 Rhaen i chi'n gwybod yn gwybod i ddigwyddol ar gyfer y cyfnodau cyfnodau Cymru yn 2023. Felly, rydyn ni'n gwybod i ddweud â'r cyfnodau cyfanol. Rydyn ni'n gwybod i ddweud â'r cyfnodau cyfnodau cyfanol i'r cyfnodau cyfanol i ddweud â'r Cyfnodau ScottishGov. Rydyn ni'n gwybod i ddweud â'r cyfnodau Cymru â'r cyfanol â'r cyfnodau ScottishGov. Government, Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. I'm just going to open it up to members to come in with any issues or points that they would like to raise. I'm quite happy for you to come in on any of the pieces of correspondence. I'm not necessarily going to take them in any particular order. First of all, the response from the Justice Secretary, I think it's just worth noting that it talks of cuts to the Scottish Government capital budget, but it's worth putting on the record that it's the highest block grant on record and any cuts relate, I believe, to the extraordinary spending due to Covid, so there are no cuts in that meaningful sense. In respect of the response from Police Scotland, we asked about the potential blue light collaboration across Scotland and the answer, I don't really think tells us anything, lots of words, but no actual tangible detail about what is actually happening and what those £5 million might be spent on. Turning to body worn cameras, which we, as a committee, have raised on a number of occasions that remain in the case that Police Scotland uniquely is the only force in the UK without them. If I'm interpreting this letter correctly, it looks like it won't be until 2027 that all officers will have them, which I think is extraordinary. Indeed, I don't think it's even guaranteed. It puts a price tag on this of £21.5 million, which is obviously a lot of money, but in the grand scheme of things it is not. I think it requires further explanation from the SPA in Police Scotland as to why. This has not been prioritised long before now, given the relatively small sum of money that it would cost, because, of course, it protects police officers and it protects the public. I think that that's probably all that's going to stand. It's really just a re-emphasis of the points that Russell Findlay has made. The blue light collaboration is just not clear what that means and if it really is practical. My major concern is the roll-out of body worn cameras. It's quite clear. I talked to the Scottish Police Federation. There is a need for it in the Scottish Police Force. The length of time it's going to take to roll out is concerning. It also concerned me that it's going to be done division by division. That would tend to indicate that if you're in one division, you benefit from the roll-out, but if you're at the end of the programme in another division, perhaps there isn't another way of doing that. I think that it speaks to the concerns that I have for the police budget overall when you see police numbers, although not as bad as it could have been falling to those levels. I think that it's a deep concern where we've ended up on the police budget overall. The first point on body worn cameras, as I read on page five of the Police Scotland, page one of their response, page five of our papers, is that it says that the anticipated implementation will be spread across three financial years, taking us up to the year 26-27. Realistically, that's four years away from now. I do struggle in the current age of technology whether looking ahead three or four years away to look at implementing body worn cameras is realistic. If that's been done purely on the basis that they haven't got the money, therefore I have to spread it across three years, or it will take that long to find the technical solution. I'm pretty sure that there are providers out there who could implement a solution much more quickly. Perhaps that would be best achieved if police got them collaborated with other forces who have already gone on to secondary and third generation technology of this nature. There surely must be something out there in the market that would be able to roll out more quickly. I'm less focused on the cost than the number, as we all know the arguments around that that my colleague presented, but more about the timescales. It's not just that, of course. Body worn cameras then feed into a system of further ICT transformation, which then takes that information, those assets and that data and feeds it very quickly into a system that can process it as evidence and turn around cases more quickly. That's the important bit. It's not just the cameras, in fact that they're there, of course, to do act as a visual deter, and it's what you do with that information. It's important, and that only that will deliver improvements. It's very unclear whether the cameras themselves will be accompanied by significant investment in what happens at the back end in terms of case management and evidence handling, so I'd like a little bit more information on that, perhaps from the SPA or Police Scotland at some point. In the future, I won't comment on the blue light collaboration. The word collaboration is always a positive one, a welcome one, and we do see some very good practice of it. I saw it this morning on my way into the office with an ambulance driving out of a joint building with the fire service, and that's all very welcome, but when we move on to the next agenda item, we talk about police mental health, is what we're really looking for in collaboration, is what work has been done across emergency services with other public services to reduce the strain and the workload on front-line police officers, because, ultimately, that will help to free up time and speed up processes on-budget, though, and it's budget's the important one. I did try to raise the issue of the barnhouse in some parliamentary questions recently. I think that I may have actually made a call in a previous evidence session