 Felly, rwy'n gweithio i gyd, a gwybod i'r 30 y dŵr ddarlun cyfnodau Cymru ar 2023. Rwy'n gweithio i gyd, ac rwy'n gweithio i'r dŵr dŵr i'r dŵr, ac i'r dŵr i'r dŵr, a i'r dŵr i'r dŵr i'r dŵr dŵr. Yn ymgynghwm ysgrifeteg ysgrifennu, rwy'n gweithio i'r ffordd ymgynghwm ymgynghwm, Ieol, yn cyfgwyrdu'r gymhawr, ar gyd, felly mae gwaith o ddiwylliant ond leisteru, oedd dangosog gael iawn. Dyna yn ydym gael i'r ddud curvesu ein bod yn fath o ddud curvesu ein bod yn dylunsiu ein bod yn ddud curvesu, ac i gael i'r ddud curvesu yma o'r ddud curvesu, ac i gael i'r ddud curvesu yma o'r ddud curvesu yma o'r ddud curvesu. Felly, rydyn ni'n ddud curvesu digon i'n ddud curvesu gael iawn. Fysydd cwmhagol Ieswpen, gael i'r ddud curvesu i'r drwng and home affairs, Ms Heather Tully, criminal justice reform unit, criminal justice division, Ms Lucy Smith, victims and witnesses unit at the criminal justice division, Mr Simon Stockwell, family law policy unit, civil law and legal system division, and Kirsty Anderson, solicitor, legal directorate at the Scottish Government. Welcome all, and I refer members to papers 1 and 2, and I intend to allow about 90 minutes for this session. I invite the cabinet secretary to make an opening statement, cabinet secretary. Thank you, convener, and good morning. The Victims, Witness and Justice Reform Bill puts victims at the heart of the justice system. Parts one to three of the bill are central to delivery of that ambition, and I will just go over the aims of these parts briefly. Part one of the bill to establish an independent victims and witness commissioner will give victims an independent voice, champion their views and hold justice agencies to account, as part of the commissioner's role will be to monitor how agencies are complying with the standards of service and the victims code. There is long-standing and clear demand from victims for this role. The issue has been discussed at the Victims Task Force over a number of years, and a public consultation revealed strong support. The bill is delivering on a commitment made to victims and to the wider public via our manifesto and programme for government to establish such a post. The role will benefit victims and witnesses of crime by providing a statutory mechanism for their voices and experiences to be heard. Part two of the bill aims to put trauma-informed practice at the heart of decision-making in the justice system to improve people's experiences of justice and to help them to participate effectively. I have followed the committee's scrutiny of the parts of the bill with interest. I am pleased that there has been universal agreement among your witnesses that the justice system must operate in a trauma-informed way. The committee has heard from experts about the ways trauma can affect people, and victims and survivors have spoken powerfully about the lasting impacts of trauma and how the justice process itself can be re-traumatising. We cannot remove all risk of traumatisation from the justice system, but the bill puts in place measures that aim to minimise that risk. If people are treated in trauma-informed ways, that can help to keep them engaged with the justice process, help to ensure that trauma does not stop them participating effectively and help them to give their best evidence. As well as significantly improving the experiences of witnesses themselves, that can improve the quality of the justice process for everyone involved. The bill builds on work already under way by justice partners and aims to embed the principles of trauma-informed practice within our justice system. The bill includes a definition of trauma-informed practice, helping to ensure a consistent understanding and approach that requires justice agencies to make efforts to reduce re-traumatisation and to publish standards on trauma-informed practice. The bill also requires the judiciary to take trauma-informed practice into account when scheduling court business and empowers the courts to set rules designed to ensure that proceedings are conducted in trauma-informed ways. Convener, part 3 of the bill covers special measures in civil cases. Special measures protect people in court who might be vulnerable. The provisions are a reflection that domestic abuse can arise in civil cases as well as in criminal cases. The existing legislation of special measures covers civil cases as well as criminal cases. However, there have been requests over the years to improve the legislation on special measures in relation to civil cases. The Children's Scotland Act 2020 includes provisions to enhance special measures in some cases. The act was, of course, just about family cases. The bill is an opportunity to extend the provisions to cases generally. The bill is central to the delivery of a vision for justice and brings forward proposals for transformational change to the system that has emerged from respected review processes and directly from victims themselves. The Government is acting on the evidence and what we have heard from those with experience of the system. Importantly, convener, the bill is the Government's response to what we have heard from victims. I look forward to the committee's questions. Thank you very much indeed, cabinet secretary. We will move on to questions now and tend to invite questions firstly on part 1 of the bill, and then we will move on to parts 2 and part 3 in turn. I wonder if I can begin with a general question on part 1, the proposal around the establishment of a victims commissioner. We have heard mixed views on the proposal. Some witnesses are clearly very supportive, but others have raised some concerns. For example, is it the best use of limited resources? Do we need another commissioner and a possible conflict with, for example, the role of the Lord Advocate? Can I ask the cabinet secretary what her reflections are on some of the concerns that have been raised? Thanks very much, convener, and it's a good place to start. I suppose that I have a response to your question. I want to reiterate and expand on what I have said in and around the case for a victims and witness commissioner and the support for our proposition, and to acknowledge some of those concerns about costs and your point in relation to the Lord Advocate's powers. We are all operating in a fiscal reality, but there are provisions in the bill that can enable the victims and witness commissioner to share back-office functions. A number of commissioners already do that. The bill does not disqualify an existing commissioner from being appointed to this role. Any commissioner would need to comply with the corporate body in and around things like the location office. Many commissioners are either in shared premises down in Bridgesite House and Leith, or within the existing Scottish Government estate or the existing public sector estate. On the case for a commissioner, the commission is essentially about the need for an independent voice, a champion who will challenge criminal justice agencies. The role also brings, and I mentioned that additional statutory mechanism that enables voices and experiences to be heard. A key role of the commissioner is monitoring compliance with the victims' code and the standards of service, including the requirement for agencies to actively demonstrate trauma-informed practice and, in that manner, monitor how the rights of victims and witnesses are being respected and, of course, they are accountable to the Parliament. I would also like to say that the proposition has been developed over a number of years. From the work of the victims' task force, it produced a paper back in 2020. Victim support Scotland produced a paper called Making the Case for a Victims and Witness Commissioner. Essentially, the case hinged around the need for victims and witnesses to be heard and to be able to influence systemic change and change at that strategic level. I was very struck by the correspondence from Lynn Burns when she said that it was an opportunity for a commissioner to represent all victims. That is different from the role of individual agencies. In many ways, it was a first step. That is probably why it is part 1 of the bill. She described it as a conduit at that strategic and systemic level between Government justice agencies and people who are affected by crime. In terms of the Lord Advocate's powers, I am clear that there is nothing in the bill that in any way interferes or disrupts the Lord Advocate's constitutional powers with respect to prosecution decisions and other functions. The bill acknowledges the role of the Crown Office and its functions that have an impact on the treatment of victims. It is my view that a victims and witness commissioner should be able to make recommendations but only in respect of the Lord Advocate's functions in relation to the treatment of victims, not those powers where only the Lord Advocate has the constitutional authority to undertake. That is a really helpful update. I have a couple of supplementary questions that I might come back to later if we have time, but I am going to open it up to members. I am going to bring in Inona Mackay and then Fulton MacGregor. Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister. I just wanted to thank you for that helpful overview of it. I think that there is a lot a lot covered in that. I just wanted to pick up one part of it just for clarification. You said that it is possible that it is open to an existing commissioner. Do you mean that they would take on that as an additional role or part of their portfolio and not have an individual victims commissioner? Is that what you meant? The legislation is for a distinct role of victims and witness commissioner. It just does not disqualify an existing commissioner from taking on that role. I will ask our lawyer just to confirm that I have articulated that accurately for the record. Or maybe Lucy. Yes, perhaps, Lucy. Thank you. The provisions in schedule 1 set out about the appointment for the victims witness commissioner. In that, it says that it does not prevent an existing commissioner from having this function. The function cannot be given to another public body but it could be given to a commissioner. If the committee, if Parliament chose that, it could be an option rather than a specific separate body. Okay, thank you. That is interesting. Thank you. I have filled to McGregor, then Sharon Dewey. I have heard some concerns from the Children and Young People's Commissioner, for example, about a lack of clarity between their role in the proposed victim and witnesses commissioner or an overlap. Is that something that the Government has looked at? Do you think that there might be a case to make that clearer? It is an issue that we have been conscious of. That is because of some of the policy areas in terms of improving the experience and support that is available for children witnesses. If you think of the work around the Bairns House, that is cross-portfolio work. I suppose that the Children and Young People's Commissioner role is an example of the role and the model of a commissioner working well. It is correct to say that the victim code and the standards of service that criminal justice agencies are held to account for specify children. We have been working to ensure that the connectivity between the Children and Young People's Commissioner and the Victims and Witness Commissioner is the appropriate links, but not duplication. If I can give you an example, section 10 in the bill gives the commissioner powers to carry out an investigation but not to duplicate the function of others. The bill, in how it is crafted, is trying to ensure that we are having clarity as opposed to confusion and that the commissioner cannot go into the functions and duties of another commissioner or another body. Although section 6 empowers the Victims and Witness Commissioner to engage with the Children and Young People's Commissioner, we want to ensure that as much clarity as possible, if there are other matters that we need to resolve in light of the evidence, and if there is further detail consideration that needs to be given, we will certainly do that. I came back to some of your other comments. You said that it was a statutory mechanism for the voices and experience to be heard of victims. We have also said that it would give them an independent voice, a champion and it would monitor compliance. We have already got a lot of groups and organisations out there that could do that same function. The Scottish Women's Aid of All expressed concern that the funding for the commissioner should not take away from the front-line services that they provide. The finance committee has also expressed concerns that it is becoming regarded as a casual thing to suggest and implement the establishment of another commissioner, despite it being an expensive extension of our public sector. We all know that finances are finite. We are going to have to find the money from somewhere. Where is the money coming from? Can you guarantee that it is not going to take away from the front-line services that we have already got? It is a completely different function from the role and purpose of front-line services. Ms Dowey is quite right that investment in a victims and witness commissioner should not be taken from front-line services. We operate within a fiscal envelope. I understand and respect the fact that people have a duty to test the costs and the detail in financial memorandums with any new proposition. What I would dispute is that—I know that you were quoting the co-respondents from the finance committee—I can confidently say in this consideration of a victims and witness commissioner that this is not being a casual approach. That is because of the work that has taken place over a number of years. The work from the Victims Task Force, the work of Victims Support Scotland, our own work in terms of the consultation for this bill. I would dispute any inference that our proposal to bring forward a victims and witness commissioner in any way is casual. It is a direct response to the direct demand from victims and witnesses themselves. It is designed to complement and not duplicate the role of front-line services. If I can give some examples, the commissioner has broad powers that front-line agencies do not. The commissioner will have powers that will require the agency to provide information to determine whether it is compliance with the updated victims code and instead service of standards. The commissioner will have a duty to publish reports and recommendations. The commissioner will have the powers to impose a requirement on agencies for them to respond to any report made by the commissioner and for any statements to be published when they receive a response from agencies to their recommendations. The role of the commissioner is very much about that structural and systemic change and is distinct from the role of individual agencies that are supporting either individuals or providing front-line services. You said in your opening statement as well about how all the