 of the European Convention on Articles 3. The reason for that is that, if it is not done quickly, you can lose a lot of evidence, particularly CCTV evidence. There were examples from the clerk who said that she had these matters referred to her, but there were maybe six to eight weeks on. By that time, very important evidence had been lost. She was quite right to say that it needs to be done quickly in order that she can effect an effective investigation. I suppose that one of the biggest questions in this whole review is that complaining can be a complex process. Do you think that there are immediate measures that could be taken to simplify the process and to make sure that relevant stakeholders have done enough to make the public aware, in plain language, of how the process currently works? I set it somewhat facetiously in my report that it is almost like the Starship Enterprise in terms of its wiring when you look at how you make a complaint. It is complex and very opaque. It took me considerable time because it has changed considerably since I have left Scotland in terms of what the new landscape is. I have to say that the current structures are a huge improvement in what I experience as a prosecutor. I think that the unified police force makes an eminent sense, and I think that, with the passage of time, it will be a tremendous boon to the effect of the police. However, it is obviously done quickly at that stage. It is natural effort at this stage at this juncture that we should look at to what extent the procedures can be simplified. One action that could be taken is to look at how we direct people and the members of the public to how they can make a complaint and where they can look to the website. I am not the most IT-friendly person on the planet. I accept that, but I find it very difficult to navigate my way around that, to find the form. Even the form is not that obvious. Then, of course, what if you are dyslexic? What if you have difficulties? How else can I make a complaint? However, one thing that troubled me is that, if you do not trust the police and are worried about your safety and security, the members of the public can make a complaint straight to the Procurator Fiscal. That has always been the case. It is not obvious to members of the public that they can do that. They do not have to go through those processes. If, for instance, it is a concern about corruption or they feel concerned, they can go to the Procurator Fiscal. There are also issues that I will come to later in my consideration when I look at whistleblowing about the perk being a nominated agency regarding that too. I think that that particular whistleblowing might be an important matter in the future, but I have not yet given sufficient consideration to that aspect of matters. I did one task about whistleblowing to see if the SPN Police Scotland's process just now was for purpose, but that is something for a later stage. Liam Kerr. I did it again. Liam MacArthur. I am so sorry. I will not say MacArthur, but I got it wrong last time. As it details, it becomes harassment of work. I do not want to touch on the issue of body-worn cameras. In your report, you acknowledge that this is a wider debate and there are pros and cons involved in it, but you make the point in relation to the potential for reducing and resolving complaints that they have to your mind, a role to play in your support of the Scotland's aspiration to roll out nationally. Can you explain why that is, but suggest what safeguards would need to be put in place in order for you to be satisfied that the benefits then outweigh any potential downsides? There is evidence already that, so far as the police officer is concerned, that the presence of a camera makes everybody behave better—the body-worn camera—that those who encounter, as soon as they refer to the fact that they have got one, has a de-escalating impact on some conduct. Tulsa police forces referred to in the report where they had a significant reduction in that type of conduct as a result of introducing them. My own experience of it is somewhat limited because they were not introduced when I was in office or as a prosecutor, but CCTV evidence transformed the investigation of crime. There were some inhibitions at that stage about its efficacy and issues about article 8 and privacy. In fact, it has allowed us to detect in a prosecuted murder case where, if it had not been for CCTV evidence, a case would have been so much more difficult to prosecute. It was amazing how that has advanced things. I think that this is a natural extension of it. It will be there to protect the public and it will be there to protect the officer from false accusation. It should assist in the conduct. One example that I gave is when I was looking at the police in England and Wales and the way in which they deal with complaints made against them regarding deaths. I attended an inquest, an inquest related to a shooting by a police officer of a man in a tower block. He gave his evidence—I sat in the bench and listened to his evidence—whether it was nerves or whatever. When he gave his evidence about what happened, he described the scene and how he came to discharge his firearm. I thought that his evidence was terribly impressive. I did not know what to make of him, but he had not come across as an impressive witness. He then played his body-worn camera, which was outstanding in its quality and showed how utterly terrorising the whole event was and how quickly those events had transpired. I think that, had he had his evidence, it might have been perhaps not a different outcome, but not a more certain outcome. I think that that convinced me alone of the value of having this for the police as well as for the members of the public. If I was the second issue that you mentioned is concerned about privacy, those are the concerns that they might have picked up third-party issues. That was the same with CCTV cameras. I think that there has to be a code of practice, a code of ethics about that, where they do pick up that there is sufficient editing of anything. At the end of the day, subject to agreement, you cannot edit anything out until defence council or others have had an opportunity to see it in terms of the disclosure obligations, but subject to that, it would not be made public. I take all those points, although there are still some anxieties around the proliferation of CCTV and the locations in which they are to be found. Similarly, I suppose, with body-worn cameras, you referred to the fact that deployment in the custody environment and the public face the role. It can be the case that officers are the ones who are proactively engaging and therefore proactively engaging with cameras. Are there particular safeguards that you would see as necessary in that situation? I am not sure that I understand the point. In a sense, to what extent would the public need to be alerted that the engagement that they were having with an officer was being recorded effectively? It could be by a simple sound that body-worn camera, a declaration that is made by the officer that you are in the presence of a camera, and that in itself could have an effect in terms of conduct that is beginning to escalate into something. The person has put on notice how practicable that is, however, if the circumstance is one of real fear and terror. It is all very well as talking about that. Therefore, I would hate to think that the absence of that would therefore mean that that struck out the