committee for a bit more of a long-term plan on the roll-out of them or some analysis on their success, or otherwise. I think that's all very positive, and I look forward to the new cabinet secretary furnishing us with that. My big issue, really, is on the budget itself, and I think we would be missing a trick if we didn't refer to the two responses from Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service on the budget itself. It is welcome that, since our initial pre-budget scrutiny, the Government has been forthcoming with more cash, and I know that times are tough and money is tight. However, we have to acknowledge the response to that extra cash. I think that my issue is the wording and the language being used particularly in the response from Police Scotland, who, on page 7, said that they estimate that the current £53 million of capital funding that they will have this financial year is not sufficient to meet our basic needs of our asset rolling replacement programme. They then go on to talk about slippage management and, effectively, it seems that they are drawing down on future budgets in the current year, financial years. The effect of that is quite stark. They are quite explicit with us that they need £85 million this financial year to be sustainable, I think, as the language they use. That summer, in the middle of their average, between £18 million and £100 million that they need per year to be sustainable. To manage that shortfall of £32 million, they are playing with the numbers, if you like, as best they can, but all that does is take money out of future years' capital budget and just compounds the problem. The problem with that is that, if you look at what happened to Scottish Fire and Rescue Services' historic capital underfunding, you end up down the line with hundreds of millions of pounds of capital underfunding that has been compounded year upon year upon year, which no Government will ever have the money to backfill. The problem is that it starts small and it grows. That is my concern about that. I am also slightly concerned that the message that they are giving off seems to say that they will just do the bare basics. The bare basics include, for example, a reduced workforce with an operating model of 16,500 officers. It seems to be now just accepted that we will be working with a reduced workforce as a result of the resource and capital budget issues. I am concerned that there is still a massive shortfall. It is still way below what the Government is asking. They have been quite explicit about what they need, not what they want, but what they need to be sustainable, to supply the bare minimum, and, of course, they have not got that. On the resource budget, that is another point of concern. Many of us raised that point when we did pre-budget scrutiny. Is there any additional money that would be allocated for resource? There is £80 million additional being announced. That is very welcome. All the way through it, I recall a warning that that will simply be swallowed up by inflationary pay increases. It is not additional resource budget. They have confirmed that by saying that £37 million of the 80 will be simply meeting a 5 per cent pay award. Thankfully, that has been accepted in the fire service. It has not. They are looking at 7 or even perhaps more per cent. That additional cash has simply been disappeared into the ether with pay increases. We know the percentage point cost of every pay increase. I think that that itself raises issues, and that is something that we flagged with them. On capital funding for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, I am concerned about this because the capital funding of £32.5 million that has been announced is, in quoting the words of the fire service itself, not sufficient to meet all the services' needs. We know and we will rehearse some of the issues around access to facilities for firefighters, basic PPE, decontamination and proper dignified spaces should be in 100 per cent of fire stations and far too many are in poor condition. That clearly is not going to chip the surface of any of that. I think that that will be a source of disappointment to firefighters. Overall, we asked for more money. There was a bit more money that was welcome, but much of it will be swallowed up by pay increases on the resource side, much of it will be swallowed up by inflation pressures on the capital side, and across the board it is far below what is needed for its standing still, not just improvements in investment. I do not disagree with a lot of what has been said from various people so far on the budget stuff. I am a bit confused. The budget is settled now for this year. I am not disputing what has been said, but it is a pre-empty strike for the next round of negotiations because we are where we are with it. We are a bit confused with some of the stuff that they are saying there. My big concern is the body worn cameras. Again, looking at the response that was sent in from Police Scotland, I admit that I am not good with graphs and things like that, but I found it quite confusing. As Jamie was saying, it would be good to know exactly what is at budget or is at operational. Why is it being presented in this way? We were talking about this five or six years ago, and I understood then that it was close to happening and it has still not happened. I was just wondering whether it would be possible somewhere to slot in an evidence session with somebody who knows about it, whether it is the SPA or whoever the person that is leading it would be, so that it would be better rather than letters going back and forward. If we could sit and talk to them and ask questions, I would prefer that anyway. Okay, thank you. Anybody else want to come in, Russell? You are coming back in, and then I will maybe just wind things up. I just wanted to pick up on something from what I