organisations are supportive of bringing in trauma-informed practices. Would the money not be better spent? They have already highlighted all the issues that we have, so would that money not be better spent going and fixing the things that we already know that are wrong? The money is going to have to come from somewhere. The money is going to have to come from somewhere. After the session that we had last week on pre-budget scrutiny, we are all well appraised of the challenges that we face. I would still contend that there is added value and therefore a merit to investment in the victims and witness commissioner because it will hold criminal justice agencies to account on how they implement and how they put into practice trauma-informed approaches. Thank you very much. Russell Findlay and Pauline McLean Thank you, convener. It is just a continuation of the line of questioning from my colleague Sharon Dowey. Police Scotland and the Crown Office have both written to the finance committee with concerns about the bill's financial memorandum. The finance committee convener has written to our committee about that. Some of the biggest concerns relate to the cost of six crime courts, which is part five of the bill and therefore for another day, but he also cites the cost of the commissioner as an area of concern. In light of that, is the Scottish Government doing any work to revisit, reassess or reevaluate the cost of this bill? In terms of any financial memorandum, when it is produced, it is based on the detailed evidence that is available at the time. I would like to stress that we have engaged extensively with our stakeholders and partners who will ultimately have operational responsibility to deliver many aspects of the bill. We were very transparent and upfront around the financial memorandum. The costs are far easier to define for parts 1, 2 and 3 that we are discussing this morning. There are other parts of the bill, and Mr Findlay is right to point to that. There are other parts of the bill where estimates have been given, where minimum costs have been given and that is in recognition due to variables and operational decisions that have yet to be made. Is it being re-evaluated or reassessed? It is an on-going process and I have received correspondence from the Finance Committee in that regard, and we will continue to engage. In general terms, a financial memorandum accompanying a bill is always a work in progress. Is it the capacity to change as the bill evolves? That has been my experience as a minister and a number of portfolios. I appreciate that you want to establish as much information about the costs as early as possible. That is in the interests of transparency and accountability to Parliament and committees. However, bearing in mind the work that goes on in and around a bill and particularly around implementation and the purpose of scrutiny and evidence, it means that there are times that financial memorandums are revisited. In opening, you said that a commissioner would have the ability to hold agencies to account. The Law Society has highlighted that the bill does not contain any enforcement mechanism in the event of any agency failing to co-operate with the commissioner. In other words, the police in the Crown Office theoretically at least could ignore the commissioner and not engage with the commissioner and there would be nothing that anyone could apparently do about that. Will that gap in the bill be addressed by the Scottish Government? I wouldn't articulate that as a gap, Mr Finlay, just purely on the basis that the model for a commissioner and for the victims and what this commissioner is in line with the model of most other commissioners. I'm not aware of—you may be able to stand to be corrected—but commissioners are accountable to Parliament, so if they are reporting on significant abdication of duty or non-compliance with legislation or standards of service, that information is made available to Parliament and, of course, it's for parliamentarians to consider what further action would be appropriate. Parliament would need to address any potential non-compliance, so it wouldn't be part of the bill because that would be inconsistent with our commissioners. An extension of that is the belief or the view from Crown Office and Police Scotland that the commissioner shouldn't be allowed to become involved in individual cases. They claim that doing so would potentially prejudice legal proceedings. Do you believe that it's actually reasonable and straightforward to empower the commissioner to act in certain cases without interfering with justice? Again, we have carefully looked at that bearing in mind that there is operational independence for our courts and prosecutors, and it's not in anybody's interest for those processes to be interfered with. Ultimately, the Victims and Witness Commissioner is about amplifying the voices of victims and witnesses to ensure better consistent systemic level change. The commissioner can engage with individuals and consider the individual experiences of people, but that is to improve the understanding of the national picture. Bearing in mind the discussions that we have had so far about concerns about duplication and costs, I'm satisfied that the commissioner, as with other commissioners, doesn't take on or intervene in individual cases. I have the dealings with the children's commissioner in relation to a specific case of a baby that died. I didn't realise perhaps they were going beyond the remit, and I know that you can't speak for that, but surely there will be cases with very nature of the criminal justice system that require the commissioner to engage and perhaps take some form of immediate intervention or action. As I've said, in terms of the purpose of this commissioner, we can establish this, but it's not an uncommon model for commissioners that they can, of course, look at individual cases and engage on individual cases, but that's with a view, not to act in individual cases, but a view to the wider systems change. It's not common for commissioners to call for change in policy or to call for change in legislation or to call for action, but that's at a systems-wide level based on the knowledge and understanding of an individual case or, indeed, many individual cases. I begin by stating what I already said in record, which is that I've never been keen on the idea of a lot of different commissioners, and at the moment I'm struggling to see what this proposal would actually do to make any difference to victims. However, I'm trying to keep an open mind. My first question relates to—I was following in from Russell Findlay's—the rule of law itself dictates the separation between Parliament and the courts. As you've said already, Lord Advocate has a statutory legal function and is independent in itself, so it's not really possible to create a commission that has any powers that can challenge any of these statutory bodies, and if it did, it would be interfering with the rule of law and the independence of the Crown. Is that not the first problem? As I outlined in my question to Mr Dowie—or my answer to Mr Dowie—the commissioner would have broad powers that require criminal justice agencies to provide evidence and to give evidence on any investigations that the commissioner undertook, it would require agencies to provide clear information that they are compliant with trauma-informed practice, that they are adhering to the victims' code and the standards of service, and, like other commissioners, there would be a duty to publish reports and to make recommendations that would all be on the public record. They can impose a requirement on agencies to respond to a report, and the commissioner has to publish statements on responses that they have received and responses to recommendations or reports that they have made. That is a well-established model that, in my view, perhaps the best example is how well that has worked with the Children and Young People's Commissioner, which has certainly been part of the dialogue and has certainly been a role that has contributed to many policy and legislative changes in this Parliament. Over the history of this Parliament, it has shifted and changed our dialogue on how we support children and young people. What victims and witnesses are seeking to achieve here is a commissioner that is on a par with the Children and Young People's Commissioner. Surely there is a big difference between a commissioner and a children's commissioner that is not dealing with the court system or the Crown Office. The distinction here is that you want to create a commission that cannot interfere with the statutory functions. I take your point about the Children's Commissioner being able to influence the definition of a child, for example. I do not think that there is a straightforward comparison here. The sort of things that we are hearing from victims that, in terms of their experiences, long delays a failure for the Crown Office and the police to communicate properly the court experience itself, the physicality of the court and giving evidence, all of which the bill is trying to deal with anyway in terms of trauma informed commission given evidence by commission. I am struggling to see other than, as you said, the Cabinet Secretary will report to me on that. The cardinal will not go beyond that in any way. I point to the fact that, by comparison, the Children and Young People's Commissioner is also operating in an environment that is quite legislation heavy in terms of the children's hearing system, for example. There is a small proportion of children and young people that become involved in the criminal justice system, for example. It is a fair comparison. All the things that you mentioned in terms of court rules and procedures, schedule, environment and pre-recorded evidence, they all have a direct link with trauma informed practice and trauma informed approaches. Although the operational delivery of those matters rests elsewhere, the purpose of the bill in cementing and placing duties on people to demonstrate trauma informed practice is not the only lever, but a lever in changing how operational decisions are made and implemented. Does it not also call into question the existence of a commissioner? The excellent work that victim support has done, which is Government-funded, and has been a champion for victims, appeared before this committee on many occasions. Does it not compromise the funding of a third sector organisation that has already been quite effective? Victim support Scotland has been one of the biggest advocates for a victims and witness commissioner and published a paper making the case for a victims and witness commissioner in 2021. I know that Victim support Scotland and Kate Wallace have given evidence to this committee. Do you not see any compromise that has happened to be made between the victims and the commissioner and the role of a very effective victims organisation? Do you not see any... I do not miss, McNeill. I think that there are distinct roles that complement each other. I think that I have given some clarity in terms of learning from how commissioners are established more broadly, and how we have taken efforts to ensure that there is not inappropriate duplication. To be honest, my experience is a minister where you would have dealings with independent commissioners. Your dealings with commissioners is always quite formal, a few times a year, arms length, exchange of correspondence, but your engagement with stakeholders and front-line organisations is always more intense and more frequent. Before we move on to part 2, I wonder if I can just come in with a final question and it relates to British Transport Police. BTP sent in a written submission and in relation to parts 1 and 2 of the bill, they were questioning why BTP was not being treated as or considered to be a justice agency in the same way as Police Scotland. You may be aware that BTP was in the Parliament just the other week, and they spoke about a range of things, including their guardian app, which enables travellers to report crimes and offences while travelling. From the conversation that I had, they were quite keen that that was extended to women and was relevant to safe travel for women. I wonder whether there are some difficulties in and around this, and if so, if the Scottish Government is perhaps looking at ways to ensure that that status, if you like, does not hinder the objectives of the bill that we are looking at? Yes, the British Transport Police do great work. As we all know, they are in the office here across the islands. It is important to stress that we will always have further discussions with the agencies, whether it is the British Transport Police or others, if there is more they are seeking to do, particularly in pursuit of the aims of the bill. The purpose of our investment in the Knowledge and Skills framework for the justice sector is to guide and support the implementation of trauma-informed practice. It is clear that the British Transport Police are undertaking many initiatives to put that into practice. We are happy to explore that more with them. The legislation builds on previous legislation, so the agencies that have duties placed upon them in this bill are ones that are listed in the Victims and Witness 2014 act. We are cognisant that the British Transport Police can operate in other areas and our legislation can only apply to operations in Scotland. However, if there is more that we can do to work with the British Transport Police to work in partnership, I am also conscious that we are the first jurisdiction in the UK to legislate to put trauma-informed practice into the very heart of legislation in our justice system, and we will want to share that with others and work with others. Thank you very much for that. That was a helpful open door. That will maybe help us to segue into looking at part 2 of the bill around embedding trauma-informed practice. I may kick things off with a question. We heard a couple of weeks ago some excellent evidence from Dr Caroline Bruce and Professor Caratius from Edinburgh Napier University on trauma-informed practice. One point that was made by Professor Caratius was in response to a question about the whole system embedding of trauma-informed practice. He spoke about the principles of trauma-informed practice that are quite general around safety, choice, collaboration, trustworthiness and empowerment, but that different elements may apply in different parts of the justice sector. For example, perhaps in a court setting, the principles around safety and choice may be more relevant while in prisons elements or principles around recovery may be more important and more relevant. Does the cabinet secretary consider that that whole system application of trauma-informed practice is set out as an example by Professor Caratius if the provisions in the bill will support that? In broad terms, yes. The provisions in the bill are trying to do two things. We do indeed want systemic change. We want a shared