admissibility of any evidence gathered in that. I think that it would depend on the facts and circumstances of the case, but I think that they do that with Taser, is that, usually, if they are beginning to present Taser, they must, as part of their training, shout and warn that they are in possession of it. They do the shout Taser or something like that in the videos that I have seen. Although that might relate to the English place, I am not sure about the Scottish place, but that is certainly a case when I was looking at them for the home office. Does the point of clarity do Police Scotland use body-worn cameras at present? I think that they do that in a very limited scope. It is pilots that they have been running in. I think that there is no question about that. I think that the chief constable and others are very keen in having them. However, there are issues that you have to think about, not just the cost of it but the effectiveness of making sure that they are actually good value for money and they are not all going to put it out after 18 months or something. There is a question about storage, disclosure and the use of them in courts, facilities and courts to be able to play this. All those have a cost that has to be taken into account. I am sure that the cost is not insignificant. That is why I refer to public facing in particular, rather than thinking about comprehensive roll-out of it. However, if we were to roll ourselves forward 25 years, I would put my money on it that all officers would have body-worn cameras when it will be very much cheaper. It is a bit like mobile phones and other IT. I suspect that it will get cheaper the more people use them across the world. Given that it is a pilot, does it matter that it is now without a code of conduct? Is it without a code of practice for the bot? I am not sure that I do not know the answer to that question. I can look into that and write to you about that particular point. Your final recommendation said that the Scottish Government could consider the case for amending legislation to put beyond out the definition of a member of the public who may make a relevant complaint and dot it through the report. There are a number of recommendations for changes in legislation that could be implemented relatively quickly but have a major impact on improving the complaints process. Are you looking for—it would be helpful, I suppose, to hear this—that those changes are made at pace? It is important that—for instance, the other thing is that an officer serving with the police has been the subject of ambiguity. What does that mean? Is that a police officer who was then serving with the police or is now serving with the police is on duty, off duty? Of course, it is what you as a Parliament want it to be. I think that what is important is that it is put beyond out as to what it could be, because there may be certain offences that police officers carry out in their private life, which have no nexus with their role at all. I am trying to think of examples. They have kept an unlit skip or something like that when they have been moving house, which is an offence. There are a lot of minor offences that could attract criminality, but there are others such as careless driving. If you are a traffic police officer, that might be significant, but if you are not, it might not have any significance at all. Therefore, there is a spectrum as to whether you are interested in what persons do in their private life. However, if they were dealing with drugs, that would certainly be a matter of interest in their civilian capacity. Therefore, you might want to ensure that that conviction, as it would be brought into the misconduct proceedings where a conviction would be proof of that matter. There are choices to be made there as to what reach you want that to have and what level of focus you want the organisation's charge would look at complaints against the police to be able to look at the private lives of police officers. Certainly, when the committee took evidence, there was a kind of new nanos feeling from SPA, from Police Scotland. I think that the cabinet secretary too, at that point, that there would be no changes to legislation necessary. Given that there are improvements that could be made relatively quickly, it might be a question for the cabinet secretary when we see him tomorrow. I just finally ask you about the regional locations that you suggest for Perk to operate, which I think is a good idea. Where would those be and how would that work? In fairness to the Perk, she explained that I was surprised to learn, in fact, that it was located in Hamilton. Perk explained very sensibly that Hamilton is a good place because it is on a motorway network. You can get to the east, you can get into the centre, etc. The difficulty you have is the northern. We are a huge country geographically, but with a very small population. There can be a very significant instance that can take place anywhere. It is just about her ability for staff to be able to get coverage of particularly the northern and the islands when you get flights up there. Even if you are up in Aberdeen, it is not necessarily the case that you can get to the islands if you do not have flights going. The reason is that, if there are the most serious types of incidents that are alleged, the Perk has an investigative role. If there is a death, you have the golden hours referred to for collection and protection of evidence. It is really important that they get up there. I asked her whether she would consider it. She did not think that it was necessary. However, as time passes, there are going to be more events. Concentration in one place might create an issue in the future, which we should begin to anticipate. In the meantime, I have looked at the pragmatic options, which are that you have a network of procreators fiscal across the country in the islands. The procreator fiscal carries out the part of the responsibility of the coroner. In England, Wales is carried out by the procreator fiscal. Therefore, it might be that she might be able to secure an arrangement that the procreator fiscal attends the scene, which is what we used to do. We used to attend the scenes of murders and suspicious deaths. You would go out there while the police were in attendance at that stage to superintend what was taking place to ensure that the investigation was under that form of supervision until the Perk arrived. That might be, but that is a matter between those two organisations to deal with in the meantime. At this point in time, the Perk is not equipped to be able to deal with something as urgent that takes place, and even two to three hours can be problematic if we are talking about a death. It did not even seem to be the time, it seemed to be the volume of work that the Perk had. There seemed to be huge backlogs, too, so for a number of reasons that would seem to make sense if there are no more questions. Thank you very much for coming today and giving up your time and to the members, too, for fitting in an extra committee meeting, which has been so worthwhile. Our final meeting before summer recess will be tomorrow, 10 am, when we will continue our evidence taking on Dame Eilish Angelini's report by Earring from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice. We will also take evidence from members of the Scottish Government bill team for the Scottish Biometric Commissioners bill as part of our approach to considering that bill. I formally close this meeting.