said about the body worn cameras. I happened to be at a retail security industry conference recently speaking to an individual who supplies body cameras to police forces elsewhere, and he was expressing some surprise and frustration about his dealings over the years with Police Scotland. Numerous attempts to or suggestions that they were going to go ahead and it did not come to pass and they could not figure out why. Someone like that might give us a bit of a different perspective as well. Okay, thank you very much indeed. Okay, thank you. So, just to maybe kind of pull your comments together, I probably agree with everything that has been said, very very challenging financial climate for Police Scotland and Scottish Fire and Rescue. It's been very helpful to hear your comments in particular around the information that we've received about body worn cameras, and I'll come back to that. Just a couple of points from myself. I noted with interest the discussion that took place on 23 March at the Scottish Police Authority at their meeting where they discussed the budget. I have to say very comprehensive discussion, a lot of probing questions for the chief constable and a helpful overview of the approach that Police Scotland will take in extremely challenging circumstances and certainly acknowledging hard choices and the prioritisation of resources will be required. Obviously, there is the issue of the pressure of pay awards, and you're right, Jamie, to point out the additional funding that was provided by the Scottish Government. Around about 50 per cent of that has gone to pay awards. The budget was approved. Police Scotland did present a balanced budget, which was approved by the Resources Committee at that meeting. I was interested to note a comment by the chief constable that, to a certain extent, the difficulties and the challenges that the budget presented this year led to the budget almost never having been so informed. Not at all saying that it's a bed of roses, but nonetheless, there's obviously been a lot of work undertaken. In terms of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, as members have pointed out, there are very challenging circumstances that they are facing across property assets, vehicles, pay awards. It's a very difficult environment. I took a wee bit of time to have a look at the Audit and Commission report that they referenced in their response and the challenge of the legacy of the financial circumstances that the individual fire services faced at the time of the services being amalgamated. If anything, I would be keen to observe and monitor developments around the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service budget going forward. As Rona said, the budget process is now complete. I'm sure that organisations are now thinking about next year's budget. I'm pleased that we've had some very helpful contributions on the budget issue and I'm very happy to keep budget issues under review going forward. Finally, I'm coming back to body-worn cameras. I'm always trying to balance progressing work and not getting into ping-pong correspondence, but none the less, I think, in terms of this particular issue, it may be that we can do some follow-up work just to get a little bit more clarity around timescales, what's the sort of context to where we are with timescales and funding? I'm so happy to take that away and correspond with members on how we can take that work forward, given that we've got quite a busy work programme coming down the track. Jamie, do you want to come back in? Not on that issue, but yes, that's a very good suggestion from Rona. It would be good to challenge that and keep the pressure on. However, I did wonder if there would be, I don't know when we're next due to hear from the SPA in front of us, probably not for some time. Obviously, we're already in that financial budget year and already we'll be looking ahead to the next one, but I'm not a forensic accountant and I wonder, either from them or perhaps the Spice or others, is just someone to help us understand this overall occasion that they talk about, because it's quite significant. Again, I'm not an accountant, but, effectively, they're saying that they will spend more than they have this year by about £30 million, but it's a bit unclear as to how that all pans out in the books. What we don't want to be doing is starting pre-budget scrutiny for next financial year straight off the bat with the £30 million quid off the bottom line that's cast to come out to fund this year's investment. The very few public agencies can overspend in this way. They've obviously found a very clever way of accounting for it, but I'd like to understand it a little bit more. Okay, thank you, Jamie. You want to come back in? Just very quickly, it's in relation to the £5 million allocation for collaboration. The Police Scotland response, which is on page 5, says absolutely nothing. It just doesn't answer the question. We know that they might not be able to specify exactly what they're going to be doing, but surely they can give us some idea of what this looks like, what they're hoping to achieve, what engagement they've had with the other services and so on, but the answer is really just meaningless. That's not a budgetary, it's not revisiting the budget, it's just answering the question as to what's going on with this money. I would agree that the information that we have in relation to the blue light collaboration is fairly light. I think that that's possibly because they're at a fairly early stage with it and there is still work under way to really focus in on exactly which projects and what work the collaboration will support. I'll maybe come on to that in the next agenda item, but your comments are noted. In relation to your point, Jamie, I agree that Spice is our first port of call in terms of getting some more clarity on the