understanding, a consistency of approach. We want all that on the one hand, but there is a recognition that justice agencies will need a flexibility to implement in a way that is tailored to their context for the very reasons that you have outlined. The bill does that by creating a statutory definition of trauma-informed practice that is requiring agencies to have regard to trauma-informed practice and their work with victims and witnesses. It is crafted in a way that, for example, it is empowering courts to set rules and procedures on trauma-informed practice both in criminal and in civil business. In terms of how trauma-informed practice is defined, that has been informed by the trauma-informed knowledge and skills framework for the justice sector, although, as with any legal definition, it has to fit into legislation. Quite often, as with the bill, some definitions and are dependent on previous legislation. As with any legislation, you are not starting from scratch. If we are looking at a whole system embedding of trauma-informed practice as and when, if the bill is passed, would there be provision put in place to support the implementation of a whole system approach and embedding? What would be the early work that might be required around that? Colleagues will remember the debate that we held in Parliament before summer recess, and that was shining a light on the publication of the knowledge and skills framework. As members in that debate—I think that Ms McNeill in particular—there is a substantive document. It runs to about 250 pages. There is the toolkit, and I know and I am quite sure that committee knows from the evidence that it has heard that many of our stakeholders and agencies are already running with that work, so that work does not depend on legislation. What legislation does is that it gives a permanency to change and cements change into the system and imposes duties on players on that system to demonstrate that they are meeting those objectives and this way of working. I was actually looking at the definition of trauma-informed practice, so we have heard from lots of the criminal justice agencies that have given us evidence, and a lot of them have started bringing in trauma-informed practice, but without legislation at the moment. When we had NHS Scotland, they suggested that there would be benefits in extending the definition, so I am just wondering what your thoughts on that were. If we don't get the definition right, do we run the risk of organisations only working up to the letter of the law and then not actually going above and beyond that to try and keep finding new ways to improve? We will always have an open mind and an open door to have an engagement on the detail. The only caveat is that it is important that legislation brings clarity of meaning and purpose and that there are never unintended consequences by changing the letter of the law. As I intimated earlier to the convener, the legal definition is closely aligned to the Knowledge and Skills framework and all that work undertaken by NHS and Dr Caroline Bruce. It is not exactly the same word for word, just because the bill does not exist in isolation from other legislation. What the bill is doing is adding trauma-informed practice to an existing list of principles that is in the 2014 act. Some of the justice agencies, including police and prosecution, have raised concerns about limited resources. Again, what conversations have you had with them about resources? Once we put the legislation in, is there a risk that, to comply with legislation, that other things, as you mentioned, are unintended consequences earlier on? Is there a risk that the focus on the legislation is unintended consequences when the money and resources have to come from other areas? Let me assure members that there are always lots of discussions about resources with our partners on an on-going basis. I think that the costs for parts 1, 2 and 3 of the bill are pretty well defined and clear. I am conscious that, for some of our organisations such as the Scottish Courts and Tribunial System in terms of their overall budget and the overall size of their operation, they are smaller in comparison to, say, Police Scotland. We have to give some cognises to smaller organisations, but we should also remember—it is appropriate for me to test any supplementary evidence that comes from stakeholders about costs—that this is not all about additional resources, not de-murrin from the reality that there is a cost to this bill. However, some of this is not about additional duties, some of this is about changing what we do at a core level. I would argue for the overall system that, if we get it right and embed trauma-informed practice, in many ways that supports and encourages a more efficient justice system, particularly around how we schedule and how the implementation of trauma-informed practice is a clarion call to organise a system to reduce delays. It is all interrelated, but I think that some of this is about approach, culture and practice, as well as resources. I would agree with that, but initially, to put it into practice, there is going to be a cost. We will get the letter that came in last night, and all the way through that letter, there is reference to financial constraints, and that is why a lot of previous legislation has been implemented. I would be concerned that because of the cost of implementing this, there could be unintended consequences where other things get left to the side and we end up inadvertently causing more trauma to victims. Just one last one on the parole board. The parole board said that we are not confident that the bill would change the traumatic experience of victims going through the parole board process. Do you have any plans to make more specific provisions relating to the parole board and the legislation in order to change that? The parole board is a legal entity and has an interface with victims and witnesses. Therefore, like other criminal justice agencies, it will have to demonstrate its compliance to trauma-informed practice, as per the provisions in the legislation. The other aspect of policy is the review of the victims' notification scheme. That has a particular relevance to the work of the parole board. There was a review undertaken that work was published in May this year. There were around 22 recommendations. We are working through those recommendations and I would hope that we will be in a position to inform Parliament in terms of a response to that independent inquiry. Those recommendations will be of particular relevance to the parole board. I want to ask you to follow on from your comments about changing practice and culture. I want to ask you about floating trials in solemn cases. We have heard from witnesses and from some women's organisations that they prolong the trauma and prolong the anxiety for forensic rape complainers. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service has defended their use and there is nothing in the bill to address that. For your thoughts on floating trial diets, can you understand the anxiety that they claim to cause the victims? I should acknowledge that there is a debate around that. In many ways, there is a live debate between different stakeholders and different voices in the legal establishment. I would acknowledge that uncertainty for victims is undesirable and that the Government's position is that we are supportive in reducing the use of floating trials. We have not brought forward any measures to ban the use of floating trials. In essence, that is because we are still tackling a court backlog. The court recovery programme is making good progress and is reducing the backlog by a third. There is a timetable of activity to move matters forward. The concern is that to remove floating trials at this time could increase delays further and that would induce further distress. We have taken a more flexible approach whereby courts would be required to consider trauma-informed practice when scheduling their business. We are supportive of a shift in culture. The ultimate aim would be when the time is right not to have these floating trial diets at all. I want to see them reduced. I would also acknowledge that it is a matter of live debate just now. I need to be cognisant of a range of voices. I know that uncertainty for victims is a real factor that causes real distress. I am cautious that, at this point in time, if we took a more inflexible approach, that would cause further harm and distress. I think that a more flexible approach is the appropriate response. It is written evidence to committee NHS Education Scotland for Scotland says that the bill's definition of trauma-informed should align with its five-point definition, which was published this year, but the bill does not include two of its five points. It says that the word that it uses is essential, and not only that, but leaving it out may hinder the implementation of other parts of the bill. It wants the Scottish Government to look at it again, so will you? Our door is always open, particularly at stage 1. The purpose of stage 1 and people being able to provide evidence has a benefit to MSPs and the Government. I refer Mr Finlay to what I said earlier that the definition aligns closely with the trauma-informed practice framework, and it is also adding to the existing list of principles that are contained in an earlier bit of legislation. However, if Mr Finlay or others want to be specific about what they think is missing, we can go and check whether it is referenced. I am just putting to you what the written evidence to the committee has been, which is obviously available to the Government. John Watt of the Porobort has told us that we need a complete review of the system from the ground right up. Our chief superintendent Derek Frew of Police Scotland told us that the trauma experienced by the victims and their families of the justice system will not be fixed by what is in the bill, which will not solve the systemic issues. Given the evidence of both Mr Watt and the chief superintendent Frew, would a ground up review not have been a much more sensible starting point than this costly and cumbersome legislation? With respect, Mr Finlay, I point to the Lady Dorian review into the management of sexual offences cases, which the bill is largely developed from. That was a clean sheet approach, and it was a substantive piece of work that took place over two years. I think that it is always fair to acknowledge that no bit of legislation is ever the silver bullet, but it is a substantial piece of legislation. It does not come without its financial costs, but it is a substantial piece of legislation that will make historic changes that will benefit victims and witnesses and crucially improve the experience that victims and witnesses have of our current court procedures in particular. When you have a senior Police Scotland officer telling the committee that the problems will not be fixed by what is in the bill, does that not cause you some concern? I have read Mr Watt's comments, and I was just about to mention the chief superintendent Frew, Mr Finlay. The chief superintendent was talking about a local policing context, working with community planning partnerships. He was reflecting on matters at a level beyond the bill. I am not sure that he was giving a direct comment specifically on the bill, but members who were present at the time will have their own views on that. My understanding, looking at the official record, Mr Finlay, a new lengthy exchange with Mr Watt over the parole board, was quite specific to how the parole board engages with victims or those who are registered under the victims. That brings us back to one of the questions that someone else asked about the parole board not being part of the bill's remit, which you have already answered. I have already answered that, and they are, because the parole board is the legal entity that is a listed agency. When you were here seven weeks ago, I asked about the requirement for judges to be trauma-informed, but the bill says that this will be up to the Lord President to decide exactly what that will look like. If the bill is going to create time and effort to implement trauma-informed practice throughout the justice system, should it not be more specific? In light of that point raised seven weeks ago, is that being revisited, or are you happy with the bill as is? I am going to ask officials to speak on that point. There is certainly not an obligation on those who participate, and that is part of the bill that will come to you later in part five. There is an obligation on all the actors and players in the sexual offences courts to be trauma-informed. There is certainly a desire and a commitment for the judiciary. It is specifically on the bill that says that the judiciary will, once the bill is enacted, then decide what that looks like. Should it not actually state what it looks like up front? Just to add to what the cabinet secretary has said, I think that the committee heard last week from David Fraser and indeed from Dr Caroline Bruce about the considerable training on trauma-informed practice that has already been developed and delivered by the judicial office, which leads on training for the judiciary. On the high quality of that training, I think that they were perhaps the first organisation or one of the first that Dr Caroline Bruce has worked with quite extensively on the development of their own training. It is something that they already have put considerable resource and time into developing. As the cabinet secretary has said, when it comes to part five of the bill in the specialist court, there is a course of requirement that the judiciary, like the other players in that court, will have undergone trauma-informed training. Is this provided by the judicial institute for Scotland? Yes, the judicial institute for Scotland leads on the development and the delivery of all training for the judiciary. I have covered quite a lot under trauma-informed practice already, so it is really quite a general question for me in touching on something that the cabinet secretary has already raised. Clearly, from the evidence that we have heard, there is a lot of good trauma-informed practice already happening in the justice system, albeit perhaps in patches throughout different organisations. Another one of the things that I think everybody recognises is that we have heard from various people telling us about their experience that often the justice system itself re-traumatises victims. I did have another question before changing this general one, but a lot of it is being covered, but is the purpose of this part of the bill in bringing trauma-informed practice into legislation really to try to drive that culture change, to look at the good things that are happening, to try to replicate it across services quicker than would maybe happen without legislation? In short, convener, we know from a series of reports dating back to about 2017. Various reports started with a thematic review of investigation and prosecution services, a real close look at the justice journeys, reviews of victim care that was undertaken by Leslie Thomson, KC and other work, and then we have Lady Dorian's work, where she said that trauma-informed practice is a central way in which the experience of complainers can be improved. I believe that the bill will help to bring forward that system's wide change. I said this in an open statement that you can never remove risk entirely because part of the process of going through the justice system is that people will have to, in some shape or form, recount very difficult traumatic experiences. Where we can reduce that risk of re-traumatising, ensure that people can continue to be engaged with the justice system and not fall out of the process and that they are given the appropriate support to give their best evidence. That is not compromising anybody else's rights, but it is in the interests of justice that complainers and witnesses are able to give the best of evidence. At the end of the day, we all want to get to the truth in any individual case. A cornerstone of our system is fairness and we have to do that in a way that does not have a disregard for the welfare of people who are participating in our justice system. I think that you have partially covered the question that I was going to ask, but just for the record. When you said that there will be a certain element of risk, the important thing is that we have a system that lets victims tell their stories and that they fully get out in court the voice that they want to give to what happened to them. However, there is a fine line between that and cross-examination of the system that we have and are not proposing to change the serial nature of it. Had you had any discussions with the profession? Had any concerns been raised with the Government during the passage of the bill about the balance between trauma-informed practice and the process of cross-examination in court? Again, lots of discussions with lots of stakeholders and people who operate in the courts on a day-to-day basis. As you would expect, I have engaged with faculty of advocates, criminal defence lawyers, victims support organisations and the purpose of the Lady Dorian review was to look at how we could improve the experience of victims going through the justice system without compromising the rights of the accused. There is always a balance. I will not repeat what I have said around the series of reports that point to evidence about the system as a whole. I am sure that the committee has a powerful personal testimony on the emotional toll of being a complainer or victim. I also know that there are criminal defence lawyers who have been absolute champions of the trauma-informed approach, in particular Ian Smith, who I had dealings with in my drugs policy days, my minister for drugs policy. Our system ultimately needs to be fair to everybody and we need to have that balance. I will ask a final question before we move on to part 3. It is regarding the role of the Scottish Prison Service in terms of trauma-informed practice. The committee has heard evidence relating to the treatment of prisoners in a trauma-formed way. However, I am just interested in how the current secretary would envisage the provisions in part 2 of the bill impacting further on the role of the Scottish Prison Service, with particular reference to victims and witnesses. For example, perhaps in and around the victim notification scheme. In terms of the bill, the Scottish Prison Service is required to comply with the new principles in the trauma-informed practice and its work with victims and witnesses. The main way in which SPS interacts with victims is through the victim's notification scheme. That has been subject to a full independent review. The minister for victims and community safety will be coming forward with her conclusions and a response to that review either by the end of the year or at the turn of the year. That review focused a lot on communication with victims and how there could be a more person-centred approach and people's rights to engage with particular processes. Other work that is relevant in this regard is a stream of work under the victim's task force that is particularly around written communications. That is of importance for organisations, whether it is a crime office or the Scottish Prison Service, because we will all have heard testimony about the nature of written communications, which can be impenetrable. More broadly, in terms of the Scottish Prison Service, it is involved with the people-at-heart approach to communication. The trauma-informed approach for prisoners, although it is not in this bill, because the bill is about victims and witnesses, is part of their corporate plan. We will move on to part 3 of the bill, which is a proposal around extended special measures in civil cases. I will come in with the first question. It relates to evidence that was received from Scottish Women's Aid, Rape Crisis Scotland and Victim Support Scotland. They argued that the categories of witnesses who should be deemed vulnerable should be broadened further beyond what is in the bill and that special measures should be available automatically for witnesses that are deemed to be vulnerable. I wonder whether the cabinet secretary would now consider potentially amending part 3, just in recognition of the evidence that was given. Again, convener, I will always work with members and stakeholders to discuss concerns and always in the business a hope of demonstrating that we will look at what is on the art of the possible. I think that this is quite a difficult area. I say that for reasons of transparency. The bill is about improving access to special measures, because we have heard us over a number of years that people have felt in the civil courts far less protected, particularly in and around where domestic violence or abuse is a feature of the case. Our approach so far is that where there are civil protection orders in place, so if that is an interdict or a non-harassment order or whether there are convictions or indeed live proceedings, that would trigger the special measures automatically. It would be the court that would have discretion in other circumstances. I am always happy to discuss and consider further. I am also aware of other evidence that the committee got from the Family Law Association that expressed some caution. When you were here in September, I raised the issue of what some victims groups have described as being legal system abuse. An example of that is when a domestic abuser uses connected civil and criminal cases to cause a further unnecessary delay. It was suggested that having a single abuser could deal with civil and criminal cases in tandem to help tackle that. You said at the time that you welcomed the logic of that. You saw the logic of it, and the Scottish Government would take an interest and consider working with possible way of amending the bill. I know that it has only been seven weeks, but a few of your officials have had any opportunity to explore it any further. I remember our exchange well, Mr Finlay, and I can indeed see the attraction or potential benefits of such approach bearing in mind that one of the core concerns is the lack of information and the lack of connectivity if there are different information and procedures going on in different courts. I have certainly discussed this further with officials. That would be a major piece of work. I am just being upfront and direct about that, Mr Finlay. That would be a substantive piece of work. That does not mean that there are merits in exploring it. It might limit what could be achieved via an amendment. It is an area—if you were talking about integrating courts in certain circumstances—that would certainly require full consultation with stakeholders and, indeed, with the Lord President on his unique duties and responsibilities. We are planning some workshops on that and to look at the issue more and more fully. There is no full list of evidence. There is some evidence around us in terms of the states, but there is not a wide range of evidence. We will continue to look at it with our stakeholders in terms of those workshops, which will be next year. We would also have the desire to look at the issue in and around court rules. I know that more recent changes to court rules have focused on doing more to get the right information to support earlier action, particularly in family cases. They have introduced measures around initial and full case management hearings. If there is further information, I would be happy to provide that to you separately. I want to recap the workshops that you mentioned. They are not specific to the legislation. They are not specific to the legislation, but they are specific to the issue of integrated domestic abuse courts. I think that the Scottish Women's Aid told us that there had not been any meaningful research in Scotland on that particular issue. There is existing research elsewhere in the UK, but I noticed that she also said that this would be a major piece of work, but I guess that the legislation is already a major piece of work, not least the controversial intent to have judge-only rape trials. Given the fact that this would be consulted on, does that make any proposed amendment unrealistic at this stage? I am keen to manage expectations, Mr Finlay, bearing in mind some of the discussion that we have had about cost and the need to be in a position to implement legislation. What I do not want is for amendments to be agreed. Once we have royal assent, we are then sitting with the issues of how we implement some of this in practice. It is just a bit about not putting the cart before the horse. I am trying to understand the process, because you might bring forward an amendment with good intent, but if the necessary work has not been done to assess the cost and so on, then it creates more problems. I would be a bit nervous about an amendment on something so substantive, but that does not mean that there is not merit in pursuing this work further. With the full weight of the Government behind it, we can get it done? We need a lot more work to do. You are a chancer. We have a long journey to go together, Mr Finlay. We will be pals by the end of it. I do not doubt it. I thought that we were going to say something else here. Sharon Dowie and then Rona Mackay. I have a question again on previous legislation. Three years on the special measures in the 2020 act are not enforced yet. When does the Scottish Government aim to have part 3 fully operational? Two parts to that. I did write to the committee in response to the convener's letter. It is a fair point. I hope that I have managed to give some reassurance that there is intensive work under way. We are living with the reality of a major global pandemic that undoubtedly interrupted our justice system and the implementation of legislation. Although I want to give committee the assurance that that is something that I will always test. I know that folk get a bit weary of hearing that we are still living with the on-going consequences of the pandemic. While that is true, I am conscious that folk get weary of it. I will want to always absolutely test pace and progress. I hope that I have given some reassurance to committee in terms of legislation that is still in progress of being implemented. In terms of timescale for special measures, there are some complexities to that. You will know the purpose of the special measures. There is one area that will require particular detailed work that will require regulations, consultation and a considerable amount of work. That is around the creation of a register of solicitors and the bill puts particular responsibilities on the Government in terms of who we engage with, for example faculty of advocates, and it places other actions on us. We need the register of solicitors. We need to establish the register. We need to recruit solicitors. There is consultation that would also need to be gone in and around prior to any regulations being brought forth. That piece of work underpins the policy drive in terms of special measures to prevent people from representing themselves or leading their case in the civil courts. That goes back to Mr Finlay's point about people using civil courts and abusers being able to use it as a platform to further torment victims of domestic abuse and violence. If people are not able to represent themselves, they need to be represented. That is about the fairness in their system, in which we cannot compromise the rights of any particular party. In terms of part 3, you are probably looking at around two years. You have answered one of my other questions, which was going to be, and you are concerned that there was not a sufficient number of solicitors willing to be included in the register, but you seem to be doing on-going work in that to recruit, so that answers that. I will then go back to the cost of it. You referred to the letter that you sent us out last night as well. That one does say about the budgetary pressures in relation to implementing the act in full. That was £15 million a year. It also goes on about the Vulnerable Witnesses Criminal Heavings in Scotland Act 2019, which has not yet been implemented beyond phase 1. Again, domestic abuse protection, all have associated resource implications. Again, there is another part that says, due to resourcing and other priorities following the programme for government. I am just wondering whether we should be looking at some of the legislation that has not been fully implemented yet, because that would have a huge impact on some of the trauma that victims and witnesses face, rather than trying to batter on, bring on or even more legislation that, unless we get the proper funding for, is not going to be implemented. One of the things in the Domestic Abuse Act, it was actually allowing victims to remain in the family home by enabling a social landlord to transfer a tenancy to a victim's survivor. Making sure that we have implemented some of the previous legislation would have a huge way in making sure that we are reducing trauma. Should we not maybe stop and look at some of the previous legislation and put the funding in there to get that implemented, because, as I already said, there is a will within judiciary to do trauma-informed practice? We are riding two horses at once, and that is just the way that sometimes life needs to be. We are taking this bill through Parliament in tandem with the work to implement previous legislation. In terms of some of the specifics, the bill expands the powers of the Children's Scotland Act. There is a good synergy between the Children's Act 2020 and the bill in that we are increasing the safeguards for vulnerable parties. The 2020 act, in terms of special measures, focused on family cases, the section 11 Children's Scotland Act cases around custody and disputes about contact. We are taking the nub of part of that bill and expanding it more broadly. I believe that that