accounting side of the police budget, in terms of the slippage that you've referenced, so I'm happy to take that away. If there's no more points, then thanks very much for that and we'll move on to our next agenda item, which is consideration of the correspondence that we've received relating to policing and mental health. I refer members to the paper number two. Just before I open it up to members, I want to thank the Scottish Police Authority and all the attendees at last week's conference on workforce trauma. It was a very worthwhile event that included contributions from a range of stakeholders and some very powerful lived experience contributions as well. It was reassuring to hear about the level of commitment to make positive and lasting change for officers and staff. We heard what's already in place and also a bit about the work that is under way to affect the change needed. I think that there was quite a lot of honesty in the room, particularly around the role of supervisors and leaders. It did lead to a constructive session last week. In terms of today, we've got correspondence from Police Scotland, the SPA and HMICS, and you'll find a summary of each of the responses at the beginning of paper two. I'm going to open it up to members to come in with any points that they would like to make. I think that in the main responses that we've seen today are disappointing and suggest that there are reluctance to be open and honest about the tragic suicide of police officers. I've raised those issues repeatedly in the chamber, in the committee and in writing. Every time I do so, more people come forward with shocking and frankly heartbreaking accounts. One of those is a former detective officer of high rank with more than 20-year service. I want to call him PE for the purpose of this account and I thank you, convener, for allowing me a bit of time to explain this particular case. This officer was working on a murder investigation in which a colleague was implicated of criminality. He was immediately suspended from duty, PE was suspended from duty and he says, quoting two professional standards officers informed me of a suspended without any explanation of the allegations against me. I had my warrant card taken from me and was told you better get yourself a trade you're going to need it. This was a threat of sacking before any investigation had been carried out. I was sent home and had barely any contact with police for nearly a year. He describes this as a bewildering experience as he had no involvement whatsoever in the alleged crime. He twice went on to attempt to take his own life. He eventually saw a psychiatric nurse who told him he needed to see a clinical psychologist. He asked the police for assistance with this but was told that they could not help, they did not offer that service and that he should quote, keep my chin up. Now he became isolated at work and was given menial jobs which he says destroyed his self-esteem and resulted in the mental breakdown and further suicidal thoughts. He and other officers who were subject of investigation were lumped together in one place to undertake what he saw and they saw as meaningless chores, paperwork and so on. He became friendly with a young officer in his 20s who I'll refer to as Elle. Elle was accused of an assault despite CCTV apparently showing him to be innocent. Two years later Elle was still under investigation and he says, quoting, Elle confided in me that he could not bear the pressure and felt absolutely hopeless. I knew he had very recently emailed professional standards explaining this to them, demanding answers. Elle received a bland response telling him the investigation was on going. A week after this email Elle took his own life and the location was significant to policing but I will not state that publicly. Within hours of Elle's death, Officer P entered his workplace and he said, and I'd like to quote this, I was immediately summoned by a senior officer and told without hesitation mere hours after Elle's death that this was absolutely nothing to do with him being under investigation and Police Scotland were not responsible in any way. I was utterly dumbstruck and disgusted at this utterly ignorant explanation in the immediate aftermath of the death of my friend, end quote. Now P spent five years under investigation until he was dismissed without notice last year. He describes the process as a kangaroo court operating on the balance of probability. He said it was a one-sided investigation from the start and he never had a hope of being vindicated. It's worth noting that no criminal proceedings were taken against him and he says I'm still dogged by these feelings and suicidal thoughts this day. It seems that protecting Police Scotland's reputation is the only thing that matters. There was zero sincerity or compassion for what happened. Just protect the organisation's reputation at all costs and that is the root cause of all these issues. Now P knows of other cases which resulted in officers taking or attempting to take their own lives. I've heard of many other similar accounts and I dare say after this, I'll probably hear of more. Despite repeatedly raising concerns about the damage done by the complaints process, I think that there are four key points. There's a failure to record the number of officer suicides or whether these officers were subject to internal investigation. The routine decision by the Crown Office not to hold fatal accident inquiries in any of these cases that we know about, unlike in England and Wales where an inquest would be conducted as a matter of routine, a lack of willing by all parties to explore cases where there's evidence that the complaint process may have been a factor and the SPA's willingness it appears to accept Police Scotland's position which can best be summarised as nothing to see here. Now from P and from the many