is to be welcomed. It is what victims have been calling for. I would say that, nonetheless, progress has been made with that bill. There were other aspects of that bill that are not directly related to the bill in and around child contact centres and ministers of her detailed discussions with the Care Inspectorate, and I hope to be in a position to lay SSIs soon. There is progress going on in that, but the bit of the Children's Bill that is relevant to this bill, the Victims and Witness Bill, is a good example of where we have taken a bit of movement in protecting people in civil proceedings and expanding that further, and we will make more progress. I doubtedly, in terms of the 2019 act, the Vulnerable Witnesses Criminal Evidence Bill, which was in and around the introduction of pre-recorded evidence, we have made progress with that in terms of the High Court. Again, that work is phased and on-going. We will get to it in later sessions in and around the part 5 of the bill in terms of the sexual offences court, where there will be a presumption of pre-recorded evidence. To say finally, convener, on the domestic abuse protection issue, it is an example of where a bit of legislation was passed, and there were practical issues in and around the implementation of it, hence my note of caution in some of our discussions around some amendments. Not all of the issues with the domestic abuse Scotland Act 2021 are with regard to finances. Some of that is in relation to how timescales laid down in legislation have an impact on the operational justice agencies, and there are some challenges in how the views of children can be gathered in ways that do not cause them additional harm or trauma. Just to say that this is not an excuse, but our experiences in implementing that legislation are not dissimilar to some of the difficulties that have been experienced south of the border. Sometimes legislation is more complex than anticipated in terms of implementation, but I want to assure committee that that is something that I will seek to mitigate as far as possible when we go through the bill process. Just for the record, I want to clarify that we received the letter that you sent earlier this week that provides an update on previously passed legislation, including the Children's Scotland Act 2020. The victims and witness criminal evidence act of 2019 and the Domestic Abuse Protection Scotland Act 2021 is now available online. I will draw the session to a close. Thank you, cabinet secretary and officials, for joining us this morning. We will have a short suspension to allow a changeover of witnesses. Our next agenda item is an evidence session on his Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabularies in Scotland, a thematic review of policing mental health in Scotland. I am very pleased to welcome to the meeting Craig Naylor, chief inspector with his Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland, Mr Brian McNulty, lead inspector of HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland and Dr Aaron Chopra, medical director at the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland and HMICS advisory group member. I warm welcome to you all, and I refer members to papers 3 and 4. I intend to allow up to an hour for this session, and I will invite the chief inspector to make some opening remarks. Thank you for the invite to come and speak to you this morning. Our report, the Genesis of it, was the work done by Lady Ailish Angelini about three years ago just now, and one of the recommendations was that there should be a review of the system that deals with mental health crisis in Scotland. I would love to have done that collaboratively, but in the need of getting something done, we have gone out on our own. Recognising that we were not the experts in everything on mental health, we sought to help and advise from people like Dr Chopra on an independent advisory group. I would like to pay tribute to that group who challenged our thinking, challenged our understanding and brought to the table with us some real experience from both lived experience and from research and from professional capacity across Scotland. Our report covers who the advisory group were, but people like Penumbra include them, Vox Scotland, the forensic network and various others, including Dr Chopra's one input, hugely influenced how we thought about mental health crisis when looking at the policing side of things. A few short comments, chair, if you don't mind. We see crisis in mental health as a multi-faceted, complex and challenging area. It is not one organisation's responsibility to deal with it, it is a whole system that needs to respond to make sure that the people who are facing challenges in their mental health, whether that is a mental health diagnosis and illness or a crisis in the moment, are dealt with in a way that improves their wellbeing in the long term. My review team spoke with a large number of officers and we heard the voices of people who are out with experience and we were aware that people with experience often see police officers as a safety net, people who can respond to them and provide an empathetic response. We were hugely impressed with the officers and staff within Police Scotland who respond, who have to deal with people at their lowest point often and who do this in a way that tries to make sure that there is no worsening of their condition, but in terms of putting them into the right place to get the right treatment. Many officers that we spoke to believe that they are currently filling a gap, and that gap is the one that causes us concern. The gap is either a health, a social care or a wider societal gap that there isn't someone to look after them in their moment of need. I've talked about Vox Scotland and they've conducted a report on our behalf from people with lived experience of mental health. Reading that, hugely influenced our thinking, particularly when people describe about police officers coming and stopping things getting worse, but then being placed in the back of a police vehicle often in handcuffs, often with a blue light on, often going to an accident emergency department to sit for many, many hours, this did not improve their wellbeing, this did not improve their mental health. It may have got them into some form of treatment, but what damage has been done in that intervening period between the crisis moment and the treatment occurring? When you go back to the creation of Police Scotland and the legislation of Police and Fire Reform of Scotland Act 2012, the remit of policing in Scotland is slightly different to that in England and Wales in that there is a requirement to improve the wellbeing of people and communities in Scotland. Police Scotland hold that very dear, they work and strive endlessly to do that. As part of our work, we looked at what is happening in England and Wales and what is described as right care, right person approach, which has been implemented by Humberside Police, the Metropolitan Police and now many other police services across England and Wales. To my view, there is a lot of merit in some of the things that they do, but it does not meet that wellbeing responsibility that Police Scotland has in terms of their community and personal wellbeing. As such, we have not recommended that Police Scotland follows suit and implement it as England and Wales have done or are doing. We do think that there is some learning from it, particularly in understanding what responsibilities Police Scotland has and rather responding to every piece of demand that comes to them and every call for assistance that comes to them to being a bit more discreet in their thinking on that and responding more effectively in that space. What we saw in a lot of the things that we found were that police officers joined policing on the back of an advert that shows them jumping out of helicopters and riding fast cars and so on and so forth and responding to crime. The reality is often very different in that they spend a lot of time looking after people in crisis. We found that the training to support that is not as good as it should be and that it should be changed. We found that the management structures that oversee that are often risk averse, are often concerned that something bad will happen and that there will then be an investigation by the perk into what the officers have done. We found that this almost paralysis, this terror of doing the wrong thing causes officers to make decisions that are often about protecting themselves and protecting the organisation rather than the wellbeing of the individual in the longer term. We totally understand why that happens, because that is the system that they operate within. What we are keen to see is a different approach from Police Scotland, but more importantly a different approach across the whole system. To understand how do we break down the barriers to effective service, how do we get people who are in crisis into treatment at a much earlier point, rather than being stigmatised by sitting beside a cop in a waiting room for a long period of time. The recommendations that we have made—I have stepped out with my own authority and I have made a recommendation to the Scottish Government to look at a whole system review. Coming to this committee allows me to start that thinking again and start encouraging people to join up the dots between silos and Government and improve the overall outcomes rather than just improve bits of the system. We think that policing provides a really effective catch-all service and that that should continue, but there should be better ways of getting the people to the service and the treatment that they need at an earlier point rather than saying to the police officer for a long period of time. I would just like to reiterate my thanks to the independent advisory group. They give us a lot of challenge, a lot of pushback on where we were and they give us that sort of understanding that having a police officer deal with someone in a mental health crisis may not be the wellbeing improvement that we all think it might be. Thank you very much for those opening remarks. If I may just come in to kick things off, picking up on your comments about management structures and how you want to see a different approach across not just Police Scotland but across the whole system, just a system if you will. I would like to reference some of the key findings in your report under the heading of leadership and vision. For the benefit of members, I am going to tease out some of the points that you made. In the key findings, you say that there is a perception among officers that senior leaders focus, as you have outlined, on safe outcomes seeking to minimise every possible threat, risk and harm. That is normally achieved by police officers remaining with a person in crisis until they are accepted into the care of the NHS or a family member. That approach to organisational and reputational risk results in a lack of focus on reflection and opportunities for improvement often to the detriment of the individual concerned. You go on to say that Police Scotland cannot wait until a view of the whole system is undertaken before developing and implementing its own mental health strategy. We believe that the current situation is unsustainable. Just a final point that you make in the following remarks is that Police Scotland must now develop and implement a mental health strategy and seek to understand its legal and moral position and role in the whole system. I think that we all understand and relate to those remarks. However, in relation to the last point about understanding legal and moral position, I wonder whether you can expand a little bit to help us to understand what you are thinking about in those comments. The legislation on how police can intervene in a mental health crisis is all focused on public space. Very often what we find is that people who are suffering from some form of immediate crisis are not in a public space or in a private space of their home or somewhere similar. There is an expectation that the police can come along and can take some action that will keep them safe, reduce the harm and improve their wellbeing in the longer term. One of the difficulties that we find is that there is no police power to enter a house, there is no police power to put hands on, and there is no police power to take them to a place where they can get that treatment. That puts officers in a very difficult position because they then have to use the powers of persuasion, the powers of non-coercive power to encourage the individual who is probably not thinking as clearly as they would otherwise think to go to somewhere other than where they may feel safe. The legislation does not help in that space, but it also causes the officers to feel vulnerable themselves in that if they leave someone who is suffering a crisis, often a suicidal type position, that person then goes and does something and harms themselves or even worse takes their own life. The investigation will be into the conduct of the officers and whether they have done enough to mitigate that risk. Those investigations by the park are good, they are thorough, they come up when they are very balanced and proportionate, but they are difficult for any officer who has tried to save someone's life to go through that whole not only feeling guilty that something has happened but then having the investigation into the circumstances that have taken place. It is a complexity, it is difficult, it is challenging. What we found in our inspection is that the policy that sits around it within Police Scotland is not as clear as it could be that describes the roles, the requirements, the powers of policies and the expectation on the officers. Given that we are probably all in our constituency and regional role, we speak to local police officers and hear just the volume of calls of this nature that police officers are attending. On that, have you had any discussions with Police Scotland as to how they will take forward the recommendations in the review? Given the sheer commitment that officers and police staff are having to make to the particular policing challenge? We have had a number of conversations. Most recently, when Dr Chopra and the members of the independent advisory group came along to a meeting at St Andrew's house, we introduced the independent advisory group to Police Scotland senior leaders who are responsible for taking that forward. One of our recommendations is that Police Scotland make use of the independent advisory group and the expertise that it brings. It was very warm and it allowed Dr Chopra to speak for himself, but it was a very positive meeting and a lot of good ideas came on the table about how to take steps forward against many of the recommendations that we have made on that. I wonder if I can come to Dr Chopra to pick up on something in your mental welfare commission report that reviews the repeated use of place of safety under the mental health act. In your key findings, one of the things that you have included is that the rates of conversion for all section 297 detentions to emergency or short-term detention are around about 15 per cent. However, that is about three times higher than the rate among those being repeatedly detained by police officers under section 297, which is about five per cent. I know from my past experience that recourse to a place of safety is not an uncommon course of action for police officers, so that figure of five per cent is incredible. I wonder if I can bring in Dr Chopra to talk further to that particular finding. I want to start by saying that it was a privilege to work with other members of the advisory group and colleagues from HMICS on that report. I found the HMICS team very responsive to the discussions that we held, and it was very open and helpful discussions that we took place to bring ideas forward. Thank you for highlighting the finding that we mentioned. That is specifically around the use of section 297 powers, and it is specifically around the point of people who are repeatedly detained under section 297. Whereas we see people who are being detained under section 297 having subsequent detentions in about 15 per cent of the cases, when people are experiencing repeat detentions, it is only five per cent. That suggests that those people who are experiencing repeat detentions under section 297 are much less likely to be then requiring further admission to hospital. That illustrates one of the major problems that we have. That is that the act is designed around mental illness, whereas what the police officers are often responding to is mental distress. That is a key distinction that ought to be brought through. The second point that follows from that rather low number that the convener has drawn our attention to is that it probably means that there are not the appropriate ways forward for that group of people, and health professionals are left with a rather binary option of either admitting someone into hospital or nothing. Often, police are responsible in taking forward the next steps if that person is not admitted. One of the other findings that we found from that five per cent group or from this group of people who are subject to repeat section 297 detentions is the absence of care planning. You would expect that someone who is having more than one detention under section 297 would have a robust care plan put together by the health professionals who have been working with them in collaboration with Police Scotland so that that does not happen again, or if they are presenting in crisis that there are alternative pathways for them. What we found is that up to a third of people who had experienced repeat section 297s did not have a care plan. For those who did have a care plan, Police Scotland had not actually been part of working on that care plan. Many of those individuals will be known locally to the police service there and will be known locally to the health professionals. We really think that there is a massive opportunity for collaboration between officers and clinical professionals on the ground in those areas to produce trauma-informed person-centred care plans so that when people are presenting repeatedly the default does not become place of safety admission or nothing, it becomes an alternative. That is the key finding from that report. It sits very nicely with the work of the HMICS thematic review, which calls for that collaboration, that joint training. That is the reason why those two reports really segue together quite nicely. Thank you, and I completely agree with that. I have lots of questions that I would like to ask by way of follow-up, but I have a good number of members who want to come in. I am going to bring in Russell Finlay, then Sharon Dowie. Thank you very much, convener. I will rattle through these as quickly as I can, because there is a lot to go at. Page 31 of the report states that police officers who attend A&E with someone of need and treatment are often left waiting, and that they suspect, and I am quoting here, that they are deliberately being provided in unprioritised service so that they can remain in hospital and provide a visible deterrent to disorder. In other words, police officers are being treated like NHS security guards and therefore being removed from the streets where they should be. I just find that to be shocking, and I wonder what is being done to address this with the NHS. Thank you, Mr Finlay. It is one person's view that we have replicated in this, but it is not the only time that we have heard that. Having a visible policing presence in an A&E department is something that started many, many years ago, but what we are seeing now is often many parked police vehicles outside A&E supporting individuals in there who are in for either physical or crisis treatment for various different things. What has been done about it? We have a structure across Scotland with a number of health boards, a number of divisions. Trying to get one minimum standard across Scotland is difficult, and one of the things that we make in the first recommendation is that this needs to be looked at as a system. That is not a system for Dumfries or Glasgow or Aberdeen, it is a system for Scotland and establishing what is a fair and acceptable way of doing business. What we are calling for is that that whole system is looked at and an understanding of where the blockages are, where the difficulties are and whether there is, in fact, evidence to support the police officer's assertion that they are used as a visible deterrence when they are sitting alongside someone who is suffering from a crisis. Thank you. You make 14 recommendations in the report. I do not know if I understood you correctly in your opening statement, but I think that you said that the first recommendation might go slightly beyond your remit, indeed, and that calls for a strategic review of the whole system from start to finish. I suppose that the question therefore is if that suggestion has been welcomed by the Scottish Government, whether it looks likely, and whether the other 13 recommendations are temporarily at least redundant until number one is either accepted or rejected? That is a very interesting question. Yes, I am going beyond my remit. I am only entitled to make recommendations to the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland, but I would much rather seek forgiveness and permission in some of those things. What we have done is to follow up on what Lady Eilish Angeline said about a combined approach to this, because it is not one organisation's responsibility to resolve mental health crises and distress in the community. I do not think that it makes the others redundant until that is done. I will come back to your point about what the Scottish Government has said. We say quite clearly in a number of places in the report that Police Scotland needs to get on and do its own strategy and then review it once we come to a conclusion on the wider review. There is a lot of work to be done, a lot of training to be done, and there is a lot of understanding more effectively how police officers can work in communities to deal with that distress in the first instance. In terms of the response that we had to members of the Scottish Government health department at the meeting with the IAG, there are plans being looked at and considerations being given to what does that look like, but as yet we do not have anything that is in terms of reference or anything similar. I think that Mr McNaughton indicated that he might want to come in. An important theme that came through our review was the fact that there has been quite a considerable shift in the role of a police officer in this space. Craig and I could reflect back to when we were younger officers, primarily dealing with crime, anti-social behaviour, being proactive in our local communities. We heard a lot of frustration back to your point about accident emergency departments from officers sitting and waiting for considerable periods of time until somebody has medically assessed and all the while they could hear the radio going with things happening in their local communities. I think that there are things that can be done in the short to medium term, while that whole system reviews are weighted on. One of those would be the right-care-right person approach that Mr Nailer referenced. There is a lot of good work being done in terms of protocols around accident emergency departments, and I think that that is something that could be looked at in the shorter to medium term to tighten up on that. If officers arrive at what is essential, a place of safety, and I recognise that it is not an ideal place of safety, but they should then be able to hand over to NHS staff and go back out in patrol. That was a frustration that we heard. There is another line in the report, page 59, that jumped out at me. It says, Police Scotland does not yet have a clear purpose vision or strategy for its continued provision of mental health-related policing services, and it begs the question what on earth not given that this has been such a big issue for such a long time. I just quickly ask one final question about the report and what it does not cover. It is 80 pages long. It is all about policing of mental health issues in the community, but it does not address the issue of officer mental health. That is not a criticism, but we have been working with police officers who have often life-changing, career-ending mental health problems and, indeed, the families of officers who have died from suicide. I think that there is maybe a sense that this report may have at least attempted to address some of those issues, and it does not. I just wonder if HMICS is intending to do that as a standalone piece of work at some point. Thank you. We will publish in January our report on wellbeing. We will call it a front-line focus, so it is very much about the front-line of policing, how police officers are dealing with their own mental health, how their supervisors are supporting them, and what support mechanisms are in place. We do not have a date yet, but sometime in January we will come forward with that report. We have done most of the field work. You will not be surprised, and I sat in in some of your sessions with some of the officers, so thank the committee for that opportunity. However, what we are very clear on is that this is a challenge, and that particular part of dealing with the public can be incredibly challenging for police officers. Of course. They are absolutely interlinked. Okay, that is fantastic. Thank you very much. Thank you. Sharon Dowie and then Jackie Dunbar. Thank you. My question might become under the strategic review of the whole systems being needed, but I have also heard from comments that the police are running an out-of-hours service, because it seems to be that, after nine to five and at the weekend, so evenings and weekends, that is when a lot of their time is taken up with dealing with mental health issues. Is that something that you recognise when you were doing the report, and is there enough work currently being done just now with other agencies to go and address that issue so that they can actually give police the support that they need out of hours? There are some very good pockets of practice across the whole of Scotland, but there are pockets of practice where that does not happen, where there is a more of a 24-7 capability. We have seen some action by Police Scotland to have health advisers in their control room to have pathways that can direct people into the appropriate service, but those have all been driven by policing with good collaboration from local partners. There isn't one national standard that fits the whole of Scotland, and that is where we, to my view, need it to be getting better. We have heard the anecdotes, and when I was a detective inspector many years ago, we would see it have passed four on a Friday afternoon, and you would get four or five phone calls from partners saying, we are concerned about Jimmy, we have not seen him for three days, we have been trying to find him, but we can't find him. Can you take him as missing, there might be a mental health issue? It is not new, that is 20 plus years ago, but what we are seeing is a growth in people being aware of concerns for individuals, and then trying to get a service when there is no longer their service in place. It is difficult, how else do you deal with it? There needs to be a different thinking, we can't solve today's problems with yesterday's thinking. I was just going to address your point, but I will also go back to the point that Mr Finlay made that he said that he wasn't going to ask us to answer, but it was a really important point, and that is a whole thing about, for me, we did hear a lot about demand shift, that is what it was described to us as, that predominantly towards the end of the working day, end of the working week or over holiday periods, Police Scotland experienced a lot of demand coming from agencies who were not able to deal with matters out of oil, so that was an important theme. The other thing probably going back to the whole system for me is that I do not think reflecting back on the work that we did, that we have arrived at where we are by design. We have almost incrementally year on year got into a position where we were asking the police to do something fundamentally different from what they were asked to do 20, 30 years ago. That is why some of the legislation does not really sync with what we are asking of police officers. We did this with Mr Finlay's point about what is the purpose of Police Scotland asking of its officers and staff. We heard a lot of confusion around that from officers and staff who spoke to us, so some people felt that they were there to absolutely fill any gaps in the system. Others felt that they should only be dealing with the really high end threat to life types of incidents. That was not only just with operational officers, but with some very senior officers who had different views. That is why we think that, again, in the short term, Police Scotland really needs to articulate what they expect officers and staff to do in this space, whether that be in a written-down strategy or a communication to the organisation. For me, the piece of paper is less important, because that is about making sure that they articulate to officers and staff what they are expecting them to do and then train them in line with that expectation. I think that you would like to come in. Yes, it is just to build on the points that both Craig and Brian have just made in response to your observation about the out-of-hours work and the fact that the police are often become the service of default at that point. To build on this, there is some really good work taking place in the redesign of urgent care, the unscheduled care network that the Scottish Government convene and holds. One mechanism to address the point that Craig mentioned about the fact that there is not a single national way of ensuring consistency of response would be to align the psychiatric emergency plans that each health board has with the Police Scotland protocol for dealing with mental health in place of safety. If the psychiatric emergency plans and the protocol for dealing with those situations are aligned, that might provide a degree of consistency and would be a mechanism to scale up some of the good practice that Craig has just mentioned. You mentioned earlier on about the enhanced mental health pathway, but it also says that in command and control, I do not think enough calls are being referred that way. Is there anything being done to try and train the people in command and control to make sure that they are sending the calls in the right direction to try and relieve police officers? We interviewed service advisers who operate in the control room where calls from the public are received. The pathway is getting fantastic potential to get better outcomes for people earlier, but we found that it goes back to the risk aversion. There seems to be some risk aversion with the service advisers—a lack of confidence, I think. Many of the advisers that we spoke to felt that they would benefit from more training and understanding of mental health. That is something that I have taken forward with commander for contact and command and control division. They are already, now, as part of the pathway, looking to refresh training. One of the things that we benefited from through the work of the advisory panel was getting lived experience. That is something that we have asked Police Scotland to look at when they are developing the training that they bring in lived experience of people. If you see the evaluation report, there is some fantastic work that the pathway has done. I think that it has got great potential, but that was one of the areas where it could really improve in terms of giving confidence to service advisers. I should actually wrote the written that down earlier on. They are scared of doing it wrong. They want to protect themselves in the organisation. Is there more work still to be done in training, not only for police officers, but also for command and control staff so that they can know the right pathway and have the confidence to take the right action? I think that there is an important point there as well that Mr Neil mentioned at the beginning of how impressed we were with officers and staff we spoke to that actually came across really, really strongly was how much they care and they want to do their very best for people. On a human level, if they have been spending quite a bit of time with some of them, they do not want something bad to happen to that person. The other part of it, as they have also got the potential of a per-convestigation, but I would say that the interviews that I did, that was secondary, that there were more acts on a human level just not wanting something adverse to happen to the person. That could lead to a situation where they were remaining with the person despite, in some occasions, having been told by mental health professionals that that is actually detrimental to the person's health. It goes against their care plan. So, for me, training is really, really important to empower and give people confidence. Is that something that the police will be able to implement? Can I maybe just... I've got quite a number of members wanting to come in. I know it's a really crucial part of this, so if I can maybe just move on and bring in Jackie Dunbar and then full to McGregor. Thank you. Okay, good morning. If I could ask, there's just a quick question regarding the delivery of the services for mental health policing. I am fully aware that Police Scotland is a national force, but I am also aware that some of the initiatives appear to be local-based, which personally, I think, is best going forward. Former Grampian Police Board member probably, so that's probably the reason for my thinking. But have you got any evidence to show that the local practices with the local division is having with the NHS services is actually being shared across Police Scotland? How would you expect that to be shared going forward? It's a very good question, thank you. A lot of the practices are shared through the division within Police Scotland that has got the responsibility for a mental health response called partnerships, prevention and community wellbeing. They have a sort of hub in the wheel with all the spokes of the divisions. What the difficulty is, to my view, is not so much their willingness of Police Scotland to take good initiatives that work well, that get better outcomes for individuals and reduce demand on the front line. It's the partners that they need to persuade to do things differently. I'm not denigrating any of the partners, I'm just saying that sometimes the partners are not as willing to have the conversation because they're busy doing other things. So it's not invented here, sort of question, can be difficult in some places. This is why we're saying that, while I recognise that local is really good and having that local capability is really where we want to be, there needs to be a national minimum standard. So what is the minimum that you can expect and then how do you enhance that with a local initiative that meets your geography or capability around what you've got? Just to be clear, I am keen on that but I'm also aware that one size doesn't fit all, but also we do need a national approach to things. Sorry. I welcome your comments on that because I think local. What I wouldn't like to see is that a whole system review would stifle some of the really excellent local initiatives that we saw, so the Nuke and Perth. The network that Dr Shopra mentioned there is one way, the unscheduled care network, where good practice is shared and we heard of good practice in 4th Valley, in Edinburgh and Perth. There's lots of really good things happening out there, but it doesn't seem to have a strategic oversight or co-ordination of, so I think that we certainly wouldn't want to stifle that. Apologies for my lapse there. Fulton MacGregor followed by Rona Mackayl. Thank you, convener, and good afternoon to the panel. Thank you for your evidence. So far, I've got two questions. One has just been mentioned a couple of minutes ago, and that's about missing people. I've done a wee bit of work on this in the previous session after a very tragic incident in my own constituency, not long after I was elected in 2016. I know that the police are working through a review at that point about how we're dealing with missing people, and now we'll all be familiar with her social media feeds, sharing very early something that was well thought for. It's a very good thing and the police engage in the public and in those searches, but something else that came through that as well was the mental health component in missing people. Did you find that when you were doing the reviews at something that came up when you spoke to officers in the context of missing people, and how were the police dealing with it in managing that particular component of a missing person inquiry? Can I maybe touch on a couple of things and I'll pass over to Brian if that's okay? As part of our scrutiny plan, we've committed to doing an inspection of missing persons, and we will be published in terms of reference next week on that. It follows on from comments that I made in my report this year, which described from Police Scotland's statistics that, on average, it takes up 900 full-time equivalent officers per year dealing with missing persons. Of the missing person demand, I think from recollection, about a third of the missing person demand is people who have a mental health diagnosis, so it is a massive problem. It is something that is absolutely huge. We're committed to trying to join up a number of bits of the system, mental health being one of the missing persons being the next bit in our journey, and we seek to look at the process for dealing with missing persons, to understand how vulnerability is built into that, and then how that is shared with partner organisations to make sure that there is more upstream preventative type activity from people who have gone missing and then been found who have a mental health reason behind that. Brian, if you want to go on. Yes, so there were a number of issues associated with missing persons that arose throughout our review, and I have been sharing those with my colleague who is just starting a missing person review. It was deliberately left out of the terms of reference for this work, and then always we're going to do a thematic inspection of missing persons. But one of the other issues that we heard a lot of challenge around was, again, going back to the accident and emergency department, so one of the other reasons officers would give often for remaining with somebody until they are assessed is that if they walk away and that person then walks out of that hospital, that the hospital will often report the persons as a missing person, which will then lead to a lot more demand on the local police services. So that was another thing that we found in terms of the right care, right person approach in England and Wales where they're really tightening up in the protocols there because actually in most occasions the reason why somebody leaves A&E is because they've got to a stage where they've just decided they're going home. They're not technically a missing person on most occasions. So I think the protocols around that are really, really important because missing persons investigations, they're so, so important. But one of the risks is that if you've got too many, then it's how do you prioritise them. So that was another thing, the theme that came out of the review. Okay, thanks for that. That's really interesting here in up-interest city, hear the findings of your future work around missing persons as I'm sure that the rest of the committee will as well. The second question, if that's all right, convener, was around about the recommendation that you've already spoken about, a great length for Police Scotland to produce a mental health strategy. I wondered if part of that, there was any thought given to actually embedding health professionals within the police structure and I know there's some work around that but actually it's part of this. Because I think that the unfortunate nature as well, it's a multi-organisational approach. The police is the first responder for many people whether it's the person himself or organisations. Was there any thought given to, or any discussions around actually embedding mental health professionals as employees directly of Police Scotland to assist, or was this, as I'm just, this is a pie in the sky, I'd hear from me. It's a very interesting concept and one that I've done in the previous organisations that I've been responsible for where we had mental health professionals working with police officers in the car doing that response type to the mental health crisis. It can work, it can work very well. It sometimes then blurs the boundaries between what is a policing response and what is a health response. Now, I'm not saying that it's a bad thing but it's how do you govern that and how do you make sure that the clinical responsibility of a health professional is not compromised by sitting in the car with a police officer sharing of information, all those sort of things. In terms of telling Police Scotland to employ mental health practitioners, that's not something I feel we should be doing. What we should be doing is saying what we expect the outcome to be, which is an effective strategy to guide police officers and staff within Police Scotland on how they deal with people in crisis and distress. If that then is Police Scotland employing someone who's a mental health professional to guide them on that, I wouldn't have no difficulty with that, but it's not something that I feel I should tell them who to employ or how to employ. Mr Nailer used a phrase in your opening statement way back that intrigued me a bit. I wonder if you could expand on it and put it into context. You said that the officers responding should perhaps be discreet on thinking. I wonder if you could expand on what you meant by that. Was that in response to inquiries? Would they have to take a more nuanced position, is that what you were saying? We ask a lot of our police officers. We train them, hopefully we train them well. We guide them in coaching them in the first two years of their service and we basically let them off the leash at that point to go and make decisions in critical and difficult situations. We want them to be thinking the best outcome for the individual. We want them to be really challenging all the options that are available to them when faced with something that is developing in front of them. One of my former colleagues used to call it the strategic police officer. I'm not the person that sets a strategy for policing. It's the person at three o'clock in the morning that makes a decision, often the most junior member of staff that's on duty. That can often lead the service into either difficulties or great outcomes. You want them to be great outcomes every time, but it's very difficult. You want them to have clarity of thought, clarity of purpose, clarity of training to make them able to make good decisions when they are faced with something that they've probably never seen before. Everybody has been saying about the importance of training and good, thorough training to give them confidence and so on. Is there a changing nature of crisis calls that is happening? Are you finding that there's more of a having to respond to drugs, alcohol and homelessness? Has that been increasing over the years or has it pretty much always been like that? It's many years since I was a response officer in policing, but maybe it's rose-tinted glasses, but I remember responding to crimes. I remember trying to lock people up for breaking into houses and dealing drugs and things like that. What we're seeing and what we're told on a regular basis is that the majority of the incidents that officers are sent to nowadays involves a crisis rather than a crime. So we see officers having to deal and go to accident emergency or places of safety much more than, certainly, Brian or I have ever recalled doing. Do I think that that's a societal change? I think that it probably is. I think that certainly in the last three or four years since the pandemic we've seen more people who are in crisis, who are not able to deal with the situation that they're facing and are turning to the service that they know will come, which is either an ambulance service or a police service. Do I think that that's right? Well, the legislation has set Police Scotland up to do that to improve wellbeing, and if people seek that support, then that's what they're going to get, but it has moved them away from dealing with housebreaking, breaking into the cars, et cetera, et cetera, which was our bread and butter when I was a young girl. One of the challenges that we've highlighted within the report is that we heard anecdotally from all officers and staff who spoke to that demand is increasing. We also heard that from members of the advisory panel and other agencies. Everybody's saying that demand is increasing, and we certainly don't doubt that. One of the challenges is that Police Scotland don't fully understand the demand at the moment, and that's something that there's more work needing done around it because it's very complex, and there's different systems. So the question that you're asking about is it more to do with drugs, is it... These are pieces of information that would be really helpful to understand. I just wondered if you had that, and clearly that's work that could be on the board. So the demanding productivity unit within Police Scotland have done a lot of really good work to try and better understand the demand, but they themselves recognise they're on a journey with that and it does more than done. Thank you. Dr Chopra? Certainly just on the demand point, there's very clear data available that shows that the demand has gone up. Ten years ago there were maybe about 600 place of safety incidents, and now there's about 1,345, so you can see a doubling in that rate. The point I was going to make was around the training, and it was in response to what Craig was saying, but it's three in the morning when those decisions are being made. I think it would be really helpful for that training not to occur in a silo for just the police officers on their own, but for that training to take place jointly with health professionals. I think one way in which that could be done is for the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland, with stakeholders, to produce a series of vignettes or case studies and road test them with police Scotland officers and health professionals who are going to be involved at those times and other times to actually see how would you respond. That would take away some of that difficulty, which I think that we spoke about earlier about risk aversion, because I think that there will be a shared sense of how to proceed in those cases. Thank you, Pauline McNeill, and then to Katie Clark. Thank you very much. I thank you for the quality of your evidence and how loud the year is, and what I think is probably the most serious issue in terms of operational issues for Police Scotland. I think that the work that you have done is so critical. I suppose that the way forward is not that easy. I was really struck by what you said for individual officers who are terrified to make those decisions. At that moment, they are trying to save a life and carry out their duties, but the investigation is the way they did the right thing. It just seems so grossly unfair to me. What is the answer to that, to prevent that from happening? Does it lie in page 11 where you said, demand is passed to Police Scotland for partner agencies at the end of the working day and the working week? I think that Sian Dowey did ask you that question. I cannot see any other way around us other than other agencies changing the way that they work. Am I getting this right? You have hit the nub of the issue that we are all trying to deal with. I do not think that there is one simple answer. There is no silver bullet that we are going to fire and that will answer all the problems. I think that there is an awful lot about people recognising what their legal and duties are in this space. Sometimes, because of that fear of investigation, Police Scotland will go the extra mile because they are fearful that something bad is going to happen. They do that for very good reasons and very often they do not want people to become further unwell or take their own life or something similar. The difficulty that we have is written into law is that if there is death or serious injury following police contact within 48 hours, there will be a mandatory perk investigation or referral to parking investigation. If there is death where the police are seen to be responsible, then there will be a fatal accident inquiry. That level of investigation can last many, many years and it puts people under pressure and affects their own mental wellbeing during that period of investigation. Police officers do not want that. Police staff do not want that. They want to get results where people who are in distress get the treatment that they need very quickly and effectively and that they then do not worry that something bad is going to happen. I was going to ask you very many examples of this. Do they take into consideration in the investigation that police officers are not trained as mental health officers? The journey of park, and I am not here to justify anything about park, they are in a very different position to where they were about seven or eight years ago. The work that they do is very much about what is their statutory responsibility, which they will do, and then to investigate what is appropriate. They will bring into that the evidence around what other parties have been involved, so they do cover that, but they still have a statutory responsibility that they cannot walk away from. Dr Chopra, you said, in answer to another member's question, to align psychiatric emergency plans. I wonder if you could elaborate, because that seems to me to be part of the answer. Does that mean that the staffing as well, or is it just the plans that I just wanted to get? I think that the staffing is part of it. Without the staffing, you cannot deliver, and I think that staffing has been a key issue across the mental health sector in terms of some of the problems that people are facing. Yes, what I mean by aligning that is that the protocol that the police use for responding to emergencies, for dealing with situations, ought to be placed in the context of the psychiatric emergency plan, so that the health board and Police Scotland are singing from the same hym sheet. I think that that bit of alignment will make things work better. I thought that your previous question was a really helpful question, and we have spoken about some of the fear that police officers experience, but I want to say that one of the things that we hear at the Mental Welfare Commission from patients who contact us, and we saw it in the Vox report as well, is how compassionate police officers are in responding to these situations. They are often described to me as the most compassionate part of the system, and I think that needs to be recognised. We have also spoken this morning and this afternoon about the right care, right person approach. One of the things that I thought was particularly good about the HMICS thematic review is the balanced approach that is taken to looking at right care, right person, rather than saying that we think that this is the way forward. It is actually looked at those areas for which there is some evidence that this might be helpful in Scotland. It is also looked at the fact that there is some data that is not quite there yet in terms of what the outcomes will be in Humberside, in the Met and in other places. I think that that is a really important point to make that the data is not fully out there. The short answer to your question, though, is collaboration. I think that the key aspect is greater collaboration, both at an operational level but also at a strategic level between health and policing. That includes training as the example that I have given already. It is increasing collaboration that will prevent some of the huge demand that is currently falling to the police. Before I bring in Katie Clark, can I just pick up on the comments that you have made? I am really glad that Pauline McNeill raised a question about psychiatric emergency plans. Having been part of the review of the Grampian one many years ago, I know just the spirit of what a psychiatric emergency plan is in underpinning that collaborative approach to pro-mental health. Whatever end of the spectrum that might be, should we then be looking at really developing the role of psychiatric emergency plans to underpin all the challenges that we have been discussing today? I would be interested in your commentary on that. Am I right in thinking that psychiatric emergency plans sit within the mental health legislation, so we should be using them much more robustly? Yes, to all your points. It is mentioned in the HMICS report. The code of practice is referenced from where there is a clear reference to the psychiatric emergency plans. I do not want to get too operational, but one aspect could be that the psychiatric emergency plan requires that a care plan is created for someone who has come through Police Scotland and has accessed health through that mechanism. That would ensure that next time that person presents, there is a plan in place for them. Little ideas like that could be embedded into the psychiatric emergency plan will make a whole-scale change. It builds on the work that the Scottish Government is already doing with the redesign of urgent care. It builds very closely on the recommendations that Craig Bryant and the team have made. It provides a really good mechanism to build on what we already have, rather than starting from scratch, which I do not think that we need to do. Thank you for that. That is the most helpful. I will echo the comments that Dr Choppers made. His thinking on that is exceptional. The point that I would take is just to step further. When the care plans are put in place, that Police Scotland should be notified of them, and the contacts within them, particularly the kinship family care that can be brought into that, that would take a long step forward to stopping people having to go to places of safety if they had that mechanism to build in a family member or someone else that could assist. Were you referring to the psychiatric emergency plans or individual care plans? Individual care plans, yes. Very briefly. It is really round about data, particularly in relation to assaults. We obviously are very aware of assaults on officers. Unison Scotland published a survey that has been on-going since 2006. It showed that they had been able to capture information about 55,000 assaults on public sector workers in Scotland, which was a 31 per cent increase from the previous year. In relation to civilian police staff, which Unison Scotland organised, would you be able to point us in the direction or share with us data that you have in relation to issues, you know, abuse and assaults in relation to them, or perhaps share with us any specific types of roles that have particular issues? I know that there has been a trend for a variety of different roles to move from officers to civilian staff. I certainly do not think that we have any data that that means be able to answer your question, so I apologise for that. I suppose that in terms of pointing you to where the roles that would be in that would probably be the custody space. So please custody sport officers who are interacting with people who are generally there on criminal matters less so than on mental health matters would be the space where I think there is likely to be an increase in assaults being recorded and reported. Is that perhaps something that you could share with us? You could look into, maybe, if you are able to get any information, because there is obviously a range of roles that are public facing that are carried out by civilian police staff, so perhaps that is something that you could come back to us on. I am sorry, I am not really understanding what you are asking me to come back on. Well, if you are able to use, you are speculating, so do you feel that that is as far as you can go? That is the strength, the level of the knowledge that the organisation has. Is that what you are saying? I think that if you were to look for crime data on police staff being assaulted, that would be something that would have to come from Police Scotland. It is not something that we have to do. I am just going to ask one final question, and then we will have to bring the session to a close. It is more about where we go now, obviously many of the issues that we have discussed require to be addressed across organisations, third sector, public sector and potentially also the Scottish Government. I will come to Craig Nailer first and then Dr Shopra, on how you see the collaborative work going forward and do you think that that should actually be at the Government level? You might want to just answer yes or no. We did make a recommendation to Government to look at a whole system review. I am ambivalent about what that review looks like, but what I want is people from health, from mental health, from social care, from policing, from third sector and others to sit round a table and consider what would good look like. We have started that process. We have had our IAG when we did that introductory meeting with Police Scotland. We had all of those members present. The conversation was incredibly positive. I think that the conversation has started. The bit for me is if we do not hear very much more and by the end of January we will start jacking people about how else can we encourage that conversation to go. At the same time, we know that Police Scotland will be coming forward with an action plan to address the other recommendations that we have made. The bit for me, convener, is that we are very happy to come back to you at some point in the future and give you an update on how things have gone, what that piece of work looks like, but rest assured that we will be sharp elbows out and seeking forgiveness rather than permission to ask Governments and others to do things that we think are the right things to do. I agree with what Craig has just said. I think that the collaboration needs to be strategic, operational and at the level of training—all three levels. I think that it needs to build upon the existing mechanisms that are already in place because I think that they are good and I think that they are working but I think that they need to be built upon. I think that where there may be a role for a review is to look at some of the aspects that were picked up in an earlier exchange around what is happening locally. Brian gave some really good examples of some areas where we know that there is good practice. What is the mechanism for ensuring that scalability from those local practices, which we know are good, to make them national? Where is that discussion taking place? Maybe that would be a helpful aspect to have collaboration on which Scottish Government might be in a good position to convene and to scale. Thank you to all our witnesses. That has been a really informative session. I am sure that we could have continued asking more questions. That concludes the public part of our meeting. Next week, we will review the evidence taken so far on the Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform Bill, and we will consider a draft report on our pre-budget scrutiny. We will also consider correspondence received about deaths in custody and on the Domestic Abuse Scotland Act of 2018.