other officers and their families who I've been speaking to, there's a fundamental lack of faith in this process and I know that many of them are willing to speak out and they don't quite know how to do that, but they certainly don't intend to let this rest, but thank you for your time. Okay, thanks very much Russell for raising this case. I'm sorry to hear of this account. We can't go into investigating individual cases and issues and I think I would speak on behalf of all members that we do take this really seriously, hence the work that we've been doing over the last few months and thanks again for raising this issue. Okay, Pauline, you've got your hand up. Thanks Russell Finlay for bringing those cases to the centre of the committee. I just wanted to ask Russell the accounts that you've given. Would you agree that it seems to cross over into the area of the treatment of police officers in the disciplinary process? There seems to be more than one thing that you've outlined there, which would be a cause of concern for me if it would take two years in an internal process for any allegation, and I can understand how that is clearly going to affect the mental health of officers, but I just wondered if you thought there was another element to what you've outlined, which is the internal processes of disciplinary action against police officers should not take two years to come to pick? I think that for what it's worth, undoubtedly, police officers are given what they often experience in the front line of their duties, are more susceptible and prone to some of these mental health issues, and we have been addressing separately what appears to be a lack of support generally, and it does appear that Police Scotland, the SPA and the Federation are all very much behind efforts to improve that, which is to be welcomed, but separately there is this cohort of officers who have been subject to allegations of wrongdoing, sometimes minor, sometimes more serious, and the cases can be characterised by basically taking far too long, apparently being unjust on the basis that the conclusions reached before evidence is even looked at, and a sense of abandonment and hopelessness, which is fearing cases of officers either attempting to take their own lives or successfully completing suicide. I think that there's a reluctance on the part of the authorities to look at that element, because, according to survivors and families, they suggest that there's some culpability in the part of the authorities for what's occurred, because they've not responded to concerns that these officers are in a bad way because of the process. I really do commend the work of the committee on spending a lot of time on this, and it's interesting listening to the story from Russell. It reminded me of the session that we had as a committee with held them private and anonymously with people who had experienced similar, and I know everyone in the committee sat in various groups and listened to some of those stories. I know that what's being said is that we've heard already ourselves from others in the similarities of striking, and I certainly was to this day still have strong thoughts about the individual that I met and the sorry state of affairs that a couple of them have grown men who were broken as a result of the system. I think that what's come through a lot of this is that it's not been acknowledged. There's lots of warm words, as I would expect to read in a response like this from Police Scotland, and I don't doubt for a second that there are some very senior staff within the organisation who do want to do something about this, who do take it seriously. I don't doubt that for a second. Nobody wishes ill on their employees, but there are a lot of buzzwords being used, and there's nothing that addresses some of the underlying factors in recurring themes that we are hearing as a committee that I would like them to address. There are some very specific, clear issues. I said that I wasn't going to be long, and here I go with lists, but the first one is an important one, and that's the churn of higher-ranking officers, which seems to lead to huge issues around change management within the organisation. We heard direct experience of the effect that it has on officers when someone new comes in with a new direction of travel, and it's my rear of the highway, and the effect that it has on junior-ranking members of staff who do not just have the confidence to challenge it, but are within an organisation where it is actively frowned upon. It is a hierarchical organisation as such. The second was the lack of poor-organised HR support and processes, and that's come out, I think, from some of the protocol failures that we've heard around disciplinary matters. The third was that around management of long-term sickness, and those officers who feel like they're just seen as being problematic, especially if it's not a physical injury. Those with physical injuries are dealt with, perhaps more positively, by their peers or by management, because you can see the injury and its sign of bravery perhaps in service, but being off for mental health reasons, which are injuries in their own right as a by-product of the job, are seen somehow as weaknesses instead, and that is really having an effect on people. There's clearly an adequacy of mental health support. I do notice that there is a re-tendering for the employee assistance programme, which will kick in next April, so it's about a year away, but, again, it's just a phone number, and it's an outsourced call centre at the end of the line-up. I think that they need to up the game on that. It really comes down to, though, is the points that I made in part 1 of the meeting today, and that's the reduced workload that they're having, the reduced officer-level resource levels that they're working with, which clearly puts in added pressure. We know at the top end that we're losing people with experience, so you have a lot of younger officers, and this is confirmed to me when I went to the SPF event across the road recently, where they feel that they're getting chucked out in the front line to deal with very traumatic situations in a much more quickly. Of course, it's part of the job. Some of the horrendous things they'll have to deal with, but they're doing it for us a couple of weeks, having been in training and suddenly dealing with suicides and other horrendous situations that they're turning up to. It's both the volume and the type of workload that's massively changed, as we know, and I don't think that anything's been done to address that, which is back to our collaboration issue. We're removing some of those tasks away from front-line officers. You won't really solve the problem until they're able to just do what they're supposed to be doing, and the problem is that if they're spending their whole day every day dealing with quite severe mental health situations themselves, they're clearly taking that home with them. So until we have a much more fundamental and honest conversation about the workload, the volume and the type of work that they've been asked to do, I don't really think that you'll fix the problem all we're doing is tinkering around the edges of how you support them when they do have a problem. It's always better to prevent than cure, convener. I felt like welcome words, but not enough detail. Thanks, convener. It was just to ask on Russell's issue and the cases that he was referring to, have we had an exchange with the police specifically on suicide as a committee? I just want to put on record that the committee is doing really good work in the whole, but not on the wider issue of mental health, but specifically on suicide? It's certainly an issue that Russell and others have raised in the past, but more from the perspective of the follow-up and what is in place in the aftermath of an officer or a member of staff taking their own life, but not specifically on probing the issue of... Some of the questions that Russell raised, I don't know the answer to and I may have missed the correspondence or whatever, but I think it would be good just to, rather than obviously the wider mental health issue is incredibly important and we've been doing a lot of work in that, but to hone in specifically on the suicide issue I think would be good as a committee. That's a good suggestion. I think our challenge might be looking at that fitting that in, but given that we've taken a lot of time to explore this particular issue, I'm sure that we can fit that in along the way in our work programme. The first time I raised it was when we had a police witness here to talk about policing mental health and I asked how many officers died on suicide. He said he didn't know when he got back to us and he didn't get back to us with those numbers. At the entrance bird they're not recorded and then the SPA and Police Scotland wrote to us and the SPA's position was essentially they had been aware of the spate of suicides that had been in the public domain, had asked Police Scotland whether they had any bearing on their work issues and they were told by Police Scotland they didn't and I think that showed a distinct lack of curiosity and subsequently we got a letter from the Crown Office which set out their reasoning behind not in these cases instructing fatal accident inquiries. They're judged on a case-by-case basis, they're obviously sensitive about it, but in the cases where I know that the officers have felt they were under pressure and it made this clear to Police Scotland surely there's a public interest in holding fatal accident inquiries. The only other thing I'd maybe add to that is the HMICS is obviously undertaking a review around policing. It's more around the response to people in communities who are distressed or unwell as opposed to police trauma if you like, but I think that within that there is an overlap. I think that in some ways, I know it's hard to separate, but it should be seen as a standalone issue, the suicide part of it and because of the wider mental health issues part is incredibly important as I said, but I think that that's very specific and it should be dealt with that way. We can look at making that maybe a specific piece of work within this on-going work around mental health and policing. It might be one that someone can come back to me later with. Obviously the process at the moment seems to be that the unfortunate suicide of a serving officer, particularly police as opposed to other forms of emergency services, can only arise if the Crown decides to hold an FAI. Is there another solution that may perhaps be another legislative top-down solution that would mandate some other form of automatic inquiry into such a situation? I don't know what the situation is in England Wells, but it's a different legislative landscape. However, I'm not saying for a second that we mandate the Lord Advocate to do X, Y or Z, although that is always a solution and lots can do that, but I wonder if there's some other form of investigation that could take place that has to take place irrespective. It could then be followed by a proper full-on FAI if the Crown so decides, but in the meantime it seems to be all or nothing, and in far too many cases it's the nothing that happens. A couple of things there. You may recall the correspondence that we received from the Lord Advocate back in January, and she sets out that every death by suicide of a police officer or a staff member is fully investigated as a matter of course by the Crown, and issues around a person's employment or duties may come into that investigation. I think that it's worth noting that we expect to be looking at those issues probably into the autumn when we look at the forthcoming police complaints and misconduct bill, so that might be the location if you like, where we can further probe that issue. Your points are noted and I absolutely agree with them. I think that it's just actually moving on from the point that you've raised, and I don't disagree with a lot that's been said, but one of the evidence sessions we had, I think it was around table, came back quite clearly that, you know, those situations are often very complex and it might be pressures at work or work-related issues might be having an impact on the person, but it might not, so therefore I'm actually surprised that, perhaps, Police Scotland—and I might be wrong on this, but what we've got here in front of us aren't maybe more open to trying to make some sort of analysis of that. I know that we need to be careful about how that takes place, that analysis. By an analysis of where, maybe, what pressures are more of a leading factor, if there's any—as Jamie was saying, Jamie was talking about various different situations that police officers can find themselves in, especially in these times when additional pressures are put on them—to try and find out if there's any, you know, pattern in there about officers that are, maybe, attending specific types of incidents or are being involved in specific types of investigations against them, is there some sort of pattern emerging where perhaps it doesn't always lead to the tragic situation that we've described today, but maybe it's other impacts on mental and emotional health. You know, I would like to see that. I think, actually, we're taking a lot on this as a committee about what more can the committee do, but I think, actually, Police Scotland, I've got a bit of what to do here, is we've asked them before, and I know they've committed us, and it's under paragraph 10 in our papers about the response to that, which I don't think they say yay or nay to it, but they certainly don't seem to say that they're going to do it, but I think they would bear a bit of what for the police themselves to try and analyse the situations. Perhaps they are doing that, and I'm—you know, they might write into this session to say that they're in process of doing that, or have done that, and here's what they're finding, but I think that that's really the only way we can find out what impact the work pressures are having on people's health, because these situations, as everybody around the table knows, are very complicated. There's likely to be numerous factors involved in a person's wellbeing, but what role is the job having, and is there a pattern there that's emerging over case after case of people who have experienced poor mental and emotional health? Thank you, Fulton. Thanks for that. I'll bring in Collette and then we'll maybe just tie things up. Okay, thanks, convener. Can I just say as well that I echo what everyone else has said in terms of, I think it's a brilliant piece of work that we've done here and opening that up and listening to some of these officers who, you know, have gone through such a traumatic time in their lives as well. The one thing that I wanted to pick up on was item nine, which is on page two, of the response from Police and Mental Health. That's in relation to the scheduling of the system in the courts and how that's progressing, because it looks to me like Police Scotland, you know, are really having to wait for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in the Scottish courts in order to try and get some sort of response. I know that work-life balance is absolutely huge here, and we heard from numerous evidence sessions as well that the time taken, the impact it has on other officers as well, and being able to get their days off is huge. I think that we need to push the Crown Office as well as Procurator and courts as well to see how that's progressing. For me, the thing was that there was a bit of pushback when we attended Glasgow Sheriff Court in terms of remote access when it comes to trials as well, so I'm not sure how that is, you know, if it's getting pushed back or not, but I'd be keen to find out more about that. The other thing, as well, is that we've just been talking about budgets. There's efficiency in a more smarter way of working here, notwithstanding their own mental health in terms of accessing trials remotely for police officers. I agree with all the points that have been made. There is work under way, which is very welcome. I think that it's a piece of work that we continue. It's gained some traction, and I'm keen that we can support that work going forward. On the topic, or on the issue of looking a little bit more closely at issues around suicide, I'm quite happy to suggest that we maybe insert something further down the line as part of our on-going work looking at mental health and policing. As I said earlier on, some of what we've covered, I suspect, will be areas that we will consider in the forthcoming police complaints and misconduct bill. I have another point in my head that I've completely forgotten about. On the issue of the position that the Lord Advocate has, we can circulate the correspondence from her that quite helpfully outlines the role of Crown Office and her explanation around fatal accident inquiries, police officers and staff. I think that members are happy with that proposal. That concludes our business in public this morning. Before we move into private, I have a couple of points to make. Next week, I expect the committee to consider several statutory instruments relating to the Fireworks and Pirate Technics Articles Scotland Act of 2022. We will also be looking at a draft report on the Children, Care and Justice Scotland Bill. We will also have an initial discussion about our approach to the Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform Scotland Bill, which has just been introduced. Thank you all, and